Totara Learn Open Discussions

Password reset to common password

 
Thomas Reynolds
Password reset to common password
by Thomas Reynolds - Monday, 27 September 2021, 10:48 AM
 

I have a quick question that I am wondering if it is possible to accomplish in Totara.

Background:  I come form education and for the last several years I administered a Google Workspace for a school system.  Every summer we would have a groups of students active with their school account and a group that didn't touch their school account until the next school year.  Our first year we didn't do a bulk password reset which created a headache.  The next year we looked for anyone who had not logged in to their account in over a month and quickly did a bulk password change to a common password for everyone.  Something like Eagle21@.  This made the first day of school very simple as if someone couldn't access their device using their old password they just when to the new default and then updated it to something private.


Where I work we have employees that return back to our organization and enter back into our system along with new employees.  As we do onboarding every Monday I know we can setup an audience to identify anyone with a new active hire date.  We would like to have the system automatically update members of this audience to a default password like Eagle21@ which they would go on to reset.  We don't have a secondary personal email address in the system so e-mailing individuals is not an option at this time.  Also with spam filtering in many cases a password reset request goes un-noticed which leads to a frustrated employee.  I'm wondering if there is a plugin out there that would allow us to accomplish this and if not is there anyone that is doing this.  We are spending a lot of time resetting passwords or addressing issues relating to no being able to access the system.

I know updating individuals profiles is an option but that isn't very convenient to reducing my workflow.  Any thoughts on how this might be accomplished? 

Craig Eves
Re: Password reset to common password
by Craig Eves (Totara Support) - Monday, 27 September 2021, 6:29 PM
Group Totara

Hi Thomas 

This could be done through Upload Users or HR Import

The way to get the data for the files is to use the Bulk user actions to download user details. You can use the advanced filter for bulk actions to select the audience 

Using upload users is easier as no HR Import userid is required - use the minimal columns required in the file

username email firstname lastname password

Add a generic password in the password column and copy down the rows and use settings as below so only updates of password are done without other user details.


Upload files setting

Regards

Thomas Reynolds
Re: Password reset to common password
by Thomas Reynolds - Tuesday, 28 September 2021, 12:43 PM
 

So would this work if the user account was already in the system?  I know it would work for completely new users but we have a mix of completely new users in the system and some usernames that already exist.  I have done the bulk upload with medical students and any users who already existed are excluded from that import.  Hopefully this makes sense.  We use HR-Import because it is our main record keeper and when employees leave the system their access is suspended.  

I'm trying to automate as much as I can and make the workflow for other groups much easier by addressing some issues with rehires that we are having.