You're encouraging your members to engage with your organisation's activities by logging into your MSL website. Whether for elections, community involvement, joining student groups, or staying updated on events and seeking support, your website is often the place to go. However, login issues can arise, frustrating your members. We've compiled a guide to address the common obstacles your members may encounter when logging in and provide solutions to ensure access to your website:
- Check Student's Login Status - Check if the student has logged in since reporting their issue by following the instructions on our How to View a Person's Website Account page. If their login status is Pending First SSO Login, there might be an issue.
- Check Student's Card Status - Verify the student's card status using the provided instructions to identify any issues with their record. For further details, see Check Card Status.
- Search for Duplicate Accounts - Search for the student's name and ensure there aren't duplicate accounts in your MSL System which haven't been held in Pending Data. To learn how to do this, see How to Search for a Person. If duplicates exist, merge them to prevent issues as duplicate usernames, especially if set the same as the Single Sign On (SSO) system ID, can disrupt SSO login functionality. For more details on merging accounts, see Merge People.
- Send Test SSO Login Link - If the student still can't login despite everything appearing normal, send them a test SSO login link. This link typically looks like: https://[domainname]/sso/login.ashx?test=y. If multiple SSO instances are enabled (for example a student and staff SSO login), contact support@ukmsl.com for the correct URL before sending it to your student. When the student tries to log in using this test link, they'll see a page showing output from the SSO login process. Ask them to send this output to you, preferably in a document or notepad file. Then, contact support@ukmsl.com with the student's ID number and the output for further investigation.
The "Account Not Matched" page on your MSL website is displayed when a student attempts to log in with SSO, but the MSL System can't find a corresponding account. It's important to add content to this page to guide students on what to do if they're experiencing login issues, otherwise, they'll encounter a frustrating blank page. For guidance on what to include, see How to Set Up an Account Not Matched Page.
If many users are encountering SSO login problems, particularly if they're seeing a 500 - Internal Server Error message, it's best to reach out to your University or parent institution's IT team to ensure the SSO login is functioning properly. These error messages often point to issues outside the MSL System.
For further information, see People Overview, Check Card Status, Pending Data, Duplicates and Block List.