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Active Roles 8.1.4 - Administration Guide

Introduction Getting started with Active Roles Configuring rule-based administrative views Configuring role-based administration Rule-based autoprovisioning and deprovisioning
Provisioning Policy Objects Deprovisioning Policy Objects How Policy Objects work Policy Object management tasks Policy configuration tasks
Property Generation and Validation User Logon Name Generation Group Membership AutoProvisioning Exchange Mailbox AutoProvisioning AutoProvisioning in SaaS products OneDrive Provisioning Home Folder AutoProvisioning Script Execution Microsoft 365 and Azure Tenant Selection E-mail Alias Generation User Account Deprovisioning Office 365 Licenses Retention Group Membership Removal Exchange Mailbox Deprovisioning Home Folder Deprovisioning User Account Relocation User Account Permanent Deletion Group Object Deprovisioning Group Object Relocation Group Object Permanent Deletion Notification Distribution Report Distribution
Deployment considerations Checking for policy compliance Deprovisioning users or groups Restoring deprovisioned users or groups Container Deletion Prevention policy Picture management rules Policy extensions
Using rule-based and role-based tools for granular administration Workflows
Key workflow features and definitions About workflow processes Workflow processing overview Workflow activities overview Configuring a workflow
Creating a workflow definition for a workflow Configuring workflow start conditions Configuring workflow parameters Adding activities to a workflow Configuring an Approval activity Configuring a Notification activity Configuring a Script activity Configuring an If-Else activity Configuring a Stop/Break activity Configuring an Add Report Section activity Configuring a Search activity Configuring CRUD activities Configuring a Save Object Properties activity Configuring a Modify Requested Changes activity Enabling or disabling an activity Enabling or disabling a workflow Using the initialization script
Approval workflow Email-based approval Automation workflow Activity extensions
Temporal Group Memberships Group Family Dynamic groups Active Roles Reporting Management History Entitlement profile Recycle Bin AD LDS data management One Identity Starling Join and configuration through Active Roles Managing One Identity Starling Connect Configuring linked mailboxes with Exchange Resource Forest Management Configuring remote mailboxes for on-premises users Migrating Active Roles configuration with the Configuration Transfer Wizard Managing Skype for Business Server with Active Roles
About Skype for Business Server User Management Active Directory topologies supported by Skype for Business Server User Management User Management policy for Skype for Business Server User Management Master Account Management policy for Skype for Business Server User Management Access Templates for Skype for Business Server Configuring the Skype for Business Server User Management feature Managing Skype for Business Server users
Exchanging provisioning information with Active Roles SPML Provider Monitoring Active Roles with Management Pack for SCOM Configuring Active Roles for AWS Managed Microsoft AD Azure AD, Microsoft 365, and Exchange Online Management
Configuring Active Roles to manage Hybrid AD objects Unified provisioning policy for Azure M365 Tenant Selection, Microsoft 365 License Selection, Microsoft 365 Roles Selection, and OneDrive provisioning Changes to Active Roles policies for cloud-only Azure objects
Managing the configuration of Active Roles
Connecting to the Administration Service Managed domains Using unmanaged domains Evaluating product usage Creating and using virtual attributes Examining client sessions Monitoring performance Customizing the Console Using Configuration Center Changing the Active Roles Admin account Enabling or disabling diagnostic logs Active Roles Log Viewer
SQL Server replication Using regular expressions Administrative Template Configuring federated authentication Communication ports Active Roles and supported Azure environments Integrating Active Roles with other products and services Active Roles Language Pack Active Roles Diagnostic Tools Active Roles Add-on Manager

Policy Objects

  • Linked Property Validation Settings: Lists object properties that are under the control of any Property Generation and Validation policy defined in Active Roles. For each property, lists the object classes possessing that property, identifies the Policy Objects that affect the property, the container to which the Policy Object is linked, and the policy conditions. The report only includes containers to which Policy Objects are linked directly, without considering policy inheritance. You can filter the list of properties by various parameters (such as property name, object class name, container name, and Policy Object name).

