Password Self-Service: Changing and Maintaining Your Password

You can change your Falcon Account password at the Password Self-Service website by selecting the Change Password option. If you're connected to the campus network and logged in using a university-owned device, you can also use Ctrl-Alt-Delete (Windows) or the Users & Groups pane in Macintosh's System Preferences.

Improve Your Password Change Experience

Smart Phones and Tablets (Reduce the possibility of being locked out of your account.)

If your mobile device is set up to access a UWRF wireless network or UWRF resources and you change your password without updating your mobile device, it will continue to try to access your account with your old invalid password and may cause security lockouts. Update your device using the new password immediately after verifying your new password is working for you.

University-owned Laptops (Avoid using old and new passwords concurrently.)

University-owned laptops maintain a cached (encrypted) password which is used when you are not on the UWRF network. In order to set up this cached password, your first login on your laptop must be when your laptop is connected to the UWRF network. Then you can use your laptop anywhere. However, once your password expires, you will use the old password to access computer applications and files and the new password to log into Canvas and other web-based services until you can get your laptop back onto the UWRF network or connected to VPN so the cached password can be updated. For that reason, we highly recommend changing your password before it expires while your computer is connected to VPN or before leaving campus with the laptop.

Mac Laptops (Reduce the possibility of Keychain Access errors.)

When changing your Falcon Account password it is recommended you be on campus (or connected to VPN) and use the following process to change your password. This will help avoid stored password location (Keychain Access) errors when changing your password:

1. Open System Preferences
2. Select Users & Groups
3. Select Change Password

Using Your New Password

Rebooting your computer causes apps to ask for new password right away. If you don't reboot, logging in with your new password happens randomly over several days since some applications take a little longer to pick up the fact that your password changed. Also, if you have chosen to have applications remember your login username and password, expect to see requests for you to log into various services tied to Falcon Account authentication (since they are now remembering your former password).

Password Expiration

Standard Falcon Account and student employee account passwords expire after 270 days though accounts for people working in areas with access to certain types of data may expire more frequently, such as after 180 days. Following expiration, you have an additional three months to change your password using self service. After that time, the system will automatically change it to a randomly generated password. Your password will then need to be reset via the forgotten password options; the last known password will not work. If you need assistance with this, contact DoTS for help.

Expiration Reminders

You can subscribe to password expiration reminders by visiting the Password Self-Service website and selecting the option to update your password self-service profile. Expiration reminders are sent out once per week via text message to subscribers whose password will expire within 15 days. To avoid confusion with possible phishing emails, Technology Services will never send you a password expiration reminder via email. See the related articles on this page for help on updating your profile.

How to Tell That Your Password Is Expiring

University-owned computers connected to the campus network display a warning message when logging in with a Falcon Account starting 14 days prior to the account password expiration. If you get such a warning, it will include the opportunity to set a new one. This warning does not appear for Macintosh users who have password policies more restricted than the default such as those persons with access to restricted information.

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When an account password does expire, most services and applications utilizing Falcon Accounts (including eSIS, Canvas and e-mail) display an error message indicating that the username or password is incorrect. Each of these services have a link on the login page to Password Self-Service where you can change your password.

For further details, refer to the creating your own password knowledge article.