Advantage Finance XML Developer's Site

Auto login

You can offer your users one-click access to the Advantage Finance application management website.

Description

The client software must access the specified address providing the encrypted login parameters either as part of the url (GET) or as an http POST.

Required parameters

Name	Value	Description
username		The user's username for the website.
password		The user's password.
pin		The user's PIN.
encmethod	1	The encryption method used.

The url for submitting the requests to is https://www.advantage-finance.co.uk/autologin.asp.

Encryption

Both the username and password must be encrypted using a variant of ROT13 (we are aware of the limitations of this, but consider it sufficient for this usage).

Letters a-z and A-Z must be rotated through 13 characters.
Numbers 0-9 must be rotated through 5 characters.
Any other character must be passed through unmodified.

Example encryption code (Visual Basic 6)

Private Function Rot13(ByVal sInput As String) As String
    '[encmethod:1]
    'a = 95
    'z = 122
    'A = 65
    'Z = 90
    '0 = 48
    '9 = 57
    Dim sO As String 'strOutput
    Dim nA As Integer 'newASCII
    Dim curChar As String
    Dim iChar As Integer
    For iChar = 1 To Len(sInput)
        curChar = Mid(sInput, iChar, 1)
        Select Case Asc(curChar)
            Case 95 To 122
                nA = Asc(curChar) + 13
                If nA > 122 Then
                    nA = nA - 26
                End If
                sO = sO & Chr(nA)
            Case 65 To 90
                nA = Asc(curChar) + 13
                If nA > 90 Then
                    nA = nA - 26
                End If
                sO = sO & Chr(nA)
            Case 48 To 57
                nA = Asc(curChar) + 5
                If nA > 57 Then
                    nA = nA - 10
                End If
                sO = sO & Chr(nA)
            Case Else
                sO = sO & curChar
        End Select
    Next iChar
    
    Rot13 = sO
End Function

Example (using GET)

User has a username of fredsmotors, a password of kangaroo and a PIN of 123456.

Client software would navigate to https://www.advantage-finance.co.uk/autologin.asp?username=serqfzbgbef&password&xnatnebb&pin=678901&encmethod=1

Password expiration

The security on the application management website requires that passwords expire and must be changed at least every thirty days. Use of the auto login feature does not bypass this requirement. It is therefore recommended that you provide your users with an interface for changing the current login credentials.