Your UMS user account is used to access system-wide technology services such as Brightspace, MaineStreet, and UMS Email. It is also the root of your @maine.edu email address. Your UMS user account may also be referred to as your UMS ID.

You can manage your UMS user account using the following links:

Help and Documentation

Related UMS ITS Policies

Information about UMS Single Sign-on

Additional Documentation

Before using your UMS account, you need to activate it.

What You’ll Need
  • MaineStreet ID (you may also see this referred to as your EMPLID or Student ID)
  • Activation Key (provided when your account was initially set up; contact your campus help desk if you need a new activation key)
  • A password of your choosing. See the password guidelines page for information on creating a secure password.

The activation process will ask you to supply three question/answer combinations. Choose these carefully. They will be used to identify you for certain interactions with help desks and can be used to reset a lost or forgotten password.

Activate Your UMS Account

Visit the Account Activation page to start the activation process.

A user account is a set of credentials – username and password – that allows a person to login to one or more services provided by the University. Most people use their account to login to read email or to get to their Blackboard, MaineStreet, or Campus portal. Every account is bound to a person. The lifecycle of the account, i.e. when it is created and destroyed, is dependent on that person and their affiliation with the University. For these purposes, there are 4 broad classifications of affiliations (see explanation of mixed affiliations below):

  • Student – people who are not employees of the University and who have current activity, most typically class registrations but they could also be applicants.
  • Employees – people employed as regular hourly or salaried workers by the University. Not student employees.
  • Retirees – people who have officially retired from the University. Not employees who have separated from the University in other ways.
  • External – people who have a formal relationship with the University and need access to University resources as part of that relationship. Often called Persons of Interest or POI because of the facility in MaineStreet HCM used to encode them.
Account Eligibility, Provisioning, and De-provisioning

Eligibility is determined by applying rules to MaineStreet data as the system of record for students, employees, retirees and external but affiliated people.  Accounts are not manually created.

Provisioning is the term used for providing an account for a person to use.  The person still needs to activate the account to start using it, but the account has been set up.

De-provisioning is the term used for when the account is “taken down” and is no longer available for the person to use.

Account Provisioning/De-provisioning Matrix
Student – Regular
Provisioning Student accounts are provisioned whenever an application is received for a student or when a non-matriculated student enrolls in a class. Student eligibility is based on MaineStreet Campus Solutions data.
De-provisioning Student accounts are de-provisioned 5 years after their last eligible activity (application or enrollment). Accounts are not maintained for alumni past the 5 years after last eligible activity.

Note: Box accounts are removed 1 year after last eligible activity.

Student – Non Credit
Provisioning Student accounts are provisioned when the Non-Credit career is applied to the student record in Mainestreet Campus Solutions.
De-provisioning Student accounts are de-provisioned 2 years after the last semester where the non-Credit career was active.

Note: Box accounts are removed 1 year after last activity.

Employee
Provisioning Employee accounts are provisioned when an active job has been entered into MaineStreet. Employee eligibility is based on MaineStreet HR data. Student employees are not provisioned based on HR data – only Campus Solutions data.
De-provisioning Employee accounts are de-provisioned 4 weeks after separation (as entered in HR). In cases where immediate de-provisioning is desired, HR may make a request to do so by emailing operations@maine.edu and asking someone to call them to get the information (please do not include it in the email request).
Retiree/Emeriti
Provisioning Retirees must request to keep their account, otherwise their account de-provisioning follows the same rule as an employee. Requests can be made via email to operations@maine.edu.
De-provisioning Retirees must keep their password up to date to retain their account. If 2 consecutive 6-month password expiration periods are passed (1 year total), the account will be de-provisioned.
External
Provisioning To have an account provisioned, a UMS employee must submit a POI request form to their HR office. The form needs to contain Name, Birth date, Responsible UMS person, termination date (or null). Once processed by HR, the account is provisioned.
De-provisioning External accounts are de-provisioned on the request of the responsible UMS person or 4 weeks after the termination date is passed – whichever occurs first.

Mixed affiliation is when a person falls into more than one of the broad categories listed. Whenever a person falls into any category’s eligibility (see above) an account is created for them. Accounts are retained for the longest period of time of any category the person satisfies. For example, if an employee took a class and then resigned at the end of the semester, she would retain her account for 5 years because of the de-provisioning rules that apply to students.

You can change your UMS username using the UMS Account/Username rename tool.  There are several options available:

  • A username based on your full real name
  • A username based on a portion of your real name
  • A username not based on your real name
  • A custom username based on portions of your real name
  • A username based on your preferred name
What effect does the username change have on current access?

