EduTech Support

What is a Building Facilitator?

EduTech provides a large number of informational and technical services to the North Dakota K-12 community at no cost. In return for these services, each school or organization designates a local liaison. This person is called the building facilitator. EduTech requires member school districts to appoint one person from each school building to act as building facilitator.

Building facilitators play an important role. Since anyone may attempt to enroll for a SENDIT e-mail account, it is necessary for us to have a contact within each school who can verify someone's identity. No user account is ever created without a building facilitator validating the request. Some additional building facilitator duties are described below.

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Building Facilitator Duties

User Account Maintenance

Examples include validating new accounts and transfer requests, as well as locking accounts that are duplicates or discovered to be fraudulent.

Local User Support

Occasionally, it may become necessary to assist users within your building with e-mail client configuration, updating user profiles, and forgotten passwords.

Provide EduTech with Information

Since you will be the main contact for EduTech, you should report potential system problems, user name changes and violations of EduTech's Acceptable Use Policy to the EduTech Help Desk.

Notify EduTech of Building Facilitator Changes

If you are moving to a different school, retiring or in some other way "passing the torch" to a different building facilitator, have your principal or superintendent inform the EduTech Help Desk of the change.

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Building Facilitator Website

Validate Users

Probably the most common function used within the building facilitator tools. To validate or delete users, select the appropriate checkbox and click the Submit button. Accounts are created the next business day.

Validate Transfers

If someone changes their profile to indicate they are located in one of your buildings, you will receive a transfer request, much like when you receive requests to validate a new account. Select the "Validate" or "Delete" checkbox and click submit.

Note that this has nothing to do with the account itself. Clicking "Delete" will only delete the transfer request, not the account.

Lock/Unlock Accounts

If you find users with multiple accounts or those that have graduated, retired or moved on, you may lock their accounts using this function.

As a matter of etiquette, if a user has moved to a different school in North Dakota, warn them to update their user profile and give them time to comply before you lock their account.

List All Users/Students/Staff

You may list all users in the building(s) designating you as facilitator, or you may list them according to whether they are students or staff. Each list can be sorted by login, first or last name, whether they are validated, by school name and by grade. To sort the list, click on the appropriate column header.

List Unvalidated/Locked Users

Similar to the above lists, this function allows you to find accounts you have either not yet validated or accounts in your buildings that are locked.

Change Passwords

In many circumstances you may need to reset a user's password. This function will list all users in your buildings. Select each user whose password you wish to reset, and when you click "Submit", a new password will be generated for the selected users and automatically e-mailed to you.

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Non-Website Functions

Providing Information to EduTech

If you notice potential problems with the system, you should phone or e-mail the EduTech Help Desk.

Updating User Profiles

Users who have moved to a different school – even within the same district – must update their user profile to ensure they are listed in the correct building. At least once a semester you should remind your users (teachers, staff and students) to log into User Resources and check the information in their user profiles.

Suspending Accounts

If users in your building violate EduTech's Acceptable Use Policy, you must notify the EduTech Help Desk so their accounts can be suspended for an appropriate period of time. You may also notify the Help Desk if a user violates your local AUP.

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Common Problems

Forgot Password

Within the building facilitator tools, click "Change Passwords" and you will see a list of all users located in your buildings(s). Select each user whose password you wish to reset, and when you click "Submit", a new password will be generated for the selected users and automatically e-mailed to you.

Please note that we do not know anyone's password. We can only change them.

What Are the Settings for Outlook, Eudora, etc.…

For assistance configuring the e-mail clients supported by EduTech, visit the e-mail support page.

Transferring an Account to a Different School

When someone coming into your school already has an EduTech account, they should not re-enroll. Instead, they should log in to User Resources and update their profile to reflect the change. As the building facilitator, you will receive an e-mail notice asking you to validate the transfer request.

User Has Multiple Accounts

If you notice a user has more than one EduTech account, ask them which account they would like to keep, then lock the other.

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Frequently Asked Questions

Can't log in, message says "Mail is being forwarded"

Unfortunately, this error can be misleading. Log in to User Resources and click on "Mail Forwarding". If it says your mail is being forwarded to another address, select the checkbox next to "Do Not Forward My Mail" and click "Enter".

If your mail isn't being forwarded and you're still experiencing this problem, contact the EduTech Help Desk.

Can't log in, message says "Script Error"

This appears to be a problem with Internet Explorer 4.0. Upgrade the user's machine to a newer version.

Can't log in, message says "Invalid Password or Username for <my username> 768"

This usually indicates the user's password or username is incorrect. Use the building facilitator tools and "List All Users" to find the user and ensure they are using the right username. If the username is correct, use the "Change Passwords" function to generate a new password for this user.

Can't send mail, message says "Relaying Denied"

This happens when you are connecting to the Internet through an Internet Service Provider (as opposed to the State Wide Network) and your mail client is configured to use the outgoing mail server smtp.sendit.nodak.edu. You should use the outgoing mail server for your Internet Service Provider. You will need to contact them for this information.

Does EduTech scan our mail for viruses?

We do not scan the content of any e-mail message.

A user's new username is Firstname.Lastname.1, can they drop the ".1" part?

Maybe. This happens when someone else, either in EduTech or the North Dakota University System, already has that same name. However, there are a few special cases.

First, make sure the user doesn't have multiple accounts. They may have another account that has Firstname.Lastname, or will become Firstname.Lastname when activated.

Another possibility is that the user has been affiliated with some North Dakota Higher Education institution. If they log in to User Resources, they will see the option to "Give SSN". By entering their Social Security Number, they provide a way for us to match their EduTech identity with their Higher Ed identity. About fifteen minutes after providing us with their SSN they may attempt to "Change Electronic ID" to Firstname.Lastname.

If that doesn't work, then someone else really does already have the username of Firstname.Lastname and nothing can be done.

I accidentally deleted someone's account, how do I 'undo' that?

It is not possible to undo this action through the BF page. Simply contact the EduTech Help Desk and they can fix it for you.

Does the Internet Filter block pornographic or vulgar e-mail?

No, the Internet Filter only blocks access to websites, it does not block any incoming traffic or e-mail. Furthermore, EduTech currently does not scan or block any e-mail based on its content.

What do I do if someone has more than one account?

It is against EduTech's Acceptible Use Policy for any user to have more than one account. If you discover this has occurred, ask the user which account they would like to keep, then lock the other.

Why can't users have multiple accounts?

There are a number of problems associated with having multiple accounts.

• Users forget which password goes with which username
• Additional usernames are permanently (but unnecessarily) used
• Suspending users becomes more difficult when the violator has another EduTech account to use
• System and staff resources are wasted

A user has left my school, how do I transfer their account?

This action must be performed by the user. Just e-mail them and ask them to update their profile in the User Resources section of the EduTech Website. They can update most of their account information in that area.

One of my users needs to change their name. How do they do that?

Just e-mail the EduTech Help Desk and let us know what their current name is and what to change it to.

Can I keep a list of my users passwords?

This is a very bad idea. If you keep copies of your users' passwords, you bear personal responsibility for unauthorized access to those accounts. We have gone to great lengths to create a system such that not even the EduTech Help Desk or EduTech System Administrator know what anyone's password currently is.

Whenever necessary, we are happy to change anyone of your users' passwords and pass that information on to you, the building facilitator. When you give the account information to the user, make sure they are aware of how to change their password on their own. That way they can feel safe that no one has access to their login information.

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