MFA - Using a personal email address

Staff: Using a Personal Email address for MFA

This page contains guidance on using a personal email address as a method for MFA.

A personal email address can be used to receive One Time Passcodes (OTP) contained in an email, which in turn can be used to authenticate with MFA.

Before proceeding, we recommend that you review the University’s Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA) help page, which introduces MFA and why it is important.

Important: If you are going to use a personal email address as a method for MFA, please ensure that this account is kept secure, uses a strong password, and your chosen provider has been set up with MFA.

Enrolling with a Personal Email Address

  1.  Enrol with MFA by visiting mfa.chi.ac.uk, read the welcome message and click ‘Start’ to begin Illustrative image
  2.  You will be presented with the screen below, select ‘Email’ Illustrative image
  3.  At the next screen, enter the email address which you want to use
    NOTE: This must not be your University Email Address, using this will not work as a method for MFA Illustrative image
  4.  An OTP will be sent to your email address from PingID. The sender will be noreply@pingidentity.com so check your spam or junk folder if you have not received this
    Make a note of the OTP, or copy it to your clipboard
  5.  Return to the MFA enrolment and enter the OTP and select ‘Verify’ Illustrative image
  6.  You should now be enrolled with MFA

Authenticating with MFA using a personal email address

When you sign-in to a University service where MFA is required, you will be asked to use an OTP sent to your personal email to sign in.

  1.  You will be presented with the following Illustrative image
  2.  Check your personal email address where you will have received an OTP Illustrative image  This will be valid for 30 minutes.
  3.  Copy the OTP to the Clipboard or make a note of this code.
  4.  Return back to the Authentication browser window and enter the OTP and select ‘Sign On’.
  5.  You should now be authenticated.

If you get receive an OTP email from PingID where you did not sign in to trigger this email. We would ask you to disregard the email, and reset your password immediately. We would also ask you to notify the SIZ on help@chi.ac.uk or 01243816151.