Systems react differently to username changes. Some are updated automatically while others have to be manually adjusted. Here is some information about systems that are used by many people:

  • UMS Gmail
    • All your email is preserved and shows up in the mailbox under the new username.
    • Mail addressed to your former email address will by forwarded to your new address for 6 months.
  • Mainestreet
    • All data in Mainestreet is associated with your new username.
  • Blackboard
    • All Blackboard course enrollments and course material is associated with your new username. This process may take up to 4 hours.
  • MyCampus portal
    • MyCampus will give you the same view and access after the rename as before.

Other systems may require manual adjustment to continue to work.

Have you changed your legal name?

If you are changing your username because you have recently changed your name, you have to have your name changed first in Mainestreet before your new name can be used to change your username. If you are an employee, contact your local HR office. If you are a student, contact your campus Registrar or Office of Student Records.

Using preferred names.

A “preferred name” is a name – or part of your name – that you are known by but is not your legal name. Examples would be a nickname that you are widely known by in preference to your real name, or using your middle name as your first name. Sometimes a last name is retained as a professional identity even if it is changed with marital status.

Students may enter a preferred name in Mainestreet (look for the Names link in the Student Center). Some employees (notably faculty) can set a preferred name in Campus Solutions as well, but please note that preferred names set in Campus Solutions will not be used for employees.

Employees may request a preferred name be set for them by contacting their local HR office.

Change Your Username

If after reviewing the notes you’d still like to change your UMS username, proceed to the UMS Account/Username rename tool. Please note that changing your UMS username is not a reversible process!

Passwords are secret codes that keep your information private and protects access to applications and websites meant only for you. The University takes strong measures to protect the integrity of your password by only storing an unencryptable version of your password and by enforcing a password expiration policy (see: Password Expiration).

Even with these safeguards, we need to choose strong passwords (so that intruders can’t guess our password) and then protect them well.

Choosing a strong password

There are 3 guidelines to follow to create a strong password:

  • A large character set.
    • The larger the set of characters you choose from, the more possibilities that a computer has to guess for each character of your password. If you use only lower case letters, that’s 26. Include uppercase and you have 52. Add numbers and special characters and you have increased the character set to 95 possibilities for each character of your password.
  • A long password.
    • Using our 95 characters to choose from, if we choose a 2 character password, there would be 8,930 combinations to test in order to guess your password. For a 4 character password, there are 76,405,080 combinations! The guessing is usually done by computers which are very fast. We require a minimum of 8 characters in our standards, but longer is always better when it comes to passwords.
  • Memorable is better.
    • It’s possible to follow the guidelines above (and the strong password policy) and still have a password you can remember and don’t have to write down. Don’t use passwords that are based on things that could be easily guessed (a spouse or child name, for instance), but start with something memorable, for example a portion of a song lyric, sprinkle some upper and lowercase, numbers and special characters and you’ll have a password that you can more easily remember. Personalize the way you alter the base of the password. For instance, don’t capitalize only the first letters. Don’t substitute one’s for lowercase “L”s – these are all known strategies that a person trying to guess a password would use. And when you change your password, don’t make the new one memorable by using the old password and changing the last character to be the next number in line – start fresh each time you set a new password.
Be careful where you change your password!

A common practice by hackers is to pose as local IT service people in mail and ask you to change your password or confirm you are using your account by supplying your password. This is a ploy to gain access to your account, and is called Phishing.

Here’s how you can distinguish between a legitimate password expiration notification and a Phishing attempt:

  • We will never ask you for your password in mail or otherwise
  • Password expiration email will always come from accounts@maine.edu
  • We will not send a direct link to the password change page, but will tell you how to get to it.
  • The password change utility will always be on a maine.edu URL
Password Expiration

When passwords expire:
Passwords will expire 180 days after being set.

Password expiration notification:
You will be notified by email of the upcoming expiration by email at 30, 14, 7 and 3 days before the password expires. The email will direct you to the accounts management site where you can change your password. We will never ask you to send us your password. If you receive email that asks you to do that, do not reply to the email.

How do I change my password:
Visit the Accounts management page and select “Change your password“. You will need to know your account username (the part before the @ sign in your email address) as well as your current password. Your new password must contain a minimum of 8 characters and include a minimum of one upper case letter, one lowercase letter, and a number or special character. See [ ] for more information about creating good passwords.

What if I forgot my password:
If you have forgotten your password and you are within the guidelines explained below, you can set a new password by using the questions and answers you supplied during account activation. Visit the Accounts Management Page and choose “Recover a lost password“. You must know your student or employee ID (often called EMPLID) and your current account username (the part before the @ sign in your email address). Once you have answered your questions you will be able to set a new password.

