Signing into the Asta Vision website

To sign into Asta Vision and access the Asta Vision website:

  1. Launch Asta Powerproject.
  2. Click File, click Open, then click Vision.
  3. If you are not already signed into Asta Vision, click Sign In. The Elecosoft Identity Service dialog appears.

    There are two methods of signing into Asta Vision. The sign in method you use depends on whether your organisation enables you to sign in using federated authentication, which allows you to sign in using your Microsoft Entra ID credentials. If you are not sure which sign in method to use, check with your System Administrator.

    To sign into Asta Vision in this way, you use the user name and password that are recorded against your user record in Asta Vision.

    To sign into Asta Vision using an Asta Vision user name and password:

    1. On the Elecosoft Identity Service dialog, enter the email address with which you sign into Asta Vision into the Email address field.
    2. Enter your Asta Vision password into the Password field.
    3. If you want Asta Vision to remember your user name and password, which saves you from having to enter them each time, select the Keep me signed in check box; if you are using a shared computer, clear the Keep me signed in check box.
    4. Click Sign in.

    If you have forgotten your password, click Forgot your password?, then follow the steps that appear on the screen to reset your password.

    To sign into Asta Vision in this way, you use the Microsoft Entra ID credentials that you use to sign into your Microsoft account at your organisation.

    To sign into Asta Vision using your Microsoft Entra ID credentials:

    1. On the Elecosoft Identity Service dialog, click Sign in with your Microsoft Entra ID account. The Sign in to your account dialog appears.
    2. Follow the steps that appear on the screen to sign in using your Microsoft Entra ID credentials. The first time you sign in using this method, you have to click Accept when prompted to grant the Elecosoft Identity Service permission to view your basic profile and maintain access to data.

    If you are already signed into your Microsoft Entra ID account on the browser you are using, you are taken straight into Asta Vision when you click Sign in with your Microsoft Entra ID account, without having to sign in using the Sign in to your account dialog.

  4. Click Open the Vision website.

If your organisation has adopted federated authentication and a user attempts to sign into Asta Vision by entering a user name and password directly into the Elecosoft Identity Service dialog, they are warned that they must sign in using their Microsoft Entra ID credentials. The only exception to this is if the user has been set up as a 'non-federated user', with an email address domain other than a federated domain. An example of this type of user is a member of Elecosoft Technical Support, who may have been set up as a non-federated user - with an email address with an 'elecosoft.com' domain rather than your own organisation's domain - to enable them to sign into Asta Vision to help resolve any issues.

Traditionally, all users signed into Asta Vision using an Asta Vision user name and password. Setting this up involves specifying an email address and password for each user in Asta Vision. Users then enter the user name and password to sign into Asta Vision.

If your organisation uses Microsoft Entra ID to enable users to sign into their Microsoft accounts at your organisation, you can now choose to have your users sign into Asta Vision using federated authentication, which allows them to sign in using their Microsoft Entra ID credentials. There are three main advantages of this:

  • If a user leaves your organisation, you no longer need to remember to edit their user record in Asta Vision and change their user name and password to prevent them from accessing Asta Vision; as soon as their Microsoft Entra ID account is disabled, they are automatically denied access to Asta Vision.
  • If your organisation mandates the use of multi-factor authentication, you can implement this using Microsoft Entra ID and it will apply automatically to Asta Vision.
  • Elecosoft will be implementing federated authentication across their range of software products, to enable users to sign into a range of Elecosoft apps using the same credentials.

If you enable users to sign in using federated authentication, you no longer specify a password for each user in Asta Vision; instead, you specify details of the email address that they use to sign into Microsoft Entra ID.

Switching to federated authentication

To switch to using federated authentication as a sign in method for Elecosoft software, you must contact Elecosoft and inform us that you want to switch. You will need to provide us with details of the domains that are used in your users' Microsoft Entra ID credentials. This may be a single domain, for example 'mycompany.com'; or multiple domains, for example 'mycompany.com', 'mycompany.co.uk' and 'alternativecompanyname.com'.

Elecosoft will configure our systems to enable you to use federated authentication, and inform you when this has been done.

A Microsoft Entra Admin user then needs to set up permissions in the Microsoft Entra Admin Center to enable the Elecosoft Identity Service to federate against your own tenant.

  1. Sign into the Microsoft Entra Admin Center.
  2. In the Microsoft Entra Admin Center, check the Users can register applications tenant-wide setting (under Identity - Users - User settings):

    The 'Users can register applications' setting in the Microsoft Entra Admin Center

If you set this to 'Yes', you can start using federated authentication immediately, and users will be able to sign into Asta Vision using their Microsoft Entra ID credentials from now on, provided that the correct email address is specified against each user record in Asta Vision.

If you choose not to set this tenant-wide setting to 'Yes', you must follow the steps below to enable users to sign into Asta Vision using their Microsoft Entra ID credentials:

  1. Attempt to sign into Asta Vision using your Microsoft Entra ID credentials: on the Elecosoft Identity Service dialog, click Sign in with your Microsoft Entra ID account. The Sign in to your account dialog appears.
  2. Follow the steps that appear on the screen to sign in using your Microsoft Entra ID credentials. When prompted, click Accept to grant the Elecosoft Identity Service permission to view your basic profile and maintain access to data.

    The Elecosoft Identity Service will now appear under Identity - Applications - Enterprise applications in the Microsoft Entra Admin Center.
  3. Sign into the Microsoft Entra Admin Center.
  4. In the Microsoft Entra Admin Center, find the Elecosoft Identity Service under Identity - Applications - Enterprise applications; you can search for it by entering 'elecosoft' in the search field at the top of the page.
  5. Once you have found the Elecosoft Identity Service, click it to access its settings.
  6. In the left-hand menu, click Permissions.
  7. Click Grant admin consent for <your tenant name>. A popup that allows you to grant organisation-wide consent appears.
  8. Select your Admin account and accept the permissions requested by the app. From now on, no users will be prompted to consent to the permissions when they sign into Asta Vision using their Microsoft Entra ID credentials.

Related Topics:

Introduction to Asta Vision

Signing out of the Asta Vision website