Career Account Password Requirements

There are multiple ways and tools that can be used to set a Career Account Password for a user, however, regardless of how the password is set, some systems won't accept certain values for the password.

NOTE: O365 will NOT accept a password that is OVER 16 characters in length, it will also not allow some special characters in certain spots of the password.

NOTE: PAL 3.0 sometimes enforces a 90 day password restriction, and will not allow some special characters.

NOTE: The Grad School Database & Plan of Study Generator both will now allow passwords older than 90 days to be used, a new one will need to be set.

NOTE: There are more restrictions, I don't remember them all right now.

When assisting a user in setting a password, we want to make SURE that it is a password that will work across all systems. The last thing we want is for a user to call right back, upset because the password they set with us didn't work.

To ensure the password that your user is setting works across ALL Purdue systems without issue, it must:

• Be 9-12 CHARACTERS in length
• Contain at least 1 LOWERCASE LETTER
• Contain at least 1 UPPERCASE LETTER
• Contain at least 1 NUMBER
• Contain NO SPECIAL CHARACTERS
• Contain at least 4 'unique' characters.
  Ex. 'banana' would not work (ignoring the number requirement for a moment)
• Not have been used in the last year
  Ex. It will also reject passwords that are TOO SIMILAR to previously used ones
• Not contain any part of their name
• Not contain 'common' words like 'Purdue' or 'Boiler' etc

ADDENDUM: For both PAL 3.0 and O365, punctuation characters MAY be acceptable in passwords, but other 'special' characters will still likely cause problems in these systems.

At a later point, they can choose to use a more exotic password, but when working with us, they should use a password with universal acceptance across all systems

Setting a new Career Account Password

There are multiple tools available to the CSC that can be used to set a new password for a user, each has pros & cons. Match your choice of tool to the task at hand, consider things like time, functionality, permissions, complexity, and difficulty for the user.

• The AccountSetupReset tool
• The ChangePassword tool
• The ResetPassword tool
• A temporaryPassword set by a CSC Specialist
• The change password tool accessed through Ctrl+Alt+Del on a Purdue supported and networked computer