Please see the user and technical information below to access Northern Natural Gas' Throughput Management System (TMS) for nominations and scheduling activity.
Application support and technical information regarding web access for Northern’s other business applications including Flowing Gas, Contract Management System (CMS), Capacity Release System (CRS), and invoicing information is also noted below.
If you have any questions regarding the information below, please contact Customer Service at
(402) 960-7947 or (402) 960-7948.
User Information
Acquiring a user ID for Northern's business applications
New customers requesting access to Northern’s business applications (TMS, Flowing Gas, Invoicing, Contracts, Capacity Release and ODI) must complete and submit the Customer Activities Sign up Form. This form should also be used for any access viewing changes or deletions to the systems.
User information for Northern's business applications
Helpful tips and user information regarding Northern’s business applications is located under the Support tab on Northern's website.
Browser User Information
Northern follows guidelines for internet browsers per the North American Energy Standards Board (NAESB) Wholesale Gas Quadrant (WGQ) standards. On Northern’s Informational Postings and Customer Activities websites, the following browsers and their Generally Available (GA) version within the previous 9 months are supported:
If you have questions concerning supported browser versions, please contact your customer service representative.
Security
The information below is a brief description of Northern's applications' security components.
Transport Layer Security (TLS)
TLS is a widely adopted security protocol designed to facilitate privacy and data security for communications over the Internet. A primary use case of TLS is encrypting the communication between web applications and servers, such as web browsers loading a website.
Authentication
User authentication is required to gain access to Northern’s production applications. Strong password-complexity policies are implemented for increased customer protection. Transmission of both user IDs and passwords occurs over the secure and encrypted TLS connection.
Firewall
A firewall is a system designed to prevent unauthorized access to a private network or to restrict certain types of traffic from being sent via the Internet into a secure area.
All messages entering or leaving the Intranet pass through the firewall, which examines each message and blocks those that do not meet the specified security criteria. Several layers of security are incorporated in the access of Northern's systems over the Internet:
- TLS - security during external customer's communication with Northern's systems
- User authentication with a strong password
- Limited access through firewall technologies
- Windows security
In summary, access to Northern applications over the Web utilizes several levels of security. In view of these considerations, Northern's applications should be considered a secure method for conducting gas pipeline transportation business over the Internet.
Technical Characteristics and Guidelines for Northern’s Customer Activities and Informational Postings Websites
Browser
The latest Generally Available (GA) versions of both Google Chrome® and Microsoft Edge® within 9 months of such GA version becoming available, characteristics including:
- Cookies
- Frames & Nested Frames
- HTML
- JavaScript
- Style Sheets
- Tables & Nested Tables
Users may continue to browse with Microsoft Internet Explorer® and Mozilla FireFox® Extended Support Release for those Customer Activities websites compatible with these browsers.
Plug-ins (GA versions within 9 months of such GA versions becoming available):
- Adobe Acrobat Reader® or equivalent PDF Reader
- Independent Computer Architecture (ICA®) – Protocol used for remote control access to an application
Operating Systems
Operating systems on a client workstation should be multithreaded, pre-emptive (for example Windows® 10) and the latest, stable version and service pack available as allowed in NAESB WGQ QEDM Appendix B.
Hardware
- CPU 2 GHz
- Connection Broadband
- Display Resolution 1024x1024 , 16K colors
- Memory 4 GB Physical
Security
The latest GA version of Transport Layer Security (TLS), using a minimum 128-bit RSA Encryption, within 9 months of such GA version being supported by major development platforms:
- TLS (RFC 7919 and RFC 8446)
- HTTP Basic Authentication (RFC 7617)