Is it possible to use Nymi bands without custom widgets?

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We are currently exploring the integration of Nymi bands for authentication and presence detection within our Tulip platform. However, due to certain constraints, we cannot utilise custom widgets.

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You might want to reach out to your commercial contact and see if you can get some feature flags turned on temporarily.

Also, do you have the ability to import this?

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We can ask but I don’t think we can import widgets. As native integration is possible is there need for importing custom widgets?

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@jasonh did you answer Eiman’s question about whether Nymi integration is enabled natively? We have a block on using Custom Widgets currently. Is this the only way to enable Nymi?

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I think the best bet is to reach out to your Tulip account manager. You might be able to work something out?

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hey @Eirfan @jasonh @nweft01 ! I worked closely with Nymi on our technology partnership and can hopefully help to add some clarity here:

Nymi bands can perform two different key features. These features are exclusive, and do not depend on each other (regarding use in Tulip):

  1. Authentication - a Nymi band can be used as a “Security Key”/biometric authentication method for purposes of user authentication (including 21 CFR p11-compliant eSignature). When a user is prompted to authenticate to Tulip, a SAML-integrated Identity Provider (IdP) can be configured to use the Nymi band as a valid method - think like how you’d use a USB security key, username/password, or the fingerprint reader on your laptop.

Note that in this example, Nymi is interacting with the IdP directly - Tulip isn’t involved. Tulip is just requesting “an authentication” from the IdP, and the IdP handles the rest.

So, to determine compatibility, confirm if your IdP supports biometric authentication via FIDO2 security keys.

  1. Presence Detection - Nymi bands can also be used to monitor presence. Nymi makes a USB dongle that can monitor the area for bands. That dongle can communicate to other local systems on the computer via a websocket API.
    Currently in Tulip, we only support subscription to websocket APIs - especially local ones - via Custom Widgets. The Custom Widget in the library subscribes to the dongle’s websocket, and will “repeat” that dongle’s emitted messages (e.g. “band ABC has appeared nearby”) into the Tulip App for use in a Trigger.

Note that in this scenario, the presence events would simply prompt a Tulip Trigger. So, you could do normal trigger actions (like progress to a step, block progress, or log out the user) but you couldn’t do authentication as this isn’t something that you can do in Triggers anyway.

In Summary:

  • Using a Nymi band for authentication does not need a Custom Widget. Instead, it requires a SAML-integrated IdP, able & configured to perform authentication with FIDO2 security keys.
  • Using a Nymi band for presence detection does need a Custom Widget. This is because the App needs to communicate locally with Nymi’s USB dongle over their local websocket API.

Hope this helps! Let me know if you have more questions.

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@k.ober Kyle, that’s very helpful. I think our client wants to use Nymi for the authentication only at this stage so provided they can support the SAML/FIDO2 requirements this should be work. I may come back to you directly when the project kicks off. I’ll arrange through our Tulip account manager. thanks

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