What happens if your password expires:
If your password has expired, you cannot log into the account, but you may still use the password change page to change your password for the next 180 days. During this time, email sent to you is received and stored (providing the mailbox is not full) or forwarded if a mail forward is set.

After 180 days past expiration, your account is deactivated and you must visit a help desk to reactivate your account. Email continues to be received and stored, or forwarded.

After 360 days past expiration, if not a current student or employee your account will be deleted. This applies to retirees, alumni, guests, contractors and so on. An email announcing the pending deletion will be sent at 30 and 14 days prior to deletion. Mail is received or forwarded until the account is deleted. Student and employee accounts will be kept in the deactivated state.

If you have any questions please call the Support Center at 1-800-696-HELP (1-800-696-4357) or email them at techsupport@maine.edu

Employee Off-boarding for IT supported systems
University Account Expiration
  • The UMS account (a user’s id and password) will be locked and subsequently deleted after 30 days post separation with some exceptions:
    • If the person is retiring (including Emeriti) they may choose to keep their primary email account.
    • If the person is also a student (or has been in the past 5 years), their email account and access to student focused systems (e.g. Blackboard, MaineStreet) remains.
    • In some cases, a Person of Interest (POI) record has been recorded with an end date in the future (or blank). In those cases the account will remain active until 30 days after the end date (or indefinitely).

Recommended actions.
Note: Google provides Google Takeout to allow account holders to extract information from their account. The information is extracted and made available for download to disk. Drive documents are saved in MS Office formats, PDFs, or graphic format files. eMail is stored in the text based mbox format which may be imported using a mail client such as Thunderbird.

  • GMail
    • Utility (departmental) accounts can be transferred to another individual in the department via a request to IT Support Services.
    • Primary and auxiliary accounts:
      • Personal email you wish to save should be moved out of the account.
      • Business related mail that should be preserved can be forwarded to another person in the department.
  • Google Drive
    • Personal documents to save should be downloaded or moved.
    • Business related documents, including shared documents, that are not in Team Drives should have their ownership change (using the “Share” button) to other individuals in the department.
    • Team drives – the “Full access” privilege should be given to another appropriate person so that management of the team drive may continue.
    • Note: Files and folders in Team Drives will not need to be moved or have sharing adjusted providing the Team Drive itself has at least one other person with “Full access” privilege.
  • Google Sites
    • Ownership can be assigned to an appropriate person using the “Share” button.
  • Groups
    • An appropriate person should be given Owner role from the Member listing screen.
  • Box file storage
    • Files and folders that are not in a departmental space can be shared with others using the “Share” button. At least one other person should have “co-owner” access. If a departmental folder space does exist, this would also be the opportunity to move documents into this space that should be there.
    • Note: Files and folders in departmental folders will not need to be moved or have sharing adjusted providing the Box folder itself has at least one other person with “Owner” privilege.
  • Local and mapped or shared drives on Desktops/Laptops/Tablets/Phones.
    • Prior to turning in the device, personal files should be removed from the device and any University related files stored locally or on shared drives should be uploaded to Google Drive or Box. Best recommendations would be to upload the files into one or more folders and make sure another individual has appropriate access to be able to preserve and manage the files and folders.
Access to other applications:
  • MaineStreet HR
    • Access to MaineStreet HR self-service will stop when the UMS account is locked and later deleted. If employees wish to preserve paycheck, W2, benefits and other data, they should print that information prior to their account being locked.After self-service access is removed, employees can get this data upon request to their HR office.
  • MaineStreet Financials
    • Access to Financials is terminated based on changes to the person’s job record in Mainestreet HR
  • Blackboard, Kaltura, Panopto, Adobe Connect
    • Faculty wishing to maintain course information may export their courses and then copy the export files to personal storage that they will have access to after leaving the University. Note: Student data should not be exported with the course.
  • Other systems
    • Employees may have access to other systems and software. Most systems use the UMS account for access and access will terminate when the account is locked. As noted earlier, accounts may persist if the person is retiring, has had standing as a student in the past 5 years or is becoming a student. The department should be aware of these other systems and contact the people responsible for managing each system to ask that access be terminated.

Forwarding Mail

Email sent to your @Maine.edu address can be forwarded by adjusting the settings in your Gmail account.

Please refer to this Google support page for instructions:
https://support.google.com/mail/answer/10957?hl=en

Note: If you have previously forwarded your mail to an address outside of maine.edu, you may see your Gmail is forwarded to yourself @f.maine.edu. This is a result of migrating forwards into Gmail. Manage your forwarding according to the instructions above to forward mail directly (not using f.maine.edu) to the address you wish.