  • Linked Property Validation Settings (with inheritance): Lists objects, along with their properties, that are under the control of any Property Generation and Validation policy defined in Active Roles. An object included in this report may have a Policy Object linked to the object itself (direct policy) or to a container that holds the object (inherited policy). The report groups the list of objects by property. For each property, the report lists the objects possessing that property, identifies the Policy Objects and policy conditions that affect each of the listed objects, and indicates whether this is a direct or inherited policy. You can filter the list of objects and object properties by various parameters, such as property name, object name and type, and Policy Object name.

  • Linked Script Settings (with inheritance): Lists objects that are under the control of any script-based (Script Execution) policy defined in Active Roles. An object included in this report may have a Policy Object linked to the object itself (direct policy effect), or to a container that holds the object (inherited policy effect). The report identifies the script-based Policy Objects that affect each of the listed objects, along with the origin of the policy effect (direct or inherited). You can filter the list of objects by various parameters (such as object name, object class name, and Policy Object name).

  • Policy Object references: Lists Active Roles Policy Objects that are applied (linked) to any container or Managed Unit. For each Policy Object, identifies its name, description and category (provisioning or deprovisioning), and lists the container to which the Policy Object is linked. You can filter the list by Policy Object name, container or Managed Unit name, and Policy Object category.

  • Policy Object Settings: Lists Active Roles Policy Objects, together with their policy entries. For each Policy Object, provides detailed information about all policies defined in the Policy Object. You can filter the list by Policy Object name, policy type, and policy entry name.

  • Policy Object summary: Lists Active Roles Policy Objects, together with the following information for each Policy Object: name, type (provisioning or deprovisioning), the number of directory objects to which the Policy Object is linked (reference number), the total number of individual policies defined in the Policy Object (entry number), and the number of policies of each particular type defined in the Policy Object.

  • Policy Objects with Securable Objects: Lists Active Roles Policy Objects, together with the directory objects that are affected by each Policy Object. A directory object included in this report may have a Policy Object linked to the object itself (direct policy effect), or to a container that holds the object (inherited policy effect). For each directory object that is affected by a given Policy Object, the report identifies the object’s canonical name, type, and description. Also, it indicates whether the policy effect is direct or inherited. You can filter the list by Policy Object name, policy type, and by directory object name and type.

  • Securable Objects (with inheritance): Lists directory objects that are affected by Active Roles Policy Objects. For each directory object, identifies the Policy Objects that are linked to the directory object itself (direct policy effect), or to a container that holds the directory object (inherited policy effect). For each Policy Object that affects a given directory object, the report lists the Policy Object’s name, path, description, and policy entries. Also, it indicates whether the policy effect is direct or inherited. You can filter the list by directory object name and type, Policy Object name and type, and by policy entry name.

Policy Compliance

  • Objects violating Policy Rules: Lists directory objects and their properties that are not in compliance with policies determined by Active Roles Policy Objects. For each directory object, identifies the object’s name, parent container, type and description, and indicates what properties violate policy rules and what Policy Objects define the policy rules that are violated.

  • Violated Policy Rules: Lists Active Roles Policy Objects that have policy rules violated by certain directory objects. For each Policy Object, identifies the policies defined in that Policy Object, and, for every single policy, provides information about directory objects and their properties which are not in compliance with that policy.

Management History

The Management History feature provides information on who did what and when it was done with regard to the Active Directory management tasks performed using Active Roles.

This feature gives you a clear log documenting the changes that have been made to a given object, such as a user or group object. The log includes entries detailing actions performed, success or failure of the actions, as well as which attributes were changed.

By using the Management History feature, you can examine:

  • Change History: Information on changes that were made to directory data via Active Roles.

  • User Activity: Information on management actions that were performed by a given user.

IMPORTANT:

  • The reports produced by the Change History or User Activity command include information only about the changes that were made using a certain group of Administration Service (specifically the instances that share a common database). As the Active Roles Console and the Web Interface automatically select the Service to connect to, you may encounter different reports for the same target object or user account during different connection sessions.

