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Grant Lane
6 years ago
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In this guide you will find: A brief introduction to how user accounts are

Provisioning: how it makes user provisioning easier and more reliable, and

An outline of how RM User Provisioning is installed and made ready for use.

collect the information about your establishment that will be needed for

Educational establishments now require user information for multiple

For example, users may need accounts on a number of different systems to

and libraries. These requirements may vary depending on the type of user.

1 In this guide you will find: A brief introduction to how user accounts are provisioned in educational establishments An overview of RM User Provisioning: how it makes user provisioning easier and more reliable, and how its architecture allows customisation and expansion. An outline of how RM User Provisioning is installed and made ready for use. After reading this guide you will be ready to: define your requirements collect the information about your establishment that will be needed for setting up RM User Provisioning. Educational establishments now require user information for multiple management systems. For example, users may need accounts on a number of different systems to register for courses, use cashless catering, and access computer networks and libraries. These requirements may vary depending on the type of user. User provisioning is the management of user accounts across systems within an establishment creating, updating, disabling and deleting them and if the actions to achieve this coordination aren t automated, they must be done by hand.

User provisioning is normally managed through a collaboration between Administration and ICT services within an establishment.

Requirements for the person information are agreed between the Administration and ICT teams.

format. The person information may come from several sources: a Manage

a Human Resources system manual records (mainly used for people who are not included in the MIS or HR system).

2 User provisioning is normally managed through a collaboration between Administration and ICT services within an establishment. There are three elements to it: person information, user classification and action plans. Requirements for the person information are agreed between the Administration and ICT teams. Typically Administration then controls the person information, extracts it from their information systems and supplies it to the ICT team in an agreed format. The person information may come from several sources: a Managed Information System (MIS) other systems, e.g. a Human Resources system manual records (mainly used for people who are not included in the MIS or HR system). Each of these may impose its own restrictions on the type and format of information, e.g. the format of passwords. It is normally the responsibility of the ICT team to define how users are classified. For example, it may be important to distinguish between pupils studying different subjects if this means they will work in different buildings, have their user accounts on different servers, and require different resources. Rules need to be set for what type of user has access to which system, and their rights within it.

Once the information requirements and user classifications have been agreed, the ICT team configures the rules to be followed when users are provisioned into systems.

For example, when a user leaves the establishment, their account needs to be deleted from each of the provisioned systems.

3 Once the information requirements and user classifications have been agreed, the ICT team configures the rules to be followed when users are provisioned into systems. Putting the rules into practice, the team develop action plans, which specify the procedures to follow in common scenarios. For example, when a user leaves the establishment, their account needs to be deleted from each of the provisioned systems. This may involve a dozen or more actions, which need to be performed in the right order to ensure that all information is removed cleanly. Plans need to be defined for how users are disabled and deleted, and what happens to user accounts at the end of the academic year, or when course membership changes. RM User Provisioning manages the synchronised creation, updating, disabling and deletion of users across multiple systems within your establishment. You can use RM UP to automate as much or as little of your establishment s user provisioning as required. When RM UP is first set up, the information requirements, user classifications and action plans discussed above are used to configure the various components of RM UP for your establishment. Once this initial configuration has been done, RM UP will validate incoming user information from Administration, and then translate it into provisioning instructions, which are automatically implemented on each target system to provision the users as required. This eliminates many time-consuming manual operations and reduces errors. In this way ongoing management of users is made more efficient, and large numbers of

Future expansion is straightforward because of RM UP s modular architecture, which combines three types of component in any number of ways, as shown in this example CC4 deployment: Heads: user

4 users can be provisioned quickly when required, for example at the start of courses or the academic year. We have designed RM User Provisioning (RMUP) to be highly configurable, to ensure that it is flexible enough to meet your current and future requirements. Future expansion is straightforward because of RM UP s modular architecture, which combines three types of component in any number of ways, as shown in this example CC4 deployment: Heads: user interface or service component used to input user input to RM UP. User Provisioning Core: at the centre of any RM UP deployment, the Core processes user data from a Head and calls the relevant TSAs based on the chosen business rules, manages the provisioning processes, and handles failures. Target System Agents (TSAs): components that carry out user provisioning into each target system. Note Because the Active Directory TSA and the UPTC TSA are always included, they are installed with the RM UP Core. You can expand your RM UP deployment by adding additional Heads and TSAs as requirements change. For details of the RM UP modules currently available, visit the RM Education website.

After installation RM User Provisioning must be configured before use.

The Core Environment is configured first; the TSAs and Heads are then configured, with revisits to the Core configuration for

Working from your requirements and the information you supply, we produce a custom Solution Overlay of configuration files for your

5 After installation RM User Provisioning must be configured before use. This is done by edits to a set of configuration files some for the RM UP Core, some for each Head and some for each TSA. The Core Environment is configured first; the TSAs and Heads are then configured, with revisits to the Core configuration for further changes. This initial configuration process is quite involved and will be done by RM Education. Working from your requirements and the information you supply, we produce a custom Solution Overlay of configuration files for your RM UP installation. This will be uploaded to replace the default set of configuration files: For more information about RM UP configuration, see the RM UP Configuration Getting Started Guide and other configuration guides referenced therein.

6 Our process for installing and setting up RM User Provisioning is as follows: 1. You will complete the RM UP Configuration Requirements workbook and submit it to us, together with a sample of the CSV file format used in your establishment. 2. We will then prepare a custom Solution Overlay for your establishment, and send you the custom Solution Overlay files, together with a CSV file for testing the configuration. 3. You will install RM User Provisioning. 4. You will then upload the custom Solution Overlay (see below). 5. You will then use the CSV test file to test the configuration (see below). 6. If further changes are needed to the configuration before use, we will produce a revised Solution Overlay and test file. As a network administrator, you should already have access to the information you need and processes/procedures in place with the Administration team. To record the information, please use the appropriate version of the RM UP Configuration Requirements workbook (CC4 or AD). This provides a convenient way to record the key information for your establishment that will be needed for configuring your RM User Provisioning installation. When you have gathered all the information you need, submit the completed requirements workbook to us, together with a sample of the CSV file structure used by your establishment (headings plus a sample line of data). Follow the Core Installation Note and Additional Module Installation Note instructions. At the server or computer where you have installed RM UP: 1. Save the custom Solution Overlay to a convenient temporary location (e.g. D:\Temp). 2. Browse to RMUPROOT\ConfigurationTools, in the location where you installed RM UP. 3. Double-click RM.UPT.Tools.exe to run the configuration file upload utility.

7 4. Choose the Overlay a different RM UP configuration option and follow the onscreen instructions. 5. When you have finished, choose the 99 Exit option. When the configuration is finished, you should test it with some dummy information to verify that users are properly created, edited, disabled and deleted in all your target systems. Your testing should include an import of appropriate test data from each of the Heads you will be using. Note If you have specified that RM UP should autogenerate passwords and you have a vanilla Windows network, ensure that the Password must meet complexity requirements group policy setting has been disabled for each user classification on your Default Domain Policy, before you test your RM UP configuration. This is because randomly generated passwords cannot be guaranteed to conform to these rules. On a CC4 or CC3 network this setting is disabled by default. We will provide a sample CSV user information file for your custom Solution Overlay. For further testing you can either modify this sample file or create your own from scratch. You should test that all user provisioning actions work correctly. The CSV Head User Guide gives instructions for creating, editing, disabling and deleting Users from information in CSV files. Follow these general instructions when you run your tests. If any tasks fail, RM UP s comprehensive reports and log files will help you to diagnose the underlying issue.

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