Account recovery
What happens when someone loses the phone with their authenticator app, how Owners and Admins approve a reset safely, and how an organisation gets a new Owner when its Owner has gone.
Agoo is in early access. This page describes the feature as it ships to early-access organisations; screens are illustrative.
Two-step verification keeps your organisation safe because a password alone isn't enough. That also means losing your phone can lock you out. Agoo's account recovery gets the right person back in without making it easy for anyone else: it checks your email, then asks someone who knows you, and it always tells you what's happening.
Urgency is never proof
The most common way attackers take over accounts is a convincing, urgent request to a help desk. So every step here checks something an attacker is unlikely to have, and nothing is handed over in a hurry. Agoo will never ask for your password or a two-step code.
Lost your authenticator?
If the phone with your authenticator app is lost, broken or reset, and you don't have a spare authenticator:
Ask from the sign-in page
Sign in with your password or an email code as usual. When Agoo asks for your six-digit code, choose Lost your phone?, then Email me a link.
Confirm it's you
Open the link we email to your sign-in address (on any device), and choose Yes, it's me. The link works once, for an hour. If you didn't ask for it, ignore the email: nothing changes, but someone knows your password, so change it.
Someone who knows you approves
An Owner or Admin of your organisation, at least as senior as you, is asked to approve. They'll check it's really you: in person, on a video call where they can see you, or by calling a number they already have for you. As soon as they approve, you can finish.
If nobody can approve (you're the Owner, or your organisation leaves resets to Agoo), Agoo checks your identity itself, by video call against photo ID or by calling a number already on record. After that, the reset waits 24 hours for your safety.
Finish and add your new phone
Back on the sign-in page, choose Finish the reset. Every authenticator on your account is removed, you're signed out everywhere else, and you set up your new phone straight away.
You're emailed at each step. The approval email has a stop link: if you didn't ask for any of this, use it, change your password and call us on +233 30 398 3393. Found your phone in the meantime? Choose I've found my phone: withdraw this, or withdraw it from Account → Sign-in and security.
You can ask three times in 30 days. After that, write to agoo@ardentafrica.com from your sign-in address.
Approving a colleague's reset (Owners and Admins)
When someone in your organisation asks for a reset, every Owner and Admin who may approve it is emailed and sees it at the top of the Console and in the bell.
- Check it's really them. In person, on a video call where you can see them, or by calling a number you already had for them. Never approve because of an email or a message alone, however urgent it sounds: whoever asked knows their password.
- Open Settings → Security → Lost authenticators and account recovery and choose Approve. Say how you checked. Or Decline, with a reason they'll read.
You can approve a reset for anyone who is no more senior than you in your organisation: an Admin can't approve an Owner's reset, for example. If they belong to several organisations, the most senior role they hold anywhere counts. Resets of Agoo's own staff are never approved by an organisation.
Leave resets to Agoo
If your organisation would rather no colleague can approve resets, turn off Owners and Admins can approve a colleague's reset in Settings → Security. Agoo then checks the person's identity itself, and every reset waits 24 hours.
When the Owner has gone: Owner handover
Each organisation has one Owner, and only the Owner can transfer ownership. If the Owner has left, died, can't be reached or has lost access to their sign-in email, contact Agoo. We'll ask for evidence (for example, a letter on your organisation's letterhead signed by its directors) and check the request through a phone number or email address we already hold.
Then Agoo's platform owner starts an Owner handover:
- It waits 72 hours. The current Owner and every Admin are emailed straight away, with a link to stop it, and see it at the top of the Console. Any of them can stop it there or in Settings → Security.
- Then it completes. The member you chose becomes the Owner, or someone new is invited by email as the Owner. The previous Owner becomes an Admin or loses their sign-in, as agreed. Everyone is emailed again.
- It's all recorded in your audit trail, under Agoo support, with the reason.
Agoo never makes someone the Owner any other way, and never in a hurry. Emergency access can fix urgent problems in the meantime, but it never hands anyone control.
See every recovery
Owners and Admins see two-step resets of their people (the last 30 days) and Owner handovers (the last 180 days) in Settings → Security. Every step is in your audit trail, under Account recovery.