Web Elements and SSO Kick-Off (Cobalt Staff)

As Cobalt Staff, you'll be managing the associations implementation of Web Elements, SSO or both. You'll be managing the actions and expectations of association staff as well as third party developers. This process can easily succumb to miscommunication and delay. The best way to alleviate this is with a kick-off phone call between yourself, the association staff member who is managing their side of the project and the third party's project manager or lead dev. On this phone call, you will want to determine the following:

1. What is the goal of the project? Do they just need SSO? Do they just need Web Elements?
2. What are their expectations in terms of features/functionality for their users? What user experience do they want?

You will also want to make them aware of the following, accounting for differences based on what configuration they are choosing:

1. A client may choose to use a widgetized portal because they want a user to experience two sites as one or they may choose to stick with the standalone portal because they prefer the user to recognize the two sites as different but still want them to have the seamless experience of using an SSO.
2. They may use the widgetized portal or the standalone portal but not both. This is because of the way that the code for both site interact. This means that, if they choose the embed Web Elements, they will need to embed every element that they want their users to access as they will not be able to access the standalone portal and cannot embed the portal navigation bar as a Web Element.
3. The workflow of the process, specifically what you'll give them (Metadata, Web Element Designer URL, widgetized portal URL) and what you'll need (Metadata, homepage URL, login page URL, etc). This will vary, base don their CMS and whether they are or are not using web elements. one you've gathered that information, you can determine what will be needed by referencing the appropriate documentation: 1) Cobalt as IDP, WordPress as SP, 2) Cobalt as IDP, Sitefinity as SP, 3) Clareity as IDP, Cobalt as SP, 5) Cobalt as IDP, Higher Logic as SP
4. If the client is using a WordPress site as an SP, we recommend they use the MiniOrange Premium plugin. This is because we are familiar with this plugin and have documentation for it. The premium plugin is the minimum version that provides an X509 certificate, which is needed for SSO. There is a cost for the MiniOrange Premium plugin.