We recently wrote about delegated administration, a powerful Identity and Access Management (IAM) system feature and how it gives organizations the ability to assign control of of activities directly to business managers and system owners, as well as some common use case scenarios.

In part 1 of our delegated administration blog series, we discussed how delegation is an Identity and Access Management (IAM) system feature that gives authorized individuals or groups of users the ability to view another user’s data and take some form of action on that user's account.

One of the most powerful features of any modern Identity and Access Management (IAM) system is delegated administration and management of users. With delegated administration, organizations can reassign control of identity management activities, such new account creation, role and group assignment, and access requests from the IT team to non-IT employees, such as business managers.

No single access methodology can effectively manage every access use case across an organization. While Role-Based and Attribute-Based Access Controls (RBAC and ABAC) can cover the majority of a given user’s access needs, neither method is ideally suited for every use case; there will always be exceptions.

As the number of employees, vendors, contractors, and departments within an organization grows, so too does the complexity associated with managing access to a growing number of applications and systems.

System administrators commonly manage this complexity by preemptively creating more roles for exceptions and edge use cases. And organizations with more limited or older legacy Identity and Access Management (IAM) systems often have no choice but to handle new access requests by assigning new roles to a user.

Data is found at every point in the process and just about everything inside of the IAM systems relies on that data. While we might sound like a broken record, the better shape your data is in, the more successful (and easier, faster, cheaper, and less painful) your IAM implementation and ongoing operations will be.

Identity and Access Management (IAM) systems provide organizations with dynamic, wide-ranging methods for controlling access to their applications, systems, and proprietary resources. Role-Based and Attribute-Based Access Controls (RBAC and ABAC) are two of the most widely known and used methods.

In part one of our series on data, we discussed how data is the lifeblood of any IAM system. To recap, IAM systems manage the authentication and access of users to organizational systems, applications, and resources. Each user has an account that’s used to log into different applications and systems. Depending on who a user is and his or her attributes, the IAM system determines what the user has access to and what he or she can do within those systems.  

Data is the lifeblood of any Identity and Access Management (IAM) system. It can make or break an implementation. Complete and accurate data empowers your organization to provide users with an unbelievable set of tools that increase security, improve business processes, and reduce risk.  

Around the world, colleges and universities are welcoming students, faculty, and staff back for the fall semester. Those who are new to campus will undoubtedly need a few days to find their way around, remember their class schedules, and, of course, memorize their newly issued usernames.