function readOnly(count){ }
Sign Up ›
Starting November 20, the site will be set to read-only. On December 4, 2023,
forum discussions will move to the Trailblazer Community.
Learn More

Browse by Topic
ShowAll Questionssorted byDate Posted
+ Start a Discussion
Mike SaxMike Sax 

Extending the self service portal?

We're in the process of converting to Salesforce.com... Our current (old, pure ASP.NET based) self-service contains a number of services that are specific to the customers but that the Salesforce.com self-service portal doesn't provide (for example, download registered products).

We'd like to avoid requiring customers to have two sets of username/password combinations.

At this point, the only solution we can see is to still use our own username/password and replicate the Salesforce self-service interface in ASP.net (calling SOAP in the background in real time).  This seems like a lot of work (especially when the tree-base knowledgebase comes out with Winter 05), and we'd be concerned about performance.

So is there anyway to either transfer the user's login creditials in either direction? I haven't looked into how Microsoft Passport does this, but they seemed to have found a way to do this.

Thanks!

-- Mike

benjasikbenjasik
We have a feature in pilot for the website called Delgated Authentication, whereby you can configure Salesforce to make a web services call when a login happens. Your listener responds with whether the user is valid or not, and then we respond appropriately.

This is available for website users right now, and we are considering it for the self-service portal for the next release. I will contact you offline to see if the solution we have built would meet your needs.
natemanleynatemanley

Benji,

Any chance you have any further information on this "Delegated Authentication" approach...documentation you can point me to?  Is it going to be available in the new release for the Self-Service Portal?  If so, which release is being targeted?

We, at WebTrends, are in a very similar pickle as described by Mike, who started this thread.

Thanks,

Nate
benjasikbenjasik
We are looking at the Spring release for this functionality.

If you are interested in delegated authentication for the website users, file a case and mention delegated auth and my name, and I'll get you the docs (and sample code). If you want it for self-service, you are better off waiting a bit.
natemanleynatemanley
When you say "website users" are you refering to our internal users (ex WebTrends Sales Reps) of SalesForce as a customer of SalesForce.com?
benjasikbenjasik
I mean your internal users, WebTrends Sales reps