Configuring IRB Exchange Accounts

This page explains how to configure accounts in Huron IRB or another Huron Portal store to connect to the IRB Exchange. It also explains how to test your store's access to the IRB Exchange.

Understanding Configuration of Multiple Endpoints and Accounts

As mentioned previously, the IRB Exchange provides two separate sites, or endpoints—one that your store can connect to for testing purposes and another for production. The IRB Exchange configuration UI is designed to make it easy to change the active endpoint for your entire store (for example, to switch from connecting to the IRB Exchange production endpoint to the IRB Exchange test endpoint on your staging store after you restore your production store to staging).

Typically, you will have at least one pair of IRB Exchange accounts that are intended to serve the same organization but connect to different endpoints. When you configure an account on your store, you will provide an account name, the account ID, the IRB Exchange endpoint it corresponds to, and the matching certificate thumbprint. When you configure the active endpoint for your store, only the accounts configured for that endpoint will be active.

Recommendations:

Because data is often transferred between Huron Portal stores by patch or by backup and restoration, Huron recommends configuring your store with all of your IRB Exchange accounts, even those intended for use from another store. Then you can transfer the account information to your other stores without configuring it again, and you can easily set the appropriate active endpoint for each store.
For Huron IRB stores, Huron recommends naming your IRB Exchange account pairs with identical names. In a later step, you will configure your IRB offices with the IRB Exchange accounts that correspond to them. With identical names for test/production account pairs, switching the store's active endpoint enables the IRB office to seamlessly switch to using the identically named IRB Exchange account that is configured for the new endpoint.
For Huron IRB stores, ideally the account name will match or closely correspond to the name of the IRB office to which the account applies. This makes it easier to choose the correct accounts when you are configuring your IRB offices with the corresponding IRB Exchange accounts.

Prerequisites

Huron IRB Exchange Client Libraries patch installed
Site Manager user role assigned (or IRB Exchange Administrator user role if IRB or IRB Exchange Client Libraries versions are below 9.1.0)

For instructions regarding the prerequisites, see Installing the IRB Exchange Client Libraries Patch.

Setting Up IRB Exchange Accounts

Sign in to your Huron Portal store as an account with Site Manager privileges (or IRB Exchange Administrator if IRB or IRB Exchange Client Libraries versions are below 9.1.0).
The next step depends on your privileges:
- If you have Site Manager privileges, perform these steps:
  1. Click Site Administration and then the Site Options tab.
  2. Under Site Management, click the IRB Exchange Center link.
- If you do not have Site Manager privileges, browse to the page by adding this suffix to your store's base URL: Applications/IRBExchange/IrbExchangeCenter
  
  For example, if your store is accessible at https://myserver.domain.edu/irbstore, enter: https://myserver.domain.edu/irbstore/Applications/IRBExchange/IrbExchangeCenter
  
  The IRB Exchange Center Administration screen is displayed.
Click the New button. The IRB Exchange Properties dialog box opens.
For Account Name, enter a name that describes the account, e.g., GFU Main Campus, GFU School of Medicine.

Tip: For Huron IRB stores that have separate IRB Exchange accounts for separate IRB offices, we recommend naming your accounts to correspond closely with your IRB office names. This will make it easier when you connect them to your IRB offices in a later step.
For the Endpoint, select the appropriate IRB Exchange site to connect to with this account. The IRB Exchange test and production sites are pre-populated in the Endpoints tab.
For the Exchange Account ID, enter the account ID you received from Huron in response to your request for accounts.
For the Certificate Thumbprint, enter the value that was supplied by Huron or extracted during the certificate installation process.
For the Request Timeout, leave it blank to use the default value of 90 seconds. This is the time in seconds the store will wait for a request/response cycle during communication.
Click OK to save your configuration.
Click New again and setup the corresponding account for the other endpoint. Make sure that the Account Name field is correct and matches.
Repeat the above steps until all the needed accounts pairs have been created.

Testing Your Accounts

In this step, you'll check each account's access to the IRB Exchange. There are three levels of access that will be tested:

Connectivity. Tests anonymous access to the IRB Exchange to ensure that the endpoint is available
Single IRB. Tests your account's ability to act as a sIRB (single IRB of record), which may only be applicable to a small subset of accounts
Authentication. Tests your account's ability to act as a participating site to exchange encrypted data, which all accounts with valid credentials should pass

Note: Any account that is intended for another store and does not have the corresponding certificate installed on this store fails the Single IRB and Authentication tests.

To test each account from the IRB Exchange Center Administration screen:

Next to the account to test, click the Test button on the far right. The results appear next to the Test button.
Interpret the results, as follows:
- A fully successful test displays "passed" for all three access levels.
- If an account fails the authentication test, the single IRB test is not performed.
- Any account that is not specifically enabled to be a single IRB of record fails the single IRB test.

Selecting the Default Account

Once you have your accounts configured, you'll want to select one as the default account. The default account will be used if a certain Exchange-related action is not tied to a specific account. For example, in Huron IRB, you will later configure each IRB office that will use the Exchange with its own Exchange account, so submissions related to that IRB office have a specific context for choosing an account. On the other hand, Huron IRB requires you to link institutional profiles (IPs) to those organizations' Exchange accounts. Since IPs can be used in any context outside of an IRB office, the default account is used to look up the Exchange accounts when matching the organizations.

From the Default IRB Exchange account for store menu, select the default account.

Upon selection, the default account is set and a message is temporarily displayed indicating that the setting has been updated.

Selecting the Active Endpoint

Finally, you'll select the active endpoint. This setting determines the API your store will use to communicate with the IRB exchange for all its actions. Selection of the active endpoint makes it easy to configure your entire store to match the purpose of the store (for example, your staging store should be set to use the Test endpoint, and your production store should be set to use the Production endpoint.).

From the Select which endpoint this store... menu, select the endpoint appropriate for your store.

Upon selection, the active endpoint is set and a message is temporarily displyed indicating that the setting has been updated.

Once you have completed these steps, the Portal store is fully configured to communicate with the IRB Exchange.

Next Steps

For a Huron IRB store, the next step is to complete your IRB office configuration, as described in Configuring Your IRB Offices to Use IRB Exchange.

For other Huron Portal stores, you have completed the getting started steps to enable your store to communicate with the IRB Exchange. Next, you'll need to integrate your site with the IRB Exchange, as explained in the Huron Portal Tutorials.