Automatic handling of helpdesk tickets related to users and access rights

Many organizations today already have web forms in place to handle requests for user accounts, access rights or other resources. Typically a manager can use such web forms from their intranet to announce the arrival or departure of an employee. They can request an account, mailbox, shares, groups or application rights. At the end of the form or workflow, a ticket arrives at the helpdesk who will then create the account and resources or request that this be done by the system administrators.

This time consuming and error prone work is directly entered in Active Directory or on other systems, and what’s more, it involves entering the same data as already exists in the help desk ticket.
Although UMRA has its own work flow management systems and the option to create web forms, we recently found a way to deploy UMRA in an existing situation. In the example of a financial institution, we configured UMRA to automatically process all the new tickets related to users, and their rights and resources.

The advantages:
• A short implementation time of 2 days to automatically process all tickets related to users and access rights;
• Saves a lot of time for the system administrators;
• Guarantees that all the standards are respected;
• Eliminates manually keying in the same information twice with possible errors;
• Possible to process the request in different systems (Active Directory, Mail system, databases and applications).

Using this methodology, all the available information from the request is utilized in the optimal way.

A potential disadvantage of this situation lies in the fact that web forms that are managed within the company’s intranet are often not dynamic, creating a ‘static’ ticket. The configuration data such as departments, OU’s or groups in the Active Directory, and relationship between an employee and his manager, have to be managed separately and often manually. By utilizing UMRA forms, which are fully dynamic, and able retrieve information real time from the Active Directory or the HR system, the data can be used to create the appropriate drop down lists, eliminating another potential for errors and manual entry.

To learn more about this application of Identity Management and many others, please visit our website; Tools4ever, Inc.