Employee Self-Service

Active Directory is the centerpiece of your organization's IT infrastructure. As additional applications seek to leverage your AD not only for authentication purposes but also as the primary source for information about your company's users, the accuracy of this information becomes increasingly important. How is your organization managing this information now? Chances are, most employees don't bother checking the accuracy of their contact information on a regular basis and even if they do, they don't know how to go about getting it changed. When a change is requested, it's likely entered into a ticketing system and eventually handled by a member of the helpdesk. Maintaining accurate location and contact information in Active Directory can be a full-time job which turns your valuable IT staff members into data entry clerks. Within a larger distributed environment, having a centralized location which employees can rely on to provide correct contact information is imperative. Tools4ever's new Employee Self Service Portal is an implementation of its' powerful AD management framework, User Management Resource Administrator (UMRA). The ESSP is a set of .asp pages which allow you to securely empower your end-users to manage their own contact information in Active Directory. The standard, out-of-the-box implementation of the portal allows end-users to edit basic contact attributes such as phone number and location information but it can easily be expanded to include virtually any attribute in AD. Furthermore, through the power of UMRA, additional functionality can be quickly added to the portal. Some common examples include scheduled email alerting which can be automatically sent to your users, shows them their contact information and directs them to the portal for changes. Other clients of ours prefer to utilize a workflow-based approval processes which require management approval prior to changes being committed to Active Directory. Tools4ever is focused on improving the account management functions of your organization and delivering intuitive solutions to create a streamlined end-user experience. For more information about the Employee Self Service Portal please visit us at www.tools4ever.com or contact me directly!

Group Management Made Easy!

IT professionals in today's economy are stretched thin. System improvement projects, ongoing maintenance and new initiatives are time-consuming enough without the added burden of basic group management tasks saddled on. In many organizations a manager or department head will complete a paper security control form or send an email to the IT department to request a change to their group's membership. This process can be delayed if the Administrator is unavailable or can cause organizational inefficiencies if the Admin is pulled off of a mission critical project to handle these mundane requests. Why not delegate these tedious group management tasks to the managers of the groups themselves? This would put group management squarely where it belongs inside the organization, with the actual owners of the groups. IT has been the de facto group management authority not because they're the ones who are most qualified to determine who belongs in which group but because Active Directory does not offer the means to securely allow end-users to organize group memberships and AD attributes. This creates a vacuum that can be filled by a product from Tools4ever called User Management Resource Administrator (UMRA). UMRA can quickly snap in to your company essentially creating a digital representation of your organization's pen & paper processes. UMRA allows you to deploy a web-based group management portal to your managers to securely delegate this functionality. Want extra security? Build a workflow approval process so that a member of the helpdesk has to sign off on all change requests submitted by management prior to having them committed to Active Directory. UMRA is a pliable platform and as such can be customized to deliver these functions to your organization's exact specifications. This robust application will allow you to leverage Active Directory as the powerful group and user management system it should be! Have some questions about how UMRA can help streamline your company's group management processes? Please visit us on the web at www.tools4ever.com or send me an email!

Cutting costs through self service!

Now more than ever organizations are looking to leverage high-tech solutions to cut costs while at the same time boosting employee productivity; doing more with less. This blog seeks to explore the idea that with exceptional software and thorough planning, your organization can streamline your business processes, boost employee productivity and increase your network security.

Let's start with the must common problem facing helpdesk techs and system administrators: password resets. With new compliance and security legislature passed over the last decade many companies are faced with the challenge of making end-users choose new, more complex passwords. Complex passwords require end users to select from a mixed bag of alphanumerics and symbols in order to comply with these new organizational policies. These lengthy passwords typically do not have much meaning to the end user and therefore are easily forgotten. The end-user is now left without access to the systems they need in order to be productive. They, in turn, must contact a helpdesk technician in order to reset their password and re-gain access to the system. At first glance this may not seem like much of an issue but what happens if we look closer at this chain of events? The end-user is unable to quickly login to their systems to begin work and is forced to contact the helpdesk. How much time does this process take? How many times does this exact situation occur? The end-user isn't the only one who is out time; the helpdesk technician is also losing time tending to these mundane and redundant issues rather than working on high priority projects. Strong password complexity requirements can also have the unintended consequence of decreasing security. Users are more likely to jot down their complex passwords on notes kept close at hand under the mousepad or a sticky on the monitor. It's clear that there are several costly consequences. Tools4ever, Inc. has solved this problem.
Self Service Reset Password Management (SSRPM) is a simple and secure solution which allows your end users to reset their network passwords without having to contact the helpdesk. The way it accomplishes this is by first requiring your end-users to enroll in the solution; this entails answering a specified number of security questions. The number and types of questions is configurable so as to adhere to your organization's security policies. Once the user is enrolled, if their password is forgetten, they can reset their passwords by choosing "Forgot my password" from the Windows login screen or Web interface and answer a randomly selected subset of the security questions. If these are answered correctly, the user will be prompted to enter a new password. SSRPM will NEVER accept a password which falls outside of the domain's password policy. You can learn more about Self Service Reset Password Management (SSRPM) by visiting the Tools4ever website or by contacting me directly.