User Guide
Usercube's User Guide leads the reader through all the necessary steps to autonomously build an IGA solution based on Usercube, either from scratch or using Usercube's IGA Core Solution, with the aim of quickly delivering value.
Target Audience
This guide is intended to be read by Usercube administrators, i.e. power users who configure Usercube to match their company's needs.
Prior Knowledge
This guide presumes some knowledge of Usercube on the part of the reader who should have previously read the Introduction Guide in order to be aware of the main purposes, principles and capabilities of Usercube.
Using this guide does not require any advanced IT skills. All the configuration steps take place through Usercube's UI or MS Excel files.
NETWRIX strongly recommends starting from the Introduction Guide to fully benefit from the User Guide's content.
Overview
This guide is made of step-by-step procedures that take the reader through setting up Usercube from scratch and creating IGA value as quickly as possible.
The procedures are meant to guide the reader through a standard setup, based on Usercube's IGA Core Solution, and with NETWRIX' suggestions and recommendations. Any advanced configuration can be performed later using the content of the Integration Guide.
Thus, even when having very specific needs, NETWRIX still recommends starting the project with the basics presented in this guide. The IGA solution can be enhanced later on with the help of NETWRIX' experts. This way, IGA value can already be delivered while the project continues for optimization purposes.
Content
This guide is organized into activities, each activity containing an overview, the input, output, and participants as well as step-by-step procedures and a way to verify the outcome.
Some activities are grouped together when they depend on each other to create value or when they contribute to a same goal.
While some activities must be carried out before others for technical and/or functional reasons, the order is not absolute. Please follow the instructions and recommendations detailed with the global process.
All activities are organized into bigger sections which are distinguishable by their functional intent: set up; administrate; optimize; deploy and maintain.
Set up
Learn how to configure a working environment, how to set up identity lifecycles, and how to build a catalog of roles for entitlement management, in order to configure the Minimum Viable Product.
Administrate
Learn how to enforce your security policies through access certification, or resource/role reconciliation, provisioning review, etc.
Optimize
Learn how to enhance the IGA solution through automation and model optimization.
For example, learn how to adjust the identity model and the role model in order to make them resemble the company's reality, learn how to improve the data quality by automating entitlement assignment decisions, or by automatically provisioning assignments to the managed systems. Learn how to push the automation wall thanks to Usercube's AI with role mining.
Deploy
Learn how to deploy the solution to a production environment.
Maintain
Learn how to maintain the solution, because the project is iterative. Learn how to keep the data model up to date according to the company's changes, or how to add new systems to the loop, while Usercube is already running in production.
How to Use this Guide
Start by studying the global process that details every activity in their respective sections and how they relate to one another. You will get a good view of the steps to take from start to finish.
Follow the path, stop at each activity, and go check out the details on the matching page of the guide, in the corresponding section. There you will find recommendations and practical steps to complete the activity and test it. Then you can resume following the path.
At any step along the way, once you feel comfortable, you can decide to take another direction than the recommended process, as long as you take into account the input artifacts specified in each activity page, which represent actual technical dependencies. You can start an activity only if all the previous technical dependencies are met.
Keep in mind that completing sections one by one is the quickest way to deliver value. Nevertheless, they are not rigorously dependent on each other. You do not have to complete one entirely in order to go to the next. But they are not rigorously independent either. There are some activities in the first one that are required for activities in the second. Read the input artifacts to choose the correct order.
For example, if you are looking forward to fixing non authorized account (from the Administrate section) you do not have to complete the Set Up section entirely. You just have to complete the Categorize Resources activity, and all the activities connected to it upstream . You do not have to complete other activities such as the Create Roles in the Role Catalog activity.