PIN numbers resent

Overview

Several circumstances can lead to PIN numbers being unexpectedly sent out to users

Prerequisites

Swivel 3.x

Symptoms

Pin numbers are unexpectedly sent out to users.

Solution

Same PIN resent

When using multiple Swivel servers as in an Active/Active environment, ensure on each server that both have the same transport methods and attribute, otherwise each synchronisation could lead to a new message being sent as each the Swivel synchronises with the data source.

Changing the transport method for a user will send out a new alert to the user. If a users email address is changed, such as a domain name change, a new alert will be sent to the user. The PIN is resent and not changed. Ensure that the Transport has not changed for a user. Swivel 3.8 has an option that allows the resending of PIN numbers upon change of transport to be turned on or off as required. Note that this will remedy the symptoms, but investigation should be made into the cause as PIN delivery issues may result from an incorrect configuration.

New PIN sent

If a users AD location changes within an AD server, then the account may be deleted and recreated, with the result a new PIN is sent out. Ensure that Ignore FQDN changes is set to yes to prevent this (upgrade older versions of Swivel if this is not present).

If a user is deleted and added back in again then a new PIN will be sent out. If a user is removed from the repository (AD, LDAP etc), and a synchronisation occurs then the user is deleted from Swivel, if the user is subsequently added back in again then the account is recreated and they will receive a new PIN. With Swivel 3.5 or higher the mark as deleted option can be used to prevent this by keeping the user information until purged.

PIN expiry can be set for users so that a new PIN is sent out when the current PIN expires, see PIN Expiry How to Guide

An Administrator or Helpdesk user may send out a new PIN number see Resend and Reset, the user should receive a message to say that the PIN has been created.

A user can request a new PIN if they have forgotten their old PIN, see ResetPIN How To Guide

If a new Swivel database is created for users and the existing users are not migrated such as from the internal database, then new users will be created and new credentials sent out.