Penn Community Authorization

ISC already provides authentication service to the University through the ISC websec online application module. Authentication is derived from Penn Community using the PennID. The following generic utilities show the logic necessary to authorize, or grant sanction to, select subsets of users from within Penn Community. In order to use this logic against Penn Community, you must have access to the underlying tables. You may obtain this access by submitting a request form to ISC-AIT/Data Administration. Each utility can be utilized to select a specific population from within Penn Community (i.e., students only, staff/faculty only, staff/faculty/students) and return a Boolean value to the initiating process.

 

Function Name	Script Name	Input Parameters and type	Return Type	Function Description
isActiveStudent	isActiveStudent	PennID/PennKey (varchar2)	Boolean True/False	The function takes in the penn_id or the PennKey as a varchar and checks the affiliation table in Penn Community for an affiliation_code ‘STU’ (student) corresponding to that penn_id/PennKey and with an active_code ‘A’. If a match is found, the function returns True else it returns False.
isActiveFacultyStaff	isActiveFacultyStaff	PennID/PennKey (varchar2)	Boolean True/False	The function takes in the penn_id or the PennKey as a varchar and checks the affiliation table in Penn Community for an affiliation_code of either ‘FAC’ (faculty), ‘STAF’(staff) or ‘TEMP’ (temporary workers) corresponding to that penn_id/PennKey and with an active_code ‘A’. If a match is found, the function returns True else it returns False.
isActiveFacultyStaff	isActiveFacultyStudentStaff	PennID/PennKey (varchar2)	Boolean True/False	The function takes in the penn_id or the PennKey as a varchar and checks the affiliation table in Penn Community for an affiliation_code of either ‘STU’(student), ‘FAC’(faculty), ‘STAF’(staff) or ‘TEMP’ corresponding to that penn_id/PennKey and with an active_code ‘A’. If a match is found, the function returns True else it returns False.

Wrapper Function

To provide connectivity to other data sources apart from Oracle (e.g., VB, Java etc.) three wrapper functions have also been created which return a character instead of a Boolean value. These functions call the underlying SQL scripts (which return the boolean value) and translate True to a ‘T’ and False to an ‘F’ so that it can be used in ODBC and JDBC connections.

You may use any of the wrapper functions or SQL scripts in your applications. Clicking on the appropriate Function Name within the tables above will open a pdf file containing the script. If you wish to use the wrapper function, also include the SQL authorization script because it will be executed from within the wrapper.

The utilities are also available through the penncard.umis.upenn.edu host, in the Oracle instance pcom. In order to use these functions directly from the comadmin schema, ISC must grant you execute privileges. If you require these privileges, or have trouble viewing the functions and scripts, please contact penncommunity@isc.upenn.edu for assistance.