Every personalized application requires an authentication mechanism to impersonate and identify its users.

Beyond Portals products and solutions are no exception. What is different is the introduction of a central user repository like our Customer Information Management System (CIMS).

Why do you need a user repository such as CIMS?

The answer is "to make it simple."

Can we use other technologies such as LDAP repositories to store user information? Of course we can. But, such an architecture will require additional software and hardware. Additionally, someone has to maintain them. All of these costs add to the bottom line.

CIMS gets the job done well and integrated into our framework. That means no additional cost for hardware or maintenance.

Technically, CIMS is a Lotus Domino based database application. Functionally, CIMS is the User Management Repository for all the Beyond Portals products and solutions.

CIMS is a flexible framework. It is customizable based on the requirements of the project or solution.

Following examples are two different implementation scenarios for the usage of CIMS.

Scenario 1:

• ACME MEDICAL is a customer of Beyond Portals.
• Beyond Portals CIMS administrator creates an account for the ACME MEDICAL employee (Christopher Newman) to provide access to Beyond Portals site.
• ACME MEDICAL employee (Christopher Newman) authenticates into Beyond Portals customer support account.
• Flash Video - Managed Web Portal Security Administration Using CIMS

• ACME MEDICAL is a customer of Web2Expense - Expense Report Management portal.
• Company created an account using Web2Expense automated sign up process.
• ACME MEDICAL's Web2Expense administrator invited ACME MEDICAL employee (Christopher Newman) into the account.
• Employee (Christopher Newman) completed the sign up process.
• ACME MEDICAL employee (Christopher Newman) authenticates into Web2Expense account.