Signing In

When prompted, sign in using the default user id and password.

Screen Name: admin

Password: admin

Go ahead and sign in using these credentials. If this is the first time you're logging in, you'll be prompted to choose a password reminder. Once you've chosen a question and filled out the answer, click Save.

Illustration 1: Sign In PortletSign In Options

The Sign In screen has a three options at the bottom of it. These are options you've probably seen on other web sites.

OpenID

OpenID is a new single sign-on standard which is implemented by multiple vendors. The idea is that multiple vendors can implement the standard, and then users can register for an ID with the vendor they trust. The credential issued by that vendor can be used by all the web sites that support OpenID. Some high profile OpenID vendors are AOL (http://openid.aol.com/screenname), LiveDoor (http://profile.livedoor.com/username), and LiveJournal (http://username.livejournal.com). Please see the OpenID site (http://www.openid.net) for a more complete list.

The obvious benefit of OpenID for the user is that he or she no longer has to register for a new account on every site in which he or she wants to participate. Users can register on one site (the OpenID provider's site) and then use those credentials to authenticate to anyOpenID-supported web site. Many web site owners struggle to build communities because end users are reluctant to register for so many different accounts. Supporting OpenID makes it easier for site owners to build their communities because the barriers to participating (i.e., the effort it takes to register for and keep track of many accounts) are removed. All of the account information is kept with the OpenID provider, making it much easier to manage this information and keep it up to date.

The OpenID link is the first of three links available directly under the Sign In button. Social Office's integration with OpenID allows users to log in using their OpenID identifier from their preferred OpenID provider instead of having to create a brand new login for Social Office.

Create An Account

The second link is for account creation. If a new user wants to log in and doesn't already have login credentials, he or she would use this link.. Note that administrators can disable this function, thus requiring administrators to create all accounts.

Forgot Password

The last is the Forgot Password link. This one does pretty much what it says: if a user has login credentials but can't remember his or her password, the user clicks this link to submit his or her user name and password reminder and a new password is sent to their email address on file. This is just one of the many email notifications that Social Office sends to users, and is one of the reasons that setting up the mail server properly is so important.