Directory Services: What is a Responsibility Center Account Administrator?
University academic and administrative units are grouped into Responsibility Centers (RCs). To limit the number of individuals that can create and manage sponsored accounts, each RC has designated Responsibility Center Account Administrators (RC Administrators) to manage computing resources. RC Administrators assist faculty and staff with their primary accounts. They are responsible for distributing initial passwords to new University employees. They can also create sponsored accounts for approved purposes. A current list of RC Administrators is available at the bottom of this page.
RC Administrator Roles and Responsibilities
It is important for RC Administrators to fulfill their responsibilities and adhere to the guidelines below. Properly managing University resources ensures that unnecessary and unused accounts are removed. This reduces the risk that these accounts could be compromised, which could adversely affect the University's reputation or lead to financial damage.
Each RC Administrator must ensure that all data they are providing is accurate, services are managed conscientiously, and resources are allocated and used for their intended purposes.
In terms of the Central Directory Service (CDS) and University Computing Accounts, this entails the following duties:
- distributing initial passwords to new individuals with primary accounts (see below)
- creating and managing sponsored accounts
- creating and managing groups
- creating and managing delegates for group management
Passwords for Primary Accounts
When a primary account is created for a new faculty or staff member, an initial password is set for the account. The initial password is available to the RC Administrator in the RC Administrators SharePoint site. The RC Administrator should communicate this initial password to the individual directly or to the individual's supervisor or area manager.
The faculty or staff member who receives the initial password should be instructed to log in to accounts.pitt.edu. The user will be prompted to set security questions and set a new password that only he or she knows. It is essential that the individual understand the importance of setting a secure password and not sharing it with anyone.
Group Management
In additional to account management, the RC Administrator also maintains groups and group membership within CDS. These groups can be used for Enterprise Exchange distribution lists or to assign access rights to various resources within the University computing environment.
RC Administrators can also delegate group management to other individuals within their responsibility center. Individuals can be granted access to manage a single group, a collection of groups that share the same prefix, or all of the groups within a Responsibility Center.
Change Administrators
The head of the responsibility center or a current RC Administrator can request that a RC Administrator be added or removed. To request a change, complete and submit an Account Administrator Change Request Form. This form can also be used to designate individuals who will manage RC groups.
No more than two RC Administrators can be designated for a given responsibility center without additional justification. If more than two RC Administrators are needed, a written request explaining the need must be submitted as a help request online to the attention of the Chief Information Security Officer. This request can only be made by the head of the responsibility center. Once the request is reviewed and approved, an Account Administrator Change Request Form will need to be submitted for the additional RC Administrator.
Help for Administrator
Responsibility Center Account Administrators have access to the ‘RC Administrators' SharePoint site to assist with their duties.
Note: The RC Administrators site uses multifactor authentication (Duo), part of the Pitt Passport single sign-on service.