Whenever users log in to TMS, a “session” is created for them to work in. This session stays active for as long as the user is actively using the system. The session will be closed when the user clicks on “Log out” to exit TMS.
Some additional security features for sessions have been incorporated in TMS in line with IT best practice (see the section “Confidentiality and security in TMS”).
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Session has expired
Every time you access TMS, the system creates a unique “session” to handle the communication of information between your browser and the TMS servers. To reduce the risk of unauthorised users accessing TMS, the system automatically closes any user sessions that have been inactive for 15 minutes.
Why is there a limit?
From a security point of view, the longer a session is left open, the higher the risk of an unauthorised party using it to gain access to the confidential information in TMS. We impose the time limit in order to guarantee a sufficiently high level of information security.
Does this mean I will be automatically logged out after 15 minutes?
No, your session will be kept open for as long as you are actively using TMS. It will only be closed if you do not use TMS for a full 15 minutes.
Will I lose my work when the system automatically logs me out?
If you are logged out while performing a task in the system, you might lose the unsaved information. We strongly recommend to always save your changes before you take a break or log out.
Continuous “Session has expired” messages
If you receive several “Session has expired” notifications while working with TMS, please also refer to “Access denied” below.
Multiple sessions
It is only possible for users to open one TMS session at a time. If a user tries to log in to TMS in more than one browser, an error message will be displayed.
Note: TMS considers a session as being open if the user has not clicked on “Log out” or if 15 minutes have not elapsed. This is the case even if the browser has been closed or the computer has been shut down. To avoid any problems, users should keep the same browser window open until they have actively completed all their planned TMS work for the day.
Locked accounts
After a certain number of login attempts, a TMS user account will be locked temporarily and the user will only be able to attempt to log in again after one minute. If you have forgotten your password, you can use the “Lost password” function to reset it (see the section “Lost password function”).
Access denied
It can happen that you receive several “Session has expired” or “Access denied” messages while working with TMS.
If this happens regularly during your work with TMS, it could indicate that the problem lies with your internet connection. We recommend using a fixed internet connection instead of Wi-Fi, such as cybercafés or public internet connections.
If the issue persists with a fixed internet connection, please contact your IT department or the person responsible in your organisation with the following text, which explains the situation:
- The TMS application has a built-in security mechanism, which saves the IP address and username of the user during login. On each subsequent request of the user to the TMS application, these values are compared with corresponding values in the request. If the IP address changes during a session, the user will be automatically logged out and you will see an “Access denied” or “Session expired” message. With this security mechanism, we ensure that no session can be taken over from another location.
- It appears that the computer logs in with a specific IP address and this IP address changes after a while. Therefore, we would ask you to check whether the IP address changes during a session for computers in your network. Please also check whether your firewall assigns different IP addresses to the computers in your network when they connect to the internet and if the computers are assigned a fresh IP address after a set time while online.