JiscMail is institutional log on enabled. You can map your UK Access Management credentials to your JiscMail account. This process will allow you to authenticate against your home institution's IdP (Identity Provider) rather than authenticating against the JiscMail credentials database.

What is institutional log on?

Institutional log on allows you to log into multiple services or applications using just one user name and password. This is of great benefit as it helps avoid the need to remember multiple login details.

What do I need? Your home organisation needs to be a member of the UK Federation and you need a web browser that supports SSL encryption (all the major browsers do).

How do I use it? To use institutional log on, choose the 'Institutional log on' option at the top of the JiscMail home page at http://www.jiscmail.ac.uk. This will take you to the 'Where Are You From page' (the WAYF). If you are already authenticated, you may not see this screen.

Start typing your organisation name, select it from the drop down list, and click on the 'Continue' button. Enter your institutional user name and password.

If this is your first time using single sign-on with JiscMail, you will need to map your current JiscMail username to your institutional log on targeted ID. The Targeted ID is a unique identifier that is given to each service by the IdP. It differs for each service that you connect to in order to preserve anonymity, yet it will be the same each time you connect to the same service i.e. JiscMail. Therefore, we can tailor the response of the site specifically for you. There are no indicators as to your identity within the Targeted ID, so it is necessary to go through a process of mapping this identifier to the account that you normally use on JiscMail. It is vital that we do this securely, so that there is no abuse of this system. To that end, we ask that you enter your current JiscMail registered e-mail address and password, and then click on the 'Associate' button.

On subsequent visits, when you click on the 'Login via your home organisation' button, you will be recognised and logged in automatically.

For more information about single sign-on, visit the UK Access Management Federation on the Jisc website

Improvements to institutional log on: April 2019

In April 2019 we carried out planned improvements to JiscMail's institutional log on. These changes ensure that we continue to provide a robust and secure institutional login service for those of you who use it.

If you log into JiscMail using the institutional log on, you need to follow the steps below to ensure your institutional log on access is maintained.

Post-upgrade steps for existing institutional log on users

From 16 April 2019, everyone who uses institutional login to access their JiscMail lists, is required to complete the following steps.

1. Log out of JiscMail, to ensure that you are logged out, visit the following URL https://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/cgi-bin/webadmin?RESET-COOKIE
2. Visit https://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/secure - the institutional login page on the JiscMail website, and log in through federated access.
3. Once logged in, you should see the "JiscMail Institutional Login - Migration page" here we need you to choose whether you wish to "Continue using the JiscMail Institutional Login?" By choosing "Continue" you will only be able to access JiscMail using Institutional Login.

   If the "Continue" option fails to associate your account, and you see an error message, please re-register a LISTSERV password https://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/cgi-bin/webadmin?GETPW=OWNER and repeat steps 1-3 again.

4. If you do not see the "JiscMail Institutional Login - Migration page", then it might be that you have chosen the incorrect institution login, or that you have not used this feature, in which case you will be prompted to associate your account by entering your JiscMail (LISTSERV) password.

Please note, you should only need to do the post-upgrade steps once.

In the future, if you no longer want to use the Institutional login for your JiscMail account, then simply register for a new password for your account - https://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/cgi-bin/webadmin?GETPW1=OWNER

If you experience any problems completing any of these steps, please report them to help@jisc.ac.uk with full details.