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Several Harvard College students said they have faced technical issues in the transition from Duo Mobile to Okta Verify as the authentication method for signing in to University interfaces.
Undergraduates said since the mandatory switch to Okta Verify on Sept. 30 they have found the Okta app “more difficult” to navigate, and several said they were “annoyed” by the change. Some said they needed to consult Harvard University Information Technology for support when they couldn’t gain access into school accounts.
“The switch has definitely caused a lot of problems, such as being logged out of Canvas,” Robin A. Kohler ’29 said. “I’m actually just going right now to HUIT to see what they can do for me.”
Many students said that using the system was distracting during work — especially when they hoped to be away from their phones in order to focus.
“Sometimes you want to study away from your phone,” Crimson Editorial Editor Jasmine N. Wynn ’27 said, adding that she has used her phone to complete every laptop HarvardKey login since the switch to Okta.
But HUIT spokesperson Tim J. Bailey wrote in a Wednesday email that it is possible to log in through Okta without a secondary device on hand.
Bailey pointed to Okta’s passwordless authentication options, by which students can use biometric login methods like fingerprints and face ID on devices they are already using — eliminating the need for multiple devices.
Some students with non-Apple devices faced particular challenges with using Okta.
“If you use any other operating system, it’s genuinely horrific,” Aiden S. “Dune” Alazo ’29 said. “They would have been much better off using Microsoft Authenticator or the Google Authenticator app.”
Alazo, who uses a Linux processing system, said he cannot access Okta at all from his computer.
HUIT is currently working with Okta to incorporate additional “FastPass” options for a range of systems, including Linux.
The transition from Duo to Okta comes amid two other changes to Harvard’s digital services. This year, students have shifted from Crimson Cash to new payment gateways, such as OneTapAway for laundry — which drew frustration from students — and Touchnet for printing. The University will also move thousands of Harvard OpenScholar websites to new HarvardSites platforms by November.
“In principle, Okta should be better,” Kyler C. Hoogendoorn-Ecker ’27 said.“But I find that the interface is more difficult to use than Duo and less intuitive.”
“I just sometimes wish that they would stop changing platforms so often,” he added.
Kerry M. Nguyen ’26 also found Okta to be “really inconvenient.” While he has a fingerprint scanner on his computer, he said he hasn’t figured out how to use it with Okta yet, and has to “verify multiple times” as Okta continually forgets his device. Many others interviewed also hadn’t yet found Okta’s same-device sign in or device remembering options.
Bailey wrote in his Wednesday statement students can choose a month-long “keep me signed in” option.
Some students said they were happy with or indifferent to the change of platforms. Mohib Ahmed ’28 said he uses Okta’s fingerprint scanner and found that Okta was “easily faster” than Duo.
Bailey said he encourages any students struggling to login through Okta to “contact HUIT, including visiting our on-campus support technicians based in the Science Center.”
