Our IdP Hinting feature is an extension to the InAcademia service that helps merchants to automatically redirect a user from its registration/sales process straight to the user’s preferred institution, where the user is asked to authenticate. This approach results in fewer steps, helping to create a smoother flow for the user, and can also be used in offering services to use cases in specified countries. By hosting a list of uniquely referenced institutions available on a country-by-country basis, we make it possible for the merchant to target specific countries, institutions or subsets of institutions with specific campaigns. The IdP Hinting data source provides a readily available list of participating institutions, structured by country, from which merchants can create their own interactive search UI, and even map institutions in an internal database to the related identity provider for specified institutions. 

Whilst using IdP Hinting reduces the number of interactions a user must have before they’re able to complete registration or purchase, it requires technical maintenance: the InAcademia service provides a JSON feed for merchants to consume (https://github.com/InAcademia/aarc_idp_hint), which enables the creation of an interactive list of institutions that can populate drop down menus on the UI from which a user can select, but that feed must be proactively monitored and updates must be applied daily, especially if the merchant deploys complex mapping between existing databases of institutions and the institutions available to IdP Hinting.

Merchants are strongly encouraged to create an automated update process that will detect changes at the relevant countries here https://github.com/InAcademia/aarc_idp_hint and apply those changes to its own workflow and/or databases.

IdP Hint Updates

Additionally to providing the JSON feed that is updated hourly, InAcademia provides a daily digest (unless no changes are detected) of updates from idp.updates@inacademia.org to the named technical contacts provided at registration. Please ensure that you white list this address.

The updates are formatted as follows:

Example:

Example of update to display name only:

For the avoidance of doubt:

• the minus/'-' sign indicates data that has been removed from the feed. This might indicate the complete removal of an entity from either a national Identity Federation or eduGAIN feed, which can arise for various reasons including but not limited to when an entityID is replaced with a new entityID, an entityID is no longer used and retired, when an IdP is suspended, or it might indicate the removal of part of the entityID, such as a DisplayName.
• the plus/'+' sign indicates data that has been added to the feed. This might indicate the addition of an entirely new entityID (which can arise when a new institution joins a national Identity Federation or is newly announced to the eduGAIN feed), and may also indicate the addition of a new part of an entityID, such as a new DisplayName.
• Important notes:
  1. When a new entityID is announced, it might not be immediately functional, and therefore close observation is advised for all newly announced IdPs.
  2. It is common for IdP Operators to migrate from one entityID to another. In such cases, the migration might not be completed at the same time. Typical scenarios are:
     1. a new entityID may be announced and run in parallel before the entityID to be retired is removed; parallel running may take place for a number of weeks
     2. an existing entityID may be labelled 'OLD' (or similar) in the DisplayName field, during the migration process where the new entityID may or may not be labelled 'NEW' (or similar)
     3. the entityID to be retired may be removed, with the replacement entityID not being announced until later
     4. the migration path is at the discretion of the IdP Admin and the IdP Admin is not obliged to announce the nature of or timeline for the migration.