About Your Cisco Unity Connection PIN and Passwords

Revised November 16, 2010

You have a PIN to sign in to Cisco Unity Connection by phone. You also have a password to sign in to the Cisco Personal Communications Assistant (PCA) website to access the Connection web tools. In addition, in Connection version 8.0, you may have passwords for your external service accounts that access your calendar, contacts, and email (as applicable). Your PIN and your passwords for the Cisco PCA and external service accounts are not synchronized.

It is a good idea to change the initial PIN and passwords given to you by your Connection administrator.

During first-time enrollment by phone, Connection prompts you to change your initial PIN, but it does not let you change the initial passwords that you use to sign in to the Cisco PCA and your external service accounts (Connection 8.0 only). You change those passwords in the Messaging Assistant web tool.


Note

A Cisco Unity Connection system can be configured so that you use your computer sign-in password as your Cisco PCA password. If your Connection system is configured this way, you cannot use the Messaging Assistant to change your Cisco PCA password.

You can also change your PIN in the Messaging Assistant, but because you are not required to enter an existing PIN to change it there, take appropriate measures to keep your passwords secure for the Cisco PCA and your external service accounts.

To protect your Connection mailbox and your external service accounts (Connection 8.0 only) from unauthorized access, follow the security guidelines provided by your Connection administrator when you change your PIN and passwords. In general, shorter passwords are easier to use, but longer passwords are more secure, especially when you specify a nontrivial password.

The following table describes the attributes of nontrivial PINs and passwords for Connection:

PINs

  • The PIN cannot contain your primary extension or its reverse.

  • The PIN must contain at least three different digits.

  • The digits cannot all be consecutive, in ascending or descending order (for example, 12345 or 54321).

  • A digit cannot be used more than two times consecutively (for example, 14777).

  • The PIN cannot contain repeated groups of three or more digits (for example, 408510408).

  • The PIN cannot be a numeric representation of your first or last name, or the combination of your first and last names. (For example, if your name is John Doe, you could not use a numeric representation of johnd, johndoe, jdoe, doe.)
Passwords

  • The password must contain at least three of the following four characters: an uppercase character, a lowercase character, a number, or a symbol.

  • The password cannot contain your username or its reverse.

  • The password cannot contain your primary extension or its reverse.

  • A character cannot be used more than three times consecutively (for example, !cooool).

  • The characters cannot all be consecutive, in ascending or descending order (for example, abcdef or fedcba).