#1 2008-01-30 15:06:20

**_Alphaman06_**

Bypassing authentication

Hello, I am new to the forum and I have already learned a lot of good stuff.  I do realize in advance this may be a question for customer support but I was hoping that someone out there had a similiar situation as me. 

I was wondering if any of you administrators discovered a way to bypass or disable authentication.  We have a configuration where we have integrated connect into our sharepoint portal.  The authentication takes place at the sharepoint level, once the user logs into sharepoint they can then join any room via meeting room hyperlinks.  I do not believe that a single sign on will work because we have people from all over the world from different domians logging into our collaboration space.

There are two issues I see with this method
1. Where would I go to disable the authentication screen
2.  If I were able to disable the authentication, what would be the user level of each person (i.e participant, presenter, host)

I would appreciate any insight on my situtation.  Thanks.

**_michael_**

Re: Bypassing authentication

There are a few ways of achieving this "single sign on" style integration:

1) If you are ok with putting users into the meeting as participants, then simply append ?guestName="sharepoint user name" to the URL and they'll skip the "login" screen and go straight in.

2) Another method is to extend the sharepoint authentication system to also log the user into Connect upon successful credential validation.  You would use the "login" action available within the XML API framework.

There is probably some helpful code available on the Adobe Development Center that could help you get started.

**_nrabinovitch_**

Re: Bypassing authentication

This ability looks great for guests. Is it possible to have this work for registered guests?

We use Connect Pro - hosted version with the Events module.

Our users/customers attend our webinars as one-offs (not ongoing) and often forget the password they create when they register, an issue in itself, but it would save us and them a lot of hassle if we could auto-log them in via a link in their confirmation email - maybe by having a runtime field for their password? Or, is there a way to disable the need for a password? We still want to track attendance so I don't want them to enter as guests.
Any solutions?
Thanks,
Nick

**_Alphaman06_**

Re: Bypassing authentication

michael, thanks for your response.  In a couple of other collaboration applications we were able to append the URL to retrieve the domain log in name.  We haven't been able to do that.  This way the users would be easily identifiable.  Do you have any ideas on how the syntax of the URL would be?  Thanks for any light you can shed on this problem.

**_michael_**

Re: Bypassing authentication

Nick:  Putting the passwords in the email would likely create new problems for you.  For example:  someone forwards the email to a co-worker, and now you have two John Smiths in your meeting...  If you were on the licensed version, you could explore some of the alternatives to authentication (HTTP Header with a proxy in front, etc...).

Alphaman06:  I'm not sure I understand the workflow or what you mean by domain log in name.  It sounds like you might be asking about how to grab the SharePoint domain login, to then append to the "guestName" variable I mentioned above?  Unfortunately, I don't have an answer for you there.  did you mean something else?

**_Terry_at_RefinedData_com_**

Re: Bypassing authentication

Hi Nick,

It is actually fairly easy to log users in to both meetings and other stored content using either their registered Adobe login/passwd values or as guests.

We do this quite commonly when integrating Connect Pro with other technologies for our clients.

For example, we have a Moodle plug-in that allows users to store their personal Adobe credentials in their Moodle profile. Teachers and administrators can then create Connect Pro Meeting Room or Content Blocks that create dynamic links that will log each user in to the Adobe resource without going through the Adobe login screen.

The logic is that if the user has their Adobe credentials stored on the system, we log them in as a registered user (that means that hosts and presenters automatically get the correct role when they enter a meeting room) while anyone for whom we have no credentials, gets logged in as a Guest using their first and last names from the Moodle profile as their Guest Name.

For password protected content, we can use a generic Adobe user account if the user does not have any Adobe account credentials. It works like a charm.

The beauty of this solution is that there is no need for any general user of your front-end system to ever see the Adobe login screen.

If you would like a sample of php code that shows how to call the Adobe content for both registered users or guest users without displaying the login screen, just drop me an email and I'll be happy to help.

We can also provide programming support for other aspects of Connect integration with Moodle or other front-end or back-end applications.

Regards,

Terry

**_Connect_User_**

Re: Bypassing authentication

Hi Terry, I saw your response on this post. We have a similar requirement where we need to use Sharepoint as content management system from where we would like to upload content to Adobe connect content library. I am wondering if you can provide us with some tips and tricks and do's and dont's. Please advise.

**_Terry_at_RefinedData_com_**

Re: Bypassing authentication

Hi,

The Adobe API's are publicly available and fairly straight forward to use. We provide consulting services for this sort of integration and would be happy to engage with you to explore your needs and how we might be of service. Just contact us via our web site and we'd be happy to see how we could help.

**_Connect_User_**

Re: Bypassing authentication

Thanks Terry. Sure, will do.