Active Roles can fix many little problems that have never been resolved and have lingered for years, continuing to annoy people. For example, you can't search by object GUIDs. The manual says you can, but it hasn't worked in five years.
Senior Systems Engineer at a government with 10,001+ employees
Real User
Top 20
2024-09-25T18:30:00Z
Sep 25, 2024
Active Roles could add more options for web customization. Our requirements are exceedingly specific. We'd like to get the web interface down to just five buttons, but in some cases, we can only get to six. The web interface in the current version is less customizable than in the previous one.
Service Desk Team Lead & Project Manager at Kodak
Real User
Top 5
2023-10-04T09:49:00Z
Oct 4, 2023
The solution has not enabled us to reduce password reset times. It has not automated provisioning. The group attestation could be improved. It was a feature that was available in version 5. You can configure it, however, it's no longer out of the box. My understanding is that they will put that feature back in again. However, right now, it's a feature that is lacking. The way you can search groups could be better. When a company has a large number of groups it's very difficult to search the groups and assign the different columns.
IT Manager at a financial services firm with 1,001-5,000 employees
Real User
Top 20
2023-07-12T12:22:00Z
Jul 12, 2023
The Group Family feature is okay, but there are some issues around its use for creating objects automatically, based on HR attributes. Another issue is that it doesn't look like the hybrid connections are particularly mature. We haven't really used it much. We have a couple of guys setting it up who don't really like the way it's working. It uses a synchronization tool to do that. Native integration with the cloud would be better. Also, we're trying to manage Office 365 mailboxes and although it will create a mailbox in the cloud, it won't do shared mailboxes. That means we're having to write custom solutions for that. Another issue we have with the product is that we run a lot of custom tasks. You have to program them to run on one particular host and there's no automatic failover to a second host. If that host is down when a task is supposed to run, it has to wait until the next time it runs when that host is up. Some of their built-in functions will work off of both servers and I don't see why this shouldn't as well. Another similar gripe is that when you run custom Active Roles policies, they'll actually trigger on both hosts, not on one. In that scenario, it would be better if they would trigger on one host, unless it wasn't available. For example, if you're writing to the event log, you have a custom task and it will show up multiple times because it's being processed by multiple front-end hosts.
The solution needs an attestation process that includes certification and recertification attestation. The pricing is high and has room for improvement.
The user and group management in Azure AD could be better. Our focus these days is dynamic sharing with several on-prem Microsoft applications like SharePoint.
Sr Business Analyst at George Washington University
Real User
2020-12-01T05:04:00Z
Dec 1, 2020
We would like to see * extension of change-tracking auditing capabilities, especially in relationship to the virtual attributes * more flexibility with group families * integration with cloud database path solutions * better integration with Azure AD; it integrates, but it could be better. These are all things that our tech team has talked to their tech team about. And they're extremely responsive. In addition, there are some features that we think should be included in their next release. We think these things would take them to the next level: the ability to completely force or limit any dynamic group processing to specific servers, change-tracking reporting of virtual attributes, and the ability to use files as inputs to automation workloads. These things have also been talked about. Knowing One Identity, they're probably working on them.
Senior IT Manager at Toronto District School Board
Real User
2020-10-08T07:25:00Z
Oct 8, 2020
In terms of improvement, it could be made even more user-friendly for administrators when they need to create new workflows and rulesets. It's a bit difficult. I'm not the technical person that uses it, it's my team, but I heard comments that it is quite difficult for them to get to know the product and set up the tasks that are required.
Information Security Manager at a manufacturing company with 5,001-10,000 employees
Real User
2020-10-04T06:40:00Z
Oct 4, 2020
The overall UI needs a refresh; the web interface requires some modernization. We would also like to have a SaaS version of Active Roles. Rather than implementing it in our data center, it would have been nice having a SaaS-delivered solution. The third area for improvement, which is the weakest portion of ARS, is the workflow engine, which was introduced a few years ago. It's slow and not very intuitive to use, so I would like to see improvement there.
