University Sealed For Your Protection

[captainsblog]

We've made a holiday tradition in the past few years of having a pre-Christmas dinner and gift exchange with Eleanor's brother in Rochester, while Emily's still at school. It saves him the travel and, frankly, saves Eleanor the stress of awaiting arrival, doing the cooking and, you know, dealing. So she asked me this morning to check Emily's class schedule online, so we can see what nights to work around.

A year ago, this would have been easy peasy. RIT lets students grant access to a limited section of their online accounts: grades, tuition bills, and, indeed, class schedules. Over the summer, though, with much fanfare, they announced that they were trashing the whole thing, probably because I'd never had any complaints about it, and went to an all-new system that would also allow students to register for classes through the site.

By all reports, that function has been an unmitigated disaster. Even by the current second quarter, she was temporarily relegated to half-time status (jeopardizing a good chunk of her financial aid) because the thing wouldn't let her in to one or two necessary classes. But none of that is my business- paying the bills, and knowing when she's in class? Is. (Are, I suppose.)

And never, for love or money, could I get their new and improved parent access portal to work. Ultimately, she just gave me her full-access online access info, which I've used to get the needed 411 from them.... until today.

Yes, they make them change their passwords every 90 days. Yes, they have to be the usual ridiculous combinations of things. This time, though, she seemed reluctant to re-tell me what it was, but she agreed to until she can "approve" us (after which, I presume, she can just change it again- unless I change it first ::evillaff::).

I got the new one successfully entered (and of course, password manager doesn't offer to save it, bastards), got the info I needed, and THEN came the email with the link for parental access.  Needless to say, it doesn't work.

You have been signed up for student eServices access for Emily....  Please visit the following website to create a RIT computer account.  You will need the student's University ID and birth date to complete the process.

Well, I know the DOB, duh, but her student ID? Actually, I do know that, but only because I have the full access- amazingly, it has the whole untruncated number on the site.  Let's see how long THAT lasts.  So onward:

Complete the RIT computer account creation process and verify student. By clicking a link, as one does.  I do:

Oops! Our records indicate that you already have an RIT account, please use the Forgotten Username link on left to find it.

That would be the OLD, no longer working, not transitioned, parent portal. I have enough of a name to lock me out, it appears.  I try the forgotten username thing and get a username- but no password.  The usual suspects don't work, and their "forgotten password" link doesn't send me anything.

But wait! There's an alternate method in the email!

OR

Log in with your RIT computer account and verify student.

[another linky]

I try that, and get sent back to HER computer account page, where "verify student" doesn't work.

It'd be nice if, out of the $40,000 annual payments they get from thousands of shlubs like me, they could set aside maybe 4 or 5 bucks to actually hire a non-geek human being to read these sites, from the POV of the non-geeky parents (imagine even less geeky ones than me), and make them more likely to work instead of being 100 percent compliant with current National Security Agency protocols.

I'm determined either to get access by the end of this week, or, failing that, send the university president an ALL YOUR BASE ARE BELONG TO US email, in hopes that that's closer than this blog post to the language they understand over there.

Comments

[bill_sheehan.livejournal.com]

Captain, what you obviously fail to appreciate is how difficult it was to program a user portal linking several different systems that can't actually exchange information with each. If it was difficult and complex to code, it should be difficult and complex to understand. It's only fair.

If you don't understand it, perhaps you are in need of a modern college education!

[captainsblog.livejournal.com]

This (http://youtu.be/8edfFH0rklc) is what I learned to program on, you whippersnapper, and it ought to be good enough for these kids on my lawn!

[ellettra.livejournal.com]

What a PAIN!

[liddle-oldman.livejournal.com]

Or hire someone who knows how to code.