  • Active Roles uses the Management History storage to hold approval, temporal group membership, and deprovisioning tasks. Without synchronizing information between Management History storages, such a task created by one of the Administration Service instances may not be present on other Administration Service instances. As a result, behavior of the Active Roles Console or Web Interface varies depending on the chosen Administration Service.

Both Change History and User Activity use the same source of information—the Management History log, also referred to as the Change Tracking log. The configuration settings of the Change Tracking log are discussed in Management History configuration.

Active Roles also includes reports to examine Management History by collecting and analyzing event log records. For more information, see Active Roles Reporting. However, the process of retrieving and consolidating records from the event log may be time-consuming and inefficient.

Management History considerations and best practices

The Management History feature is designed to help promptly investigate what changes were recently made to directory data, as well as when it was done and by whom. As such, this feature is not intended for data change auditing nor is it intended to explore large volumes of data changes that occurred during a long period of time. For this reason, in addition to the Management History feature, Active Roles provides a suite of reports for change tracking and auditing, which is part of the Active Roles Report Pack. Each of these options: Management History and Report Pack, has its own advantages and limitations. Follow the recommendations in this section to choose the one that best suits your needs.

You can use the Management History feature to examine changes that were made to directory data via Active Roles. The feature is designed to help you answer the following typical questions:

  • Who made the most recent changes to a given user or group object?

  • Who modified a given user or group object during the last X days?

  • What changes were made to a given user object last night (yesterday, the day before)?

  • Have any planned modifications of a given user or group object actually been performed?

  • What objects did a given delegated administrator modify during the last X days?

You can instantly access Management History whenever you need to quickly investigate or troubleshoot a problem that results from inappropriate modifications of directory data.

Management History includes a dedicated repository to store information about data changes, referred to as the Change Tracking log, and GUI to retrieve and display information from that repository. No additional actions, such as collecting or consolidating information, are required to build Management History results.

However, the advantages of the Management History feature also entail some limitations. Before you use the Management History feature, consider the following recommended best practices and limitations of using this feature.

The main factor to consider is the size of the Change Tracking log. To ensure real-time update of the log on all Administration Service, the log is normally stored in the Active Roles configuration database. This imposes some limitations on the log size.

By default, the Change Tracking log is configured to store information about changes that occurred within last 30 days. If you increase this setting, do it carefully; otherwise, you may encounter the following problems:

  • Excessive increase in the log size significantly increases the time required to build and display Change History and User Activity results.

  • As the log size grows, so does the size of the configuration database. This considerably increases the time required to back up and restore the database, and causes high network traffic replicating the database when you join an additional Administration Service to Active Roles replication.

  • The GUI is not suitable to represent large volumes of Management History results in a manageable fashion. Since there is no filtering or paging capabilities, it may be difficult to sort through the results.

To address these limitations, Active Roles gives you a different means for change auditing, change-tracking reports, included with the Active Roles Report Pack. These reports are designed to help answer the following questions:

  • What management tasks were performed on a given object within a certain period of time?

  • What management tasks were performed on a given object during the object’s entire life time?

  • When was a certain attribute of a given object modified?

Change-tracking reports are based on data collected from event logs. A separate log is stored on each computer running the Administration Service, and each log only contains events generated by one Administration Service. Therefore, to use reports, the events from all event logs need to be consolidated to form a complete audit trail.

The process of consolidating events, referred to as the data collection process, is performed by a separate Active Roles component—Collector. With the Collector wizard, you can configure and execute data collection jobs, and schedule them to run on a regular basis.

The main limitation of change-tracking reports is the fact that the information needs to be collected and consolidated in a separate database before you can build the reports. The data collection process exhibits the following disadvantages:

  • Collecting data may be a very lengthy operation and the database size may grow unacceptable when collecting all events that occurred within a long period of time in a large environment.

  • Collecting data is impossible over slow WAN links. This limitation is inherent to the Active Roles component intended to collect data for reporting.

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