Logging into the New Tradition Members Only Site

If you are new to this site and don't know your password yet, please be sure to read the section below titled "Password Setup / Recovery"

Overview

To access the members only site, you must prove to the site that you are, after all, a member of this site. Every member has an associated account, and during the login process, you need to supply information that allows the site to identify & authenticate you which enables the site to associate the correct account. This requires, not surprisingly, the following information:

1. Identity, i.e. login, which is something that tells the system who you are.
2. Authorization, i.e. password, which is something that proves to the system that you are that person.

The login prompt is where you provide the "who" while the password is where you provide the proof of that identity. None of this should be unusual or surprising for anyone who has ever logged into a website.

Password

The password can be supplied as one of two possibilities:

• Your permanent password, which must have been previously set up.
• A temporary password, which is set internally by the system when you request it — this is used when you've either forgotten your permanent password or you have never logged in before (and thus don't have a permanent password yet).

More information on password setup & recovery is further down.

Login

The login is some aspect of your identity, as already known by the website. It can be any of the following types of information:

• Your SPEBSQSA ID #, as has historically been the case,
• Your name,
• Your phone number (cell, home, work, etc), or
• Your e-mail address.

Your SPEBSQSA ID is your 6 digit BHS-assigned ID. If you don't have such an ID, no problem — just use one of the other choices.

Earlier versions of this site only accepted a SPEBSQSA ID for the login. The whole reason for the added flexibility here was to allow for accounts that won't ever have an associated SPEBSQSA ID (e.g. Sweet Traditions member) or which are awaiting a SPEBSQSA ID assigned by BHS (e.g. new member).

Your name is just as you enter it. For example, if your name is "John Doe", then just enter "John Doe". The spelling must exactly match what is in your roster entry, since that's how the name is checked. (Note: This is what you see at the top of the home page after you log into the site.) The matching algorithm however is case-insensitive, so using the earlier example you could also enter "john doe". There must be whitespace between the first and last parts of the name. Another allowed form is your first and last name separated by a period, e.g. "John.Doe"

You can also supply as your login any phone number that is in the roster for you, e.g. your cell phone number, your home number, etc. The phone number must be in the roster of course in order to be recognized and it has to be the full phone number as previously entered, i.e. including the area code. The matching algorithm canonicalizes the phone number, so using forms like (630) 555-1212 or 630.555.1212 or 630-555-1212 should all work equally well.

Every user of the site should have an associated e-mail address — it is needed to do password recovery. You can also use your e-mail address as your identity. It must be entered exactly, and it is currently case-sensitive.

It is important to understand that if one of the above listed identifiers is ambiguous, i.e. matches multiple accounts, then that information can't be used and will be ignored by the site. Of course with SPEBSQSA ID or your name that is unlikely to be the case, but it can happen if, for example, two members share a common home phone number (which would mean that the home phone number for those two members cannot be used).

Password Setup / Recovery

Normally for your password you would supply your previously set up permanent password. However that obviously doesn't work if you have never logged in before, or if you have forgotten your permanent password. In cases like this, there is a recovery procedure whereby the site will create an alternative temporary password. Here's what you need to do:

1. On the login page there is a link in the lower left corner with the heading "Forgot your password or otherwise unable to login?" Hit the "Click Here" link right below that heading.
2. You will land on a very spartan page that describes creation of a temporary random password. There is a spot to enter your login — so enter your login identifier there. The same things are available here for you to enter as for the normal login process (as described above), i.e. you can use your SPEBSQSA ID, your name, phone number(s), e-mail address, etc.
3. Hit submit. This will cause the site to generate a random string of characters, set that as your temporary password, and then it will e-mail that password to you (using the e-mail address in the roster for your account).
4. Once you receive the e-mail (please allow a few minutes for this), go back to the login page and use the password supplied in that e-mail as your password. Note that you must enter the characters exactly as spelled out in the e-mail, e.g. upper / lower case letters as shown and any punctuation characters given must also be used.
5. Once you are logged in, immediately click "Change My Password" and enter a new permanent password. You must enter it twice — the two entries must match, as a means to defend against fumbled keystrokes.
6. Now log out of the site and attempt to log back in with your permanent password.
7. If you get in OK with your newly set up permanent password, then you're done. If you can't get in, then log in again with that same temporary password and repeat the process to set your permanent password — taking careful note of what you set.

You can use the above process at any time to (re)gain control of your password. There are some other things you should know about this however:

• Temporary passwords are, after all, temporary. Normally a system-generated temporary password will expire after 2 days. This is done on purpose to minimize exposure since it was sent to you in-the-clear as an e-mail. You must therefore take advantage of the temporary password immediately - not, say, waiting a week after receiving the e-mail before attempting a login.
• Also, because temporary passwords are temporary, you should set up / correct your permanent password (which does not expire) at the first opportunity. Don't just login with your temporary password, do whatever you needed to do and log out again. Otherwise you'll just have to do all this over again later. This is the reason for the advice above about immediately going to the "Change My Password" link..
• In addition to expiring after 2 days, a temporary password is also immedately forgotten once you've successfully logged in at least once with your permanent password. Said another way, the temporary password stays temporarily valid as an escape hatch if you set a permanent password and then for some reason can't login with it.
• The site can only store one temporary password per account. Yet every time you go through that "lost password" link and submit your login, the site will roll the dice again, generate an entirely new temporary password — overwriting any previously stored temporary password — and e-mail it to you. This can cause confusion if you rapidly do this multiple times in succession. In a case like that, therefore only the most recent e-mail you receive with a temporary password will be the one with a valid password. (Many people have hit this.)