CA Strong Authentication Administration Guide › Managing Global CA AuthMinder Configurations › Configuring Profiles and Policies › Configure QnA Settings › Configure QnA Issuance Profile

Configure QnA Issuance Profile

You can use a QnA profile to specify the following attributes related to a QnA credential:

• Number of questions:
  • Minimum number of questions and answers the user must set during issuance.
  • Maximum number of questions and answers the user can set during issuance
• Validity period: The period for which a QnA credential is valid.
• Case-sensitive Answers: Decides whether the answers entered by the users must be case-sensitive or not.
• Question Bank: The users will use these pre-configured questions in the question bank for setting up their QnA credential.

By configuring a QnA profile and assigning it to one or more organizations, you can control the characteristics of QnA credentials that are issued to users of those organizations. Use the Questions and Answers Profiles page for creating QnA credential profiles.

Follow these steps:

1. Click the Services and Server Configurations tab on the main menu.
2. Ensure that the CA Strong Authentication tab in the submenu is active.
3. Under the QnA section, click the Issuance link to display the Questions and Answers Profiles page.
4. Edit the fields in the Profile Configurations section, as required.
   • Profile Configurations:

   Create

   If you choose to create a profile, then:

   • Select the Create option.
   • Specify the Configuration Name of the new profile in the field that appears.

   Update

   If you choose to update an existing profile, then select the profile that you want to update from the Select Configuration list that appears.

   Copy Configuration

   Enable this option if you want to create the profile by copying the configurations from an existing profile.

   Note: You can also copy from configurations that belong to other organizations that you have scope on.

   Available Configurations

   Select the profile from which the configurations will be copied.

   Minimum Questions and Answers

   Specify the minimum number of questions and answers that have to be set by users.

   For example, if you set 3 here and 5 in the Maximum Questions and Answers field, then the users will be prompted for at least three questions during authentication out of the five they set.

   Maximum Questions and Answers

   Specify the maximum number of questions and answers that can be set by users.

   Answers Case-Sensitive

   Specify whether the answers that the users specify must match the case that they used to set the QnA.

   Validity Start Date

   Set the date from which the issued QnA credential will be valid.

   The validity can start from either the date when the QnA is created or you can specify a specific date.

   Validity End Date

   Set the date when the QnA credential will expire.

   You can either specify the duration for the credential’s expiration or you can specify a specific date.

5. Expand the Advanced Configurations section by clicking the [+] sign.
6. In the Custom Attributes section, specify any extra information in the Name-Value pair format. For example, the organization information that can be used by plug-ins.
7. Set the following in the User Validations section:
   • Select the User Active option if you want to verify the user status for the following operations involving the current credential:
     • Create credential
     • Re-issue credential
     • Reset credential
     • Reset validity of the credential
   • Select the User Attribute option if you want to verify whether the user attribute matches certain values. You can set the value for the following user attributes:
     • Date when the user was created
     • Date when the user details were modified
     • Email address
     • First name
     • Middle name
     • Last name
     • User status
     • Telephone number
     • Unique user identifier

     Note: The User attribute check feature is available only if you are performing configurations at the organization level.

8. Set the following in the Question Bank for QnA Issuance section:
   • In the Question Return Mode, specify how the questions must be selected for the users to set their answers. The supported modes are:
     • Static - A fixed set of questions is selected from the configured set and presented to the users.
     • Random - The questions are selected randomly from the configured set and presented to the users.
   • In the Questions Bank table, enter the questions, which will be configured at the global-level. You can overwrite these questions at the organization-level.
9. In the Multiple Credential Options section, enter the description to identify the purpose for which the QnA is used in the Usage Type field. For example, a user can have a temporary credential to perform a remote login to the network, the usage type for this credential can be temporary.
10. Click Save to create or update the QnA profile.
11. Refresh all deployed CA AuthMinder Server instances. See Refresh a Server Instance for instructions about the procedure.