IT Lead, Security services at a aerospace/defense firm with 10,001+ employees
Real User
2020-09-23T06:10:00Z
Sep 23, 2020
When doing a workflow, we would like a bit better feedback on the screen, as we're trying to get it to work. For example, there is a "Find" function that you need set up in a workflow to do some of the automation. It is not the easiest to get a result from those finds when you're trying to do that. In the MMC, they have a couple different types of workflows. In this particular case, we use their workflow functionality to find all of X within the environment, then if you find it, do X, Y, and Z. You can have multiple steps. When you do that search function within that workflow, it's really hard to find out, "Is my search working?" It would be nice if there was some feedback on the screen so you could see if your search is working properly within the workflow. There are other finds, like when you just simply go look in Active Directory, and say, "Find." I absolutely love that we can export the results from that one. It's only the search function within the workflow that could be a little bit better. In version 7.4.1, they added support for SAML authentication to the web pages and the documentation was quite lacking. The documentation for that, in particular, needs a lot of work. I ended up having to work with support over multiple sessions to try and get that to work properly. This was a newer function for 7.4.1, so I had never used it before in the previous versions. When you downloaded their product, the documentation was the same as they had posted on their website. It was the same in both places. It was very broken up and wasn't complete. It needed to be reworded and flow better so somebody new could follow it a bit better. Because even after following all the solutions, even the tech support said to do it differently than what was in the document before we could get it to work. Therefore, I would definitely like to see some work on the documentation for that area.
For the AAD management feature, it needs to improve the objects that we can manage and the security. I know that they have everything in road map, so they probably will include everything in a year or a year and a half. I would like them to support a cloud solution. This is important for us. They have it on their roadmap. For now, they only have basic options for cloud-delivered services. We are in the prospect of looking for a customer who wants a cloud-only solution, but will wait for the new features, which will probably be available in one year. The should try to move everything to a web interface. More solutions are trying to use a web interface. They need batch processing, but that is in the road map, and that's okay. They need better language support. While they have a language pack, it's not always available at the same time as the product. Sometimes, when we install it in other countries, they don't have the language pack, then our customers complain about this.
Active Roles allows policies and there are a lot of example policies that come with it. It has Access Templates and there are a lot of Access Template examples in it. It also has workflows and those are really powerful, but there are no built-in workflows. When it comes to them, it's empty. I would personally love for it to come with ten, 15, or 20 workflows where each achieves a certain task but that are not enabled. I could just look at how each is done, clone them, copy them, modify them the way I want them, and be good to go. Right now we have to invent things from scratch.
Managing Director at a tech services company with 51-200 employees
Real User
2015-07-07T10:50:00Z
Jul 7, 2015
* Web console – it should have more customization options in terms of look and feel of the landing page * Workflow policies – Additional policies for folder access provisioning * Bring back attestation – Attestation feature is dropped from ARS. This should be brought back
One Identity Active Roles is a highly regarded solution for Active Directory (AD) security and account management. One Identity Active Roles will enhance group, account, and directory management while eradicating the need for manual processes. The end result is a significant increase in the overall speed, efficiency, and security of the organization.
Using One Identity Active Roles, users can:
Easily increase and strengthen native attributes of Active Directory (AD) and Azure AD.
Quickly...
Active Roles can fix many little problems that have never been resolved and have lingered for years, continuing to annoy people. For example, you can't search by object GUIDs. The manual says you can, but it hasn't worked in five years.
Active Roles could add more options for web customization. Our requirements are exceedingly specific. We'd like to get the web interface down to just five buttons, but in some cases, we can only get to six. The web interface in the current version is less customizable than in the previous one.
The solution has not enabled us to reduce password reset times. It has not automated provisioning. The group attestation could be improved. It was a feature that was available in version 5. You can configure it, however, it's no longer out of the box. My understanding is that they will put that feature back in again. However, right now, it's a feature that is lacking. The way you can search groups could be better. When a company has a large number of groups it's very difficult to search the groups and assign the different columns.
The Group Family feature is okay, but there are some issues around its use for creating objects automatically, based on HR attributes. Another issue is that it doesn't look like the hybrid connections are particularly mature. We haven't really used it much. We have a couple of guys setting it up who don't really like the way it's working. It uses a synchronization tool to do that. Native integration with the cloud would be better. Also, we're trying to manage Office 365 mailboxes and although it will create a mailbox in the cloud, it won't do shared mailboxes. That means we're having to write custom solutions for that. Another issue we have with the product is that we run a lot of custom tasks. You have to program them to run on one particular host and there's no automatic failover to a second host. If that host is down when a task is supposed to run, it has to wait until the next time it runs when that host is up. Some of their built-in functions will work off of both servers and I don't see why this shouldn't as well. Another similar gripe is that when you run custom Active Roles policies, they'll actually trigger on both hosts, not on one. In that scenario, it would be better if they would trigger on one host, unless it wasn't available. For example, if you're writing to the event log, you have a custom task and it will show up multiple times because it's being processed by multiple front-end hosts.
