# Accounts Overview This article aims to demystify how logins work in Princeton ISD. If you have any questions that are not addressed here, please call 2099 for assistance. ### Terms
**Source of Authority (SOA)** | A Source of Authority (SOA) as it applies in Technology is a system that provides the official record of something. Other systems will get their information from their SOA. **For example:** Infinite Campus is the SOA for basic student information and rostering. |
**Identity Provider (IdP)** | An Identity Provider (IdP) is an SOA for user logins. An IdP is used to tell a system that you are logging in to whether your login credentials are valid. |
**Active Directory (AD)** | Active Directory (AD) is a database of user login information. It is used to authenticate several district systems including any computer that is not a Chrome device. It is also a SOA for certain services. This is sometimes referred to as your "network login." |
**Single Sign-On (SSO)** | Single Sign-On (SSO) is a technology that allows a service like Google or ClassLink to act as an IdP for another service. There are several types of SSO but they are all essentially one service sending information to another service to allow you to log in without typing a password. **For example:** When you log in to ClassLink and click on the Pearson icon, ClassLink tells Pearson to log you in. You do not have to enter a password in Pearson because ClassLink tells Pearson who you are. |
**Students report invalid password/access denied** | This is usually one of two issues. - The student didn't wait for ClassLink to fill their credentials and tried to type them. This is usually solved by observing the student as they try to log in. - The student was previously prompted for a password and entered an incorrect password. This is resolved by following the instructions [here](https://kb.princetonisd.net/books/classlink/page/troubleshooting-single-sign-on "Troubleshooting Single Sign-On") under the heading "The student receives an Incorrect Password error from the app" |
**Students are prompted by ClassLink to enter a password** | - If the resource they are trying to access is on this list ([link](https://kb.princetonisd.net/books/classlink/page/managed-websites-and-applications "Managed Websites and Applications")) it could be that they do not have an account in that resource yet. This can happen if they are a new student or they do not have a valid State ID in Infinite Campus. - If the resource is not on that list, it is not managed by the technology department. If they know their credentials for the service they can enter them when prompted after which they will be automatically filled for all future logins. |