Active Roles 7.4.1 - Administration Guide

Step 2: Configuring the membership rules

In this scenario, employees working in Seattle have user accounts with a value of Seattle for the City attribute. Those working in Atlanta have a value of Atlanta.

First, configure the membership rule for the Seattle group. Right-click the group and click Convert to Dynamic Group. In the confirmation message box, click Yes.

On the first page of the New Membership Rule wizard, click Include by Query, and then click Next.

On the second page, click Add to display the Create Membership Rules dialog box. Then, follow these steps to configure the membership rule:

1. In the Find list, click Users.
2. Click Browse and select the domain, OU, or Managed Unit that holds user accounts of the employees.
3. Click the Advanced tab.
4. Click Field, click City, and then click OK in the Select Object Property dialog box.
5. In the Condition list, click Is (exactly).
6. In the Value box, type Seattle.
7. Click Add, and then click the Add Rule button.

When you are done, click Finish in the New Membership Rule wizard.

Repeat the same procedure for the Atlanta group, but type Atlanta in the Value box when configuring the membership rule.

Active Roles Reporting

• Introduction
• Collector to prepare data for reports
• Working with reports

Introduction

The Active Roles reporting solution leverages Microsoft SQL Server Reporting Services (SSRS) as a platform for managing, generating, and viewing reports.

Through the use of SSRS, Active Roles delivers enterprise reporting functionality that combines the strengths of Web-based features and traditional reporting. The use of Reporting Services provides a way to centralize report storage and management, enable secure access to reports, control how reports are processed and distributed, and standardize how reports are used.

A comprehensive collection of report definitions, referred to as the Active Roles Report Pack, are published to the report server, a component of Reporting Services. Installing the Report Pack creates published reports that can be accessed through Web addresses (URLs), through SharePoint Web parts, or through Report Manager, a Web-based report access and management tool included with SSRS.

Opening a published report from the report server generates the report in a format suitable for viewing. This action is referred to as rendering a report. Rendering a report also occurs upon subscription, when the report is delivered to an e-mail inbox or a file share in an output format specified by the report user.

The reports that can be generated once the Active Roles Report Pack is deployed are instrumental in change tracking audits, directory data monitoring and analysis, and assessment of Active Roles security and policy configurations. The reports fall into these categories:

• Active Roles Tracking Log  Check what changes were made to directory data through the use of Active Roles, who made the changes, and when the changes were made.
• Active Directory Assessment  Examine the state of directory data, such as properties of users, groups and other directory objects, group membership lists, and contents of organizational units.
• Administrative Roles  View details on who has access to what data when using Active Roles, and what changes administrative users or groups are authorized to make.
• Managed Units  View details on the Managed Units defined in the Active Roles environment, what policies are applied to Managed Units, and what users or groups have administrative access to what Managed Units.
• Policy Objects  View details on what administrative policies are defined in the Active Roles environment, where particular policies are applied, and what policies are in effect on particular objects and containers.
• Policy Compliance  View details on what data in the directory is not compliant with Active Roles policies that are in effect, and what policy rules are violated.

Reports are built on data prepared by the Active Roles Collector. For details about the Active Roles Collector, see Collector to prepare data for reports later in this chapter.

You can generate and view reports by using Report Manager, which is part of SSRS. For instructions on how to generate and view reports, see Working with reports later in this chapter.

Collector to prepare data for reports

The Active Roles Collector allows you to collect data from computers running the Administration Service and store it in a SQL Server database, making the data available for reporting.

Data for reports is collected from the following sources:

• Active Directory  The Collector accesses Active Directory through the Administration Service. Reports built on this data provide detailed information about domains, accounts, groups, and other Active Directory objects.
• Active Roles configuration database  Reports built on this data provide detailed information about who can carry out what actions and to which directory objects using Active Roles, as well as information about the policies defined by Active Roles.
• Event log on computers running the Administration Service  Reports built on this data provide detailed information about actions performed, the success or failure of each action, and object properties that were modified using Active Roles.

The scope of data that the Collector can retrieve from Active Directory is restricted by the access rights of the user account under which the Collector performs the data collection task. Therefore, reports based on Active Directory data only include information about the objects that the Collector is permitted to access in Active Directory.

For example, suppose the Collector performs a data collection task under the user account that is not permitted to access user account properties in Active Directory. As a result, the Collector will not be able to retrieve data related to user accounts, and reports will not display any information about user accounts, including the number of user accounts.