Sponsored access is a vital workflow for modern workplaces. It allows guests and visitors to self-onboard for network access while ensuring that a physical person—a sponsor—approves them first. Because guests typically lack corporate credentials and cannot be identified via Single Sign-On (SSO), sponsors act as essential intermediaries. They take accountability for approving access and ensure your network remains secure and gated.
While our legacy solution successfully facilitated this, we are excited to introduce a major update that simplifies the process for both administrators and sponsors.
The Challenge: Legacy One-Time Plans
Previously in Cloud4Wi, sponsored access was managed by letting sponsors assign a time-limited allowance using One-Time Internet Plans. Administrators had to manually create a static set of these plans, which would then appear in a dropdown menu for the host to assign during the approval process.
Because One-Time Internet Plans were originally designed for tiered or paid internet access, using them for simple guest approvals added unnecessary complexity to the workflow.
The New Solution: Flexible Expiration Timestamps
In our upcoming release, we are replacing the One-Time Plan artifact with a highly intuitive expiration timestamp.
This new approach is simpler and significantly more flexible:
Admin Control: Administrators can now easily define the maximum access duration that a host is allowed to grant a guest.
Sponsor Flexibility: On the approval screen, sponsors can quickly select from pre-defined options (e.g., "Until the end of today") or choose a custom expiration date that falls within the administrator's allowed parameters.
An Optimized Captive Portal Experience
Alongside the backend improvements, we are also enhancing the user experience within the captive portal flow.
The prompt informing users that they need sponsor approval—along with all its variants—will now appear on a dedicated screen immediately following the submission of the initial registration or login form on the homepage.
This streamlined flow not only makes the guest experience much smoother, but it also allows us to seamlessly handle advanced routing features. For example, the system can now intelligently bypass the sponsorship requirement entirely for specific users based on an email domain match.
⚠️ Important Deployment & Migration Notice
Action Required for Existing Accounts Please be aware that this upcoming change will be deployed to all existing accounts. To help with the transition, the maximum allowance that hosts can grant will be automatically configured based on your current One-Time Internet Plan that has the longest allowance.
Critical Requirement: This new feature works only on the official Cloud4Wi RADIUS Server. If you have not yet migrated your account to the new RADIUS server, the sponsored access flow will break and stop working once this update goes live.
We strongly urge you to proceed with the upgrade immediately to prevent any service disruption. Please reach out to our Support and Customer Success teams—we are here and ready to assist you with a smooth migration!