#GandiV5 news: organizations and username

One of the main new features of #GandiV5 (and probably the one that you have asked most about so far) is the disappearance of the Gandi “handle” (you know, the famous “AB1234-GANDI”) as a means of identification, which has been a staple for fifteen years.

 

Being based on the way that registries operate and manage contacts linked to domain names, the use of handles doesn’t allow for much flexibility in terms of domain name rights management. In addition to being difficult to remember, the use of handles creates frequent problems when a customer is managing a mix of domains in different extensions governed by different rules.

In short, the handle is over now. On our new platform, you log in with a unique username that you choose for yourself (if it is still available), and which is linked to a unique email address.

 

A practical and easy-to-remember username

In #gandiv5, your username corresponds to your personal account, as an individual, which in turn can be associated with various organizations that are used to represent legal entities (companies, associations, public bodies) that own or use Gandi products.

If you migrate your existing Gandi handle created in the name of a company, association, or public body, and thereby activate your #gandiv5 account, then during the process a “personal account” will be created for you as an individual and then an “organization” will be created that corresponds to the company, association, or public body that owns the domain name in question. That way, you can manage your own, personal domains separately from your company’s (or association’s, or etc.) through a single login.

Therefore, the owners of the domain names will remain unchanged, whether owned by an individual or a company, etc., but you will be able to manage them through your personal account.

The introduction of “organizations” allows for more flexible management

This is where the advantages of using a username really shine through: you’re now able to link the other user accounts to your organizations via “teams”, which can each be granted a specific set of permissions.

For example, you can create an “accounting” team, with access only to billing-related features, or a “technical” team that can only access data related to your hosting configuration.

Thanks to managing rights this way, your domain names will be even more secure, since your accountant, outside technical providers, etc. can all be granted the necessary permissions on their own accounts, rather than having to give them your login credentials. They would just need to create their own personal accounts, for free, on our site, and then you can add their usernames to the desired team or organization.

 

What happens if you have more than one handle?

So that you can benefit from these improvements in terms of access rights, we will need to create a new account on our platform using the information found in your old Gandi handle or handles. This process can sometimes be complex, particularly when taking into account the various account types (“individual” type, “company” type, etc.), the types of products attached to them, and similarities between different contacts in cases where several accounts on the old site will translate into a single account on the new platform.

In short, we have done everything we can to make the process as simple as possible. We have also outlined some of the different situations that you may encounter. But in any case, start migrating your account by logging into https://migrate.gandi.net/ with your Gandi handle to launch the process, and then follow the steps as they unfold.

If you have several “individual”-type handles:

• If the two handles have the same email address and given/family name, our site will give you the chance to merge the two handles into a single v5 account.
• If the two handles have the same email address but a different given/family name, you must create a specific account directly on #gandiV5 with a different email address, or launch an owner change on our classic website so that the domains are all under a single handle, and can therefore be imported to the same account on our new platform.
• If the email addresses are different, you will not be offered the option to merge the handles. You will, however be able to migrate one of them to our new interface, and then import the second one to the account that you created, provided it has the same given/family name.

 

If you use several different legal entity type handles (ex. company, association, public body), they can be attached to a single #gandiV5 username:

• Each new legal entity becomes a new organization in the account of the user, who can freely switch between them from the dashboard.
• If two handles are compatible (same company name), you will be able to merge them.

Please keep in mind:

• This process tries to detect cases when you can merge handles in order to simplify things, but will also systematically offer you the option to create specific accounts or import the data from a handle to an already existing v5 account.
• One exceptional case: when you are the administrative, technical, or billing contact on a domain but not the owner, the username or the name of the owner (depending on whether or not it has been migrated to #gandiV5) will be added to your organizations menu with a “limited permissions” note by it. By selecting the owner organization of the domain in the dropdown menu, you will find all of the domains it owns and for which you have rights in our classic website (administrative, technical, or billing).

 

The handle is dead, long live the handle!

Even though it is no longer needed to log in to gandi.net, the handle is not dead: it lives on in the management backend of your domain names (or via the API or CLI for example), where it constitutes a sort of “reference” for each of the various contacts attached to a domain (owner, administrative, technical, billing) thus fulfilling the legal and technical requirements of the various registries.

As such, despite whatever the actual number of handles used to manage your domains, you will only need to know your username and its password to access the management of all your Gandi products. One important consequence of this is that domains created on our new website will only be able to be managed from your #gandiV5 username.

 

Even further and more powerful: projects, affiliates…

In the future, in addition to organizations, you will also have the ability to create:

 

• projects, which will allow you to manage products through a particular project, regardless of any connection to a legal entity. You will be able to define a system of permissions for these projects through the creation of teams.
• sub-organizations, also called “affiliates”, when you need a structure with greater complexity.

 

All that’s left then is to give it a go! Don’t delay, if you want to have the first pick of your username or organization, go to https://migrate.gandi.net with your Gandi handle and password ready to start the process.

Of course, we are available if you do encounter any difficulties and if you have feedback for us. Feel free to email us at feedback@gandi.net and we will reply to you as soon as possible.

Tagged in GandiV5