Why you need Active Directory self service
You run an IT department. No matter if it is big or small, you have to have a help desk. Your help desk is the public face of IT, the people that the rest of the company knows. So they call them. For everything.
You know the problem with this, help desks are expensive to be tasked with such difficult issues as saying, "is your computer plugged in?". Yet, that's what you get. No way to avoid it.
But, what you can avoid is, "I need to get all emails that are sent to the marketing department!" or "I can't access the folder for the operations department!" or "I can't print to the printer down the hall!" or "I changed my cell phone number, can you publish it for me?".
All of these things (and more) are controlled by Active Directory and can all be fixed with Active Directory self service. You know, the things that end users know about themselves and need to have in AD.
A good AD self service solution will allow end users to:
- Change some of their identity attributes
- Join and leave certain distribution lists
- Join and leave certain security groups
- Create distribution lists or security groups
- NOT ALLOW all of this to get out of control
It will get out of control unless you put workflows and other restrictions in place. Someone wants to change their title, no way without HR approval. Someone wants to leave the book club DL, of course, no problem. Someone wants to join the Annual Report 10K group, never. Someone wants to create a group for their top secret project, of course, once an IT admin approves it. Things like that.
Why is this so important? Because end users and their jobs change constantly. On average, there is 20% internal and 8% external turnover per year. 1 in 5 users change jobs, 1 in 12 leave the company. That doesn't even account for the constant change in projects. Each one of those users calls the help desk if you don't have AD self service. They call the help desk at an average cost of $35 per call!
