This release includes sign-in changes, Multi-factor authentication, automated user management and IPMHA improvements
Sign in changes
Security is a top priority for us, and it starts with the way you sign in. We want to make it easy for you to access Recordbase, while enabling the right security layers to ensure your data is protected. We have decided to make use of Microsoft Azure Active Directory B2C to provide enhanced authentication management, and this means some changes to the way you sign in to Recordbase.
Leveraging B2C in Recordbase means less overhead for our team, which translates to more time building functionality that you love. It’s capable of supporting millions of users and billions of authentications per day. It is super secure and takes care of the scaling and safety of the authentication platform, monitoring, and automatically managing threats like denial-of-service, password spray, or brute force attacks.
Ultimately, we think it will do a great job of helping us with the job of keeping your data safe.
If you want to know more about Microsoft Azure Active Directory B2C, you can find out here.
What you'll see
Recordbase has supported single sign on through using Microsoft account for a while now, and in this release we have also added the ability to use a Google account for authentication. As you can see above, when configured to use these options, you can sign in with a single button click.
In addition to enabling additional single sign on options, this release also allows you to make use of multi factor authentication (MFA), which means you can be even more secure.
If you already have your Microsoft (also known as Azure AD) account enabled, this will work for you automatically as part of the change. If you are interested in having either single sign on option enabled for your organisation, please reach out to the friendly support team and they can help you get this configured.
Multi factor authentication
Multi factor authentication (MFA) is a multi-step account login process that requires you to enter more information than just a password. By adding another layer of required information (or factor of authentication) we make it much harder for an unauthorised account to access your data.
When this is enabled, Recordbase will prompt you for an additional code as part of the sign in process.
The code will be made available through the use of an authenticator app, which is the most secure form of multi-factor authentication. Authenticator apps are not only faster and more reliable than SMS and email MFA, they also enforce an additional layer of security, such as a passcode, a password or biometrics (i.e. fingerprint).
Because authenticator apps work locally, it mitigates the chance of an attacker to intercept your codes. On top of that, codes presented through an authenticator have a much shorter lifespan, which further reduces this kind of risk.
There are many options out there that you can use, but we recommend the Microsoft Authenticator app. It’s easy to set up and works well with Recordbase.
How to change your sign-in method
Recordbase provides the option to change the authentication method in the application. You can choose between email and password, Microsoft Azure AD and Google, and additionally, you can enable MFA with all these options.
Changing the New user authentication method will cause all new users to be created using the selected authentication method but will not affect any existing users. If you want to apply these changes to existing users, please contact the support team to have this feature enabled.
When MFA is enabled for a user, it will mean that on first sign in they will need to register their authenticator application.
Single sign in enhancements
One of the things we get out of the box with B2C is the ability to send “hints” about how we want to sign in. So, while our standard sign in screen now displays all the options, we can provide additional information to the sign in request to skip the user input completely for cases where single sign in is desired.
This is called using “domain hints” and we can help you setup a bookmark, or link that will enable this for you.
If you would like to discuss alternative authentication options, please contact the support team on support@wildbamboo.co.nz.
Zavanti data sharing
For organisations that provide housing support, Recordbase can now be integrated with the Zavanti tenancy management system.
Whenever there is a need to use multiple systems, the first thing we should be striving for is to prevent the need for double entry of data. You are all busy enough without the added burden of entering the same data into multiple systems. With this integration, you can use Recordbase to provide the details of the people you are supporting to Zavanti. This minimises the data entry requirement and ensures data quality between systems.
How it works
We have taken the approach that Recordbase is the source for information. When you mark a person as being shared with Zavanti, it will connect behind the scenes in real time and add a contact to Zavanti. This contact will be updated whenever any of the shared information is changed in Recordbase, so it will keep the information in Zavanti up to date.
Shared data
When sharing is configured for a person, Recordbase will initially send through data to create the new Contact in Zavanti. This will include the basic person details required to create the initial contact file, along with contact information, reference numbers (e.g. SWN), the person’s case worker and the service contract type.
In cases where a person has more than one eligible caseworker, the most recent one will be selected.
The service contract type represents property funding information based on the intended use of the property. It is determined based on the team configuration and additionally specific referral service levels.
If you would like more details on the data that is shared, please contact the support team on support@wildbamboo.co.nz.
Automated user management
We have heard from some of you about the challenge of managing users and the desire to automate this where possible. We think this makes a lot of sense and in this release, we have added a user API that you can connect to programmatically.
This will allow you to automatically create and disable users based on your own organisational workflow.
You can call the API directly from your own process and reduce the manual effort of managing users. This will let you specify the following basic user information.
- Email address
- Password
- First name
- Last name
- Position
- Reports to
- Employee number
If your organisation is configured for single sign on, no password is required.
You will still need to make sure to assign teams and roles in Recordbase, by default new users created using the API won’t have access to any services.
Users can also be disabled via a separate API. Automating this process can help to ensure that only authorised users retain access to your data and mitigate the chance of paying for unused license.
If this is something you are interested in, please contact the support team at support@wildbamboo.co.nz.
IPMHA improvements
When we first introduced changes in Recordbase to support IPMHA contracts, we designed them to work closely with the Karo system. We have learned that some of the functionality we added was specific to Karo, and a streamlined data capture would be useful in some cases.
In this release, we have provided additional configuration to allow you to simplify the collection of IPMHA data. The activity configuration screen now provides an IPMHA format option to allow you to decide the level of detail you need.
You can still have the full set of fields included with the Karo format.
But you now have the option of configuring a reduced set of fields when your team is not integrating with Karo.
In addition to simplifying this data collection, Recordbase now has both youth and mainstream reporting pre-built for IPMHA.
If you have an IPMHA service and would like this configured, please contact the support team at support@wildbamboo.co.nz.
Appendix I – Minor changes
As part of the continuous improvement process of the Recordbase system, we have made the following notable bug fixes and minor enhancements:
- Lookup group names can now be edited.
- Client search no longer brings back team names for deleted referrals.
- The task list now correctly displays the appropriate descriptions of task types.
- A new permission has been added for creating outbound referrals.
- Reference numbers now have a comments field.
- Phone numbers now have a comments field.
- Deleted phone number types have now been removed from the new phone number create screen.
- Filters now correctly include results regardless of the macron.
- Goal action report performance improved.
- More flexibility on what is displayed as part of the Tikanga Māori panel.
- You can now search users by their full name.
- A tip can now be added to the pronoun field in personal details.