Complex username and strong password generation
You will get your custom username and password right...guaranteed
User Management Resource Administrator
has built-in routines to generate usernames
according to your company policy, and also
routines to generate random passwords. Passwords
can be generated randomly using security rules
such as a set amount of lowercase and uppercase
characters, combined with special characters
to result in strong passwords.
Usernames can be generated using parts of the
users full name, for instance first name, middle
name and last name. Whenever the username already
exists in the Active Directory, you can configure
the name generation algorithm to try adding
numbers or characters until the username no
longer results in a duplicate.
You can also switch to an alternative algorithm
to supply a completely unique username.
Best of all, you no longer need to supply the username yourself
by using scripting or programs such as Microsoft Excel to modify the input
CSV files. User Management Resource Administrator includes script
actions to export and print the generated
usernames and passwords so you can distribute them.
How does it work and what does it look like?
User Management Resource Administrator uses a name generator to generate
names used for instance when creating user accounts or setting Exchange mailboxes.
How names are generated is configured in the name generator algorithm. User
Management Resource Administrator comes with a large set of predefined name
generation algorithms, which you can easily modify and suit to your needs.
Use the Options menu in the main application to configure name generations,
after this you can select the configured algorithm in for instance the Create
user (AD) script action.
When you configure a name generation algorithm, you can setup multiple
output names and multiple generation methods per output name. Suppose you
supply a first and last name using a CSV file, then you will need names such
as sAMAccountName, UPN prefix, displayName and commonName,
to create an Active Directory user account. Essentially this means you require
a username and a fullname which
then are applied to the correct Active Directory attributes. The screenshot
below shows the output names being stored in the %username% and %fullname%.
As you can see the output name %username% has 1 method assigned to it, labelled "JFWilliams".
This label has been named to represent how the username is generated. In
the following example the username will be generated differently to demonstrate
the flexibility.
As you can see in the above screenshot, the "JFWilliams" method for the
%username% output variable uses the %LastName% and %FirstName% parts,
which must be specified as input using CSV for instance. Each name part can
have one or more formatting functions applied to it, for instance the %LastName%
part has a function assigned to it which makes all characters lower case.
The resulting username when using "John" and "Addams" as respectively first
and last name is "addamsj"
Same goes for the full name, where all name parts are used and simply added
to each other to compose the full name. The resulting username when using "John" and "Addams" as
respectively first and last name is "John Addams".
A vital aspect to name generation is duplicate handling and processing.
User Management Resource Administrator uses an "iterator" to process duplicate
names. The iterator tells the name generator what its next option is to generate
a unique name. As you can see in the above screenshot, the iterator is a
sequence of numbers, starting at 1,2,3,4,5... and so on until a unique name
is found. You can also specify an arbitrary sequence yourself. A possibility
is also to create a new method to create a username whenever a duplicate
is found. Let's assume you have the username "addamsj"
and it already exists. You could add a number, resulting in "addamsj1",
but you could also start adding more characters to the first name, making
the first try "addamsjo". This last result requires
a new method where you simply modify the formatting function to shorten the
first name from 1 character to 2 characters. The iteration can be configured
not to add numbers but jump to the next generation method.
When you have configured the name generation methods, you can return to
the main window of the algorithm and test your methods altogether. As you
can see in the above screenshot, the "default" name generation algoritm is
used with a simple iterator, which just adds numbers to the user and fullname
to make them unique.
Password generator
As with the username, you can also setup User Management Resource Administrator
to generate random passwords for new or existing user accounts. User Management
Resource Administrator comes with a large set of pre-defined password generation
schemes to satisfy most demands. Use the test button to see what the resulting
passwords are when generated. As you can see, the generated password is stored
in the %password% variable, which can be exported to a CSV file to make sure
you know what the users' passwords are.
I have some questions, can you guide me through?
Of course, we are so convinced that User Management Resource Administrator
works for your environment whatever the size, we can show you the product
and its capabilities in just 30 minutes in our own test facility for free!
