Managing your FGC passwords

Owned by Travis Green
Last updated: Apr 20, 2023
3 min read

Active Directory and single sign-on

Active Directory (AD) is the identity service used to authenticate FGC students, faculty, and staff when signing into most college-provided services, including the single sign-on service used to log into Banner and Canvas. This article contains important information about AD password policies and requirements.

The following are some – but not all – of the services using your AD password:

  • Banner and Banner Document Management

  • Canvas / “My Courses”

  • College email address

  • Dynamic Forms

  • Scholarship Manager

  • FGC Dropbox / ZendTo

Changing your password

There are several ways to change your AD password if you are still able to log in. If you don’t know your password and need help getting into your account, see Getting back into your account.

It may take up to 5 minutes for your new password to apply across all of your services. If you are still receiving authentication errors after that time, please contact the Technology Helpdesk.

Whenever changing your password, don’t forget to update any saved credentials referencing the password, such as mobile devices accessing your college email. Failure to do so may lead to your account being automatically locked.

Using an on-campus PC

  1. Log on to Windows using your AD credentials.

  2. Using the keyboard, press and hold CTRL + ALT + DEL at the time time.

  3. Select Change a password.

  4. Follow the instructions on the screen.

Using Microsoft’s My Account page

  1. Sign in at https://myaccount.microsoft.com using your FGC email address.

  2. Select Password from the left sidebar.

  3. Follow the instructions on the screen.

Account lockout

If you fail too many login attempts consecutively, your account will automatically lock itself to protect your data. Your account will automatically unlock after 30 minutes. If you need it unlocked sooner, you can use the self-service account recovery tool or contact the Technology Helpdesk.

Getting back into your account

If you’ve forgotten your password, or you have been locked out after too many unsuccessful login attempts, you can use Microsoft’s self-service account recovery tool to get back into your account. To use the self-service option, go here: https://passwordreset.microsoftonline.com/

If the self-service option isn’t working for you, please contact the Technology Helpdesk for assistance.

Password managers

These days, most everyone has dozens of accounts to keep track of. This naturally leads to a tendency to reuse the same passwords across services, because who can remember 27 different passwords? However, reusing passwords leaves you much more vulnerable to having your account compromised. If your password gets leaked from one service, bad actors will look for other accounts you may have that might be using the same password.

To avoid this, FGC IT strongly recommends using password managers to help you create and manage your passwords across your many accounts. There are many free and low-cost options available. Below are a few of the most popular:

You don’t have to just take our word for it, however. See the bulletin below from KnowBe4, FGC’s official cybersecurity training partner.