How can I do SingleSignOn on Desire2Learn?

Question

I am trying to create iOS app, which connects to Desire2Learn , I have Username/Password for the app and my client doesn't want the login to appear again to access desire2learn site, basically I am looking SSO, so if user enters into my app , using D2L api I should be able to get authentication, Key and signature parameters to access D2L services. Please provide a sample code.

Answer 1

The Valence API auth system uses a web based auth process that returns a userid and userkey. There are idkey auth details on the docs pages. There isn't really a way to use Desire2Learn username and password to directly make an api call (similar to facebook connect that way). However, the ID and Key that come back are long lived (basically until the user resets a password) so you can avoid the usability issue of logging in a bunch of times.

The best way of accomplishing this is an app that loads the browser or a browser control. The Desire2Learn Assignment Grader does something like this as well.

There is no formal "Getting Started" sample for ios like there is for other platforms, but, there is a basic ios library that helps with preparing the auth calls and creating the right sigs for api calls.

Answer 2

We ran into the same problem, so we built a php application which basically performs the auth process with cURL, given the username and password. Keys are stored in a db, so that when a user tries to login, if the un/pw are correct, the keys are sent back to the ios app. In the event the keys are expired, the oath process is performed, and new keys sent back to the ios app- so from the perspective of the ios app, the only thing that's needed is the un/pw, and that's it.