Acoustic - Login Changes

This article applies to Ascent360 users who use Acoustic to send emails.

You may have seen one of several announcements from Acoustic about upcoming changes to the user experience as Acoustic separates from IBM. We wanted to share some pertinent information with you to avoid any confusion about the upcoming changes.

URL Changes

As of April 1, 2020, new URLs will be publicly available for all Acoustic products. The current, IBM-branded URLs will continue to work, but are being deprecated (some as of June 30th and later for other endpoints).

Fortunately, this impacts very few Ascent360 clients. Our tools and products will be updated behind the scenes and you'll enjoy a seamless transition. However, a few clients have:

  • Direct integrations with Acoustic products 
  • Use Acoustic applications that integrate with other services (such as Exchange/UBX, for instance.)

FAQ

Here are some Frequently Asked Questions to help identify whether/these changes may impact your company:

Q:Does this change impact me or will Ascent360 make the changes for me?
A:Most Ascent360 clients won't be impacted at all. We're already updating Acoustic, Transact, FTP, and other credentials we manage for you behind the scenes; there's no need to take action if you're only using Ascent360’s platform, webhooks, doubleposts, etc. to connect to Acoustic.
 
Q:I am using an Acoustic product and sending or receiving data from non-Ascent360 sources. What should I do?
A:A few Ascent360 clients have direct integrations to Acoustic or are using ancillary Acoustic products like UBX to connect to external data. If that's the case, we recommend going to your developers/IT team to make sure that you make updates before the announced deprecation date for any impacted URL.
 
Q:I think my company has its own non-Ascent360 Acoustic integrations set up. Will these Acoustic URLs change immediately on April 1, or do I have time to migrate them to the new, supported URLs?
A:URLs will be deprecated over time (most by June 30th, while some will be supported through 2020 and beyond).
If you're one of the few clients with a direct Acoustic integration outside of Ascent360, please see this timetable to confirm the deadline for any updates. As always, feel free to reach out to your CSM with questions.
 

Acoustic ID and Login Experience

In addition to changes to Acoustic endpoints, Acoustic sent a couple emails recently encouraging recipients to create an Acoustic ID.

Q:The Acoustic ID email I saw mentioned using Acoustic ID for Support Portal access. Am I supposed to stop submitting my Acoustic cases through Ascent360 and use my Acoustic ID instead?
A:Nope! Ascent360 is an Acoustic partner and your CSM at Ascent360 will still be your first point of contact for any Acoustic support.
 
Q:I received a welcome email from Acoustic recently telling me I should create an Acoustic ID. Do I need to do anything with it?
A:Yes, but not immediately. Eventually, you will log into all Acoustic products via your Acoustic ID, but a timeline for those changes has not been established. If you'd like to get a head start and set up your Acoustic ID now, visit this link or see your welcome email from Acoustic.
 
Q:Is my Acoustic ID the same thing as my IBMid?
A:No. While you're welcome to use the same username and password, these are two distinct sets of credentials. To ease the transition, Acoustic has generated Acoustic IDs for any IBMid holders; a welcome email was sent this week encouraging users to activate the login Acoustic generated on their behalf.
 
Q:Is my IBMid going away? If so, will the entire login experience change on April 1?
A:Eventually, Acoustic ID will replace your IBMid. Currently, your IBMid and Acoustic Campaign logins are still needed and will continue to work in the same way they have to date. Right now, Acoustic ID is only used for Support Portal or Acoustic Community access, but we anticipate a more complete timeline from Acoustic soon.
 
Q:Can I expect more emails from Ascent360 with Acoustic updates?
A:We will keep you apprised of major updates either via email or your CSM. However, we highly recommend our clients create Acoustic IDs and check Acoustic Community and this page for immediate updates as changes are announced.