This overview shows the process for US Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) users to register in our system. The process is mostly the same as other account types, so this guide focuses more on the steps that are different for FWS users (steps 2-5).
A user visits one of our apps that requires authentication and is redirected to the login page. For example, visit our main data entry app: https://data.pointblue.org/science/biologists/
The user enters an fws.org email address at the prompt:
When the system sees an fws.org email that does not already have an account, a “Sign up” option is presented:
The sign up links direct the user to login using the native DOI signal Department of Interior (DOI) single sign on interface:
After the user completes authentication, they are redirected to our sign up page with known fields of information already populated from the user’s auth authentication response, such as first and last name, and email address, and organization. The password fields are hidden for FWS users, because we do not manage their passwords. The only required field is the “Project you wish to join”. This is because we only accept users who are explicitly in a project. Without project access, none of our apps would work for a given account.
This works for us because we do not accepted public users from the internet who are not associated with a survey collection effort in some way. We are not a tool that openly accepts public users. Essentially, you have to be someone who is know in real life by the person leading the project effort.
Registration page linkpart of a real world survey efforts, which are called “projects” in our system. If a user doesn’t know the name of their project, they need to contact their survey coordinator or supervisor.
The FWS-specific registration page can only be accessed by those who are authenticated, but is linked here as a reference with that caveat: https://data.pointblue.org/apps/login/register?adfs=1
The user receives a notification to their email inbox with a link to validate the their address.
Once the user has clicked their validation link, the Project Leader in charge of the requested project they requested to join receives an email notification to approve or deny the new user request.
The Project Leader who receives the email notification must click the provided link to approve their the new user’s access. If they do, the new user’s account is activated at the same time. If not, the user’s account remains in a pending state, which cannot be changed until the user is approved for a project.
Notes
Users in pending state who try to sign in are shown an error explaining that their account approval is still pending.