Automate processes, ditch manual efforts.
UMRA integrates “source systems” (e.g., HR, SIS) with your downstream resources to automate your user account lifecycle processes and simplify their management.
Manual account management practices (e.g., user provisioning) can lead to delays, miscommunications, oversights, and errors. These leave employees unable to work, contribute to network pollution, and exacerbate security risks.
Automation not only streamlines the process with consistent execution, but minimizes the significant effort your IT team sinks into manual account management.
Automated Account Management & Provisioning
User account management requires significant time and effort. UMRA minimizes the hours your IT staff spends on management efforts and data entry via automation.
UMRA (User Management Resource Administrator) creates a connection between the HR system, directory services (e.g., Active Directory, LDAP, GSuite), and downstream services. This allows you to automate processes, delegate tasks, and operate more efficiently. Further, by reclaiming substantial bandwidth for IT staff, you can reprioritize them with more impactful tasks.
CRUD, Downtime, & Security
Manual user account management requires significant effort to create new accounts, update information, and deactivate them properly. This leads to downtime issues while users wait for accounts and updates. New employees are especially affected. Manual management doesn’t just slow down your IT staff, it slows down your entire operation.
Beyond hampering efficiency, manual management can lead to errors and oversights. Data entry issues make future network and user management exceedingly difficult. Oversights, such as not deactivating accounts, lead to security vulnerabilities that are easily exploited during breach attempts or by simple mistakes.
Benefits
Reclaim Bandwidth
UMRA automation reduces user creation from about 20 minutes per account to 100-300 accounts per minute. Ongoing management is just as easy.
Rapid execution
New employees are set up immediately on Day 1 and existing user accounts are always up-to-date.
Eliminate oversights & errors
Minimize the chances of network pollution and data breaches. No more “orphan accounts”, duplicates, or incorrect access rights.
Delegation & Self-Service
UMRA provides you with the ability to delegate user account management tasks and let employees handle minor updates themselves. Self-service password reset, workflow management, and helpdesk delegation more efficiently execute user account lifecycle tasks.
Electronic forms and templates, HR/SIS system integration, and UMRA’s automated user provisioning drive delegation capabilities. The forms and templates let Tier 1 IT staff execute tasks consistently, allowing Tier 2 and 3 IT staff to concentrate on the projects that require their full knowledge and skills.
Tier 1 IT staff require elevated permission levels to manage user accounts, often giving them administrator rights they would otherwise not have. Any employee with over-elevated permissions is an increased security risk.
UMRA’s forms, and interfaces allow you to still delegate user management without elevating permissions. This helps enforce the “Principle of Least Privilege”, where every employee retains exactly the access their role requires—no more, no less.
Further, self-service lets employees handle their own minor tasks, such as password resets, eliminating even more helpdesk tickets that drain IT’s bandwidth.
Benefits
Delegation
Delegate user account management tasks to Tier 1 IT staff while prioritizing Tier 2 and 3 with more sophisticated projects.
Principle of Least Privilege (PoLP) Compatible
Tier 1 staff no longer need administrator-level privileges to perform user account management, keeping your IT environment even safer from security risks.
Self-Service
Employee self-service cuts down on helpdesk tickets even further by letting users update minor account information on their own.
Role-Based Access Control
With Active Directory (AD), group memberships control all aspects of a given user’s access: authorizations, applications, file shares, and other resources. Administrators can configure the exact access authorizations and associated group memberships required for every specific role within UMRA.
Preconfiguring authorizations and group memberships by job titles and departments allows your organization to specify access according to the precise level your employees need. Access changes for a given user or group may be made by a manager or requested by the employee(s) via self-service in order to timely accommodate changes (e.g., promotions, ad hoc projects).
Role-based access controls allow your organization to specify authorizations and group memberships according to the Principle of Least Privilege (PoLP). This ensures your employees have precisely the access they need—no more, no less.
Adhering to PoLP maintains efficient operations that minimize the increased security and compliance risks resulting from too much access. Because automated processes in UMRA are scheduled and recurring, you can be confident that your users’ access is always up-to-date.
Benefits
Preconfigured Access
Role-based access controls let you ensure new and existing users maintain precise access levels according to their job function.
Adjustable Management
Easily adapt to organizational or ad hoc changes on the fly with administrators’ and managers’ ability to make updates to given user accounts. Employees may also request changes via self-service.
Centralized information leads to greater efficiency
Scheduled automations leverage UMRA’s connections to your systems and resources to ensure downstream user access remains accurate.
Security & Compliance
UMRA gives your security and compliance efforts a boost by ensuring proper access for all users as well as recording activity and updates for convenient audit trails. Security risks increase whenever users are allowed too much access (“permission bloat”) or accounts are not deactivated properly (“orphan accounts”).
Because UMRA’s processes are automated and scheduled, you can be confident that user accounts are managed properly—whether active or inactive. UMRA automatically deactivates user accounts and restricts access for departing employees. When it comes time to perform access reviews and audit preparation, the logs that record all user activity and access changes prove who did what and when.
“Permission bloat” remains an overlooked security risk in many organizations. When users accumulate too much access (e.g., over time naturally due to promotions, incorrectly assigned privileges), they increase the likelihood for compliance violations and exacerbate the fallout of breaches. Additionally, if accounts for departed users are not properly deactivated, former employees may still access your systems and data, intruders may use them as camouflage, and network pollution increases.
When it comes time to prove that your user’s access is compliant, UMRA activity logs and audit trails removes the significant manual effort needed to collect that data. You can easily perform access reviews, audit preparation, or pull reports when it comes time for the real thing—whether it’s for GDPR, SOX, HIPAA, or any other regulation.
Benefits
Automation ensures proper access at all times.
Automated and scheduled user provisioning processes maintain proper and compliant access levels based on role configurations. No more “permission bloat”.
Safe offboarding for inactive users.
When employees depart, many organizations fail to properly deactivate accounts and restrict access. UMRA eliminates these “orphan accounts” that pollute your network and exacerbate security risks.
Activity logs and audit trails
Pull reports at any time to check user activity and verify proper access, substantially assisting audit and compliance efforts.
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Support
Need help or have a question about our products? Our responsive Support Team will assist you with questions about Identity management, Access Governance, Single Sign On, Self-Service Password Reset and more.