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Manage the Active Directory in the Service Desk

Build and maintain your Active Directory with good data.

  • Actively maintaining the Active Directory is a difficult task that only gets more difficult with issues like stale accounts and privilege creep.
  • Adding permissions without removing them in lateral transfers creates access issues, especially when regulatory requirements like HIPAA require tight controls.
  • With the importance of maintaining and granting permissions within the Active Directory, organizations are hesitant to grant domain admin access to Tier 1 of the service desk. However, inundating Tier 2 analysts with requests to grant permissions takes away project time.

Our Advice

Critical Insight

  • Do not treat the Active Directory like a black box. Strive for accurate data and be proactive by managing your monitoring and audit schedules.
  • Catch outage problems before they happen by splitting monitoring tasks between daily, weekly, and monthly routines.
  • Shift left to save resourcing by employing workflow automation or scripted authorization for Tier 1 technicians.
  • Design actionable metrics to monitor and manage your Active Directory.

Impact and Result

  • Consistent and right-sized monitoring and updating of the Active Directory is key to clean data.
  • Split monitoring activities between daily, weekly, and monthly checklists to raise efficiency.
  • If need be, shift-left strategies can be implemented for identity and access management by scripting the process so that it can be done by Tier 1 technicians.

Manage the Active Directory in the Service Desk Research & Tools

Start here – read the Executive Brief

Read our concise Executive Brief to find out why you should manage your Active Directory in the service desk, review Info-Tech’s methodology, and understand the four ways we can support you in completing this project.

Manage Active Directory in the Service Desk – Executive Brief
Manage Active Directory in the Service Desk – Phases 1-2

1. Maintain your Active Directory with clean data

Building and maintaining your Active Directory does not have to be difficult. Standardized organization and monitoring with the proper metrics help you keep your data accurate and up to date.

Active Directory Standard Operating Procedure
Active Directory Metrics Tool

2. Structure your service desk Active Directory processes

Build a comprehensive Active Directory workflow library for service desk technicians to follow.

Active Directory Process Workflows

About Info-Tech

Info-Tech Research Group is the world’s fastest-growing information technology research and advisory company, proudly serving over 30,000 IT professionals.

We produce unbiased and highly relevant research to help CIOs and IT leaders make strategic, timely, and well-informed decisions. We partner closely with IT teams to provide everything they need, from actionable tools to analyst guidance, ensuring they deliver measurable results for their organizations.

What Is a Blueprint?

A blueprint is designed to be a roadmap, containing a methodology and the tools and templates you need to solve your IT problems.

Each blueprint can be accompanied by a Guided Implementation that provides you access to our world-class analysts to help you get through the project.

Need Extra Help?
Speak With An Analyst

Get the help you need in this 2-phase advisory process. You'll receive 5 touchpoints with our researchers, all included in your membership.

Guided Implementation 1: Maintain Your Active Directory With Clean Data
  • Call 1: Scope requirements, objectives, and your specific challenges.
  • Call 2: Create organizational unit structure and policy.
  • Call 3: Build monitoring and audit checklists. Design project metrics.

Guided Implementation 2: Build Active Directory Workflows
  • Call 1: Design Active Directory workflows.
  • Call 2: Shift-left strategy.

Author

Benedict Chang

Contributors

  • 4 anonymous contributors

Related Content: Service Desk

Search Code: 96224
Last Revised: February 16, 2021

TAGS:

Service desk, AD, Active Directory, IAM, Managing access rights, access rights
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