Support for Machine Account Owners
Machine accounts are a type of ESL account that is used by Student Management Systems (SMSs) to log in to education sector systems such as the National Student Index (NSI) and Early Learning Information (ELI). The Machine Account Owner is responsible for the management of the machine account/s they own. Only the Machine Account Owner can set or reset the passphrase for a machine account – Education Service Desk can no longer do this.
ESL Self Service
The upgraded ESL provides a simple interface for the management of machine accounts. A Machine Account owner must log-in to ESL Self Service with their individual user account in order to manage their machine account(s).
ESL Self Service (Pre-Production)
ESL Self Service (UAT - Shared Test)
Key changes to machine account behaviour with the upgraded ESL
A summary of the key changes to machine accounts:
- ESL enforces stronger distinction between user accounts and machine accounts
- You can no longer login to websites with a machine account, including to ESL self-service.
- The Machine Account Owner must log in to ESL Self Service with their individual user account to complete the setup of a new machine account.
- The Machine Account Owner must log in to ESL Self Service with their individual user account to change the passphrase for their machine account.
- Machine accounts do not get ‘locked’ in the ESL. This will make the sequence of updating a passphrase easier for Machine Account Owners.
- Machine account passphrases no longer expire in the ESL. This will make the sequence of updating a passphrase easier for Machine Account Owners.
- Education Service Desk cannot set or reset the passphrase for a machine account.
Resetting the passphrase for your SMS
To reset the passphrase for an ESL account used in your Student Management System (SMS) you will need to complete the passphrase reset process in ESL before you enter your updated passphrase into your SMS.
For a machine account, you must log in to self service with your individual user account to then be able to change the passphrase for a machine account that you are the machine account owner of.
If you try to log in to self service with your machine account details it will not work.
The following instructions are for ESL Production environment.
Log in to Self Service with your user account (that is the machine account owner).
On the left hand menu select the Edit my machine accounts tab.
A list of the Machine accounts that you are the owner of will be listed. To the far right will be a Set passphrase link.
Select the Set passphrase link for the machine account you want to change the password for.
Create and confirm the new passphrase for your machine account and update/save the changes.
Once you have reset the passphrase, you can then access your SMS with the new password for your machine account.
FAQs for Machine Accounts
Yes, a Machine Account Owner must have their own ESL user account.
The machine account owner must log in to ESL Self Service using the Machine Account Owner's individual ESL user account (not the machine account) to set the passphrase and complete the setup for the new machine account.
The Machine account owner must log in to ESL Self Service using the Machine Account Owner's individual ESL user account (not the machine account) to then be able to change the passphrase for a machine account, that you are the machine account owner of.
No.
No. But we may disable them if they are causing an impact to the ESL service.