The solution needs an attestation process that includes certification and recertification attestation. The pricing is high and has room for improvement.
The user and group management in Azure AD could be better. Our focus these days is dynamic sharing with several on-prem Microsoft applications like SharePoint.
We would like to see * extension of change-tracking auditing capabilities, especially in relationship to the virtual attributes * more flexibility with group families * integration with cloud database path solutions * better integration with Azure AD; it integrates, but it could be better. These are all things that our tech team has talked to their tech team about. And they're extremely responsive. In addition, there are some features that we think should be included in their next release. We think these things would take them to the next level: the ability to completely force or limit any dynamic group processing to specific servers, change-tracking reporting of virtual attributes, and the ability to use files as inputs to automation workloads. These things have also been talked about. Knowing One Identity, they're probably working on them.
In terms of improvement, it could be made even more user-friendly for administrators when they need to create new workflows and rulesets. It's a bit difficult. I'm not the technical person that uses it, it's my team, but I heard comments that it is quite difficult for them to get to know the product and set up the tasks that are required.
The overall UI needs a refresh; the web interface requires some modernization. We would also like to have a SaaS version of Active Roles. Rather than implementing it in our data center, it would have been nice having a SaaS-delivered solution. The third area for improvement, which is the weakest portion of ARS, is the workflow engine, which was introduced a few years ago. It's slow and not very intuitive to use, so I would like to see improvement there.
When doing a workflow, we would like a bit better feedback on the screen, as we're trying to get it to work. For example, there is a "Find" function that you need set up in a workflow to do some of the automation. It is not the easiest to get a result from those finds when you're trying to do that. In the MMC, they have a couple different types of workflows. In this particular case, we use their workflow functionality to find all of X within the environment, then if you find it, do X, Y, and Z. You can have multiple steps. When you do that search function within that workflow, it's really hard to find out, "Is my search working?" It would be nice if there was some feedback on the screen so you could see if your search is working properly within the workflow. There are other finds, like when you just simply go look in Active Directory, and say, "Find." I absolutely love that we can export the results from that one. It's only the search function within the workflow that could be a little bit better. In version 7.4.1, they added support for SAML authentication to the web pages and the documentation was quite lacking. The documentation for that, in particular, needs a lot of work. I ended up having to work with support over multiple sessions to try and get that to work properly. This was a newer function for 7.4.1, so I had never used it before in the previous versions. When you downloaded their product, the documentation was the same as they had posted on their website. It was the same in both places. It was very broken up and wasn't complete. It needed to be reworded and flow better so somebody new could follow it a bit better. Because even after following all the solutions, even the tech support said to do it differently than what was in the document before we could get it to work. Therefore, I would definitely like to see some work on the documentation for that area.
The ability to send logs to a SIEM would be very beneficial.
For the AAD management feature, it needs to improve the objects that we can manage and the security. I know that they have everything in road map, so they probably will include everything in a year or a year and a half. I would like them to support a cloud solution. This is important for us. They have it on their roadmap. For now, they only have basic options for cloud-delivered services. We are in the prospect of looking for a customer who wants a cloud-only solution, but will wait for the new features, which will probably be available in one year. The should try to move everything to a web interface. More solutions are trying to use a web interface. They need batch processing, but that is in the road map, and that's okay. They need better language support. While they have a language pack, it's not always available at the same time as the product. Sometimes, when we install it in other countries, they don't have the language pack, then our customers complain about this.
For what we use it for, there are no additional features it would need.
Active Roles allows policies and there are a lot of example policies that come with it. It has Access Templates and there are a lot of Access Template examples in it. It also has workflows and those are really powerful, but there are no built-in workflows. When it comes to them, it's empty. I would personally love for it to come with ten, 15, or 20 workflows where each achieves a certain task but that are not enabled. I could just look at how each is done, clone them, copy them, modify them the way I want them, and be good to go. Right now we have to invent things from scratch.
* Web console – it should have more customization options in terms of look and feel of the landing page * Workflow policies – Additional policies for folder access provisioning * Bring back attestation – Attestation feature is dropped from ARS. This should be brought back