You arrive at your office at 8:00 AM, only to be greeted with over 200 emails in your inbox with the subject Certification Required for User X. Sound familiar? This might be a sign you need to improve your user certification process.

As a manager, this is a scenario that you might face if user certification is not properly implemented.

User certification is something that many companies fall behind on for many reasons. Regardless of the reason, it’s still common to see certification reports with users that don’t even work in the company anymore. Yep, those users really need to go.

That’s where a well-implemented User Attestation or Employee Certification comes in. This is one of the first (and most important) certifications in an Identity implementation. Basically, the Identity System should help each manager accurately determine what access or entitlements their direct reports currently require. Without a quality process like this, unknown numbers of users that have left the company, gone on a leave of absence, etc. remain in the databases causing security violations and unforeseen costs.

Don’t know where to get started? Here are some common questions to help you form a certification process:

• What actions does the system execute for approving or denying certification?
• Do I need to email the manager?
• Do they want a reminder?
• What should we do if the user doesn’t have a manager?
• Do we require notification or integration with third-party systems?
• Is there an automatic approval step?

For medium to large companies, there may be additional considerations based on the way the certification is released to production.

• Should we pilot the user certification process with a small group?
• Should we certify the entire user-base?
• Should we run certification on Regions, Domains, or Containers?

Remember, a typical user certification validates that the user still require the access they were granted. Good design on the User Certification process saves time and reduces complaints from users (usually managers and directors), all while increasing their confidence in the tool.

Dell One Identity Manager provides a high quality User Certification process out-of-the-box that is easily customized so that your company can start running quality certifications in no time.

Do you have IAM questions or problems? Not enough time or resources to create a solution? We’d love to hear from you and start on your custom IAM solution today. There’s several different ways to get in touch with us, so pick your favorite and let’s start solving problems today.