Reactive Active Directory Contact Modification

In one swift action, ADManager Plus allows you to modify multiple attributes of your Active Directory contacts including Group attributes, Organization attributes, Exchange attributes, etc. which is quite a herculean task when attempted using just the native AD tools or PowerShell scripts. Additionally, this web-based Active Directory management tool offers you 'contact modification templates', which, when applied to a contact, modifies its attributes as per your specifications. In a nutshell, contact re-provisioning becomes a mere 'point-n-click', struggle-free activity.

The highlight though is 'Reactive Active Directory Contact Modification', where templates evaluate certain preset conditions and update the contact's attributes as per the condition applicable. (Refer to the Modification Rules and the example below.)

Whether it's updating just one contact or bulk contact modification, these features make it easier, simpler and secure than ever. Get the free download of ADManager Plus trial version to explore all contact modification features.

Active Directory Contact Modification Templates

Using these templates you can streamline the process of creating new contacts across your entire organization. You can customize these templates to allow only specific attributes to be modified while securing certain other attributes from any harmful changes. Moreover, contact modification templates also allow you to save and reuse the standard attribute values to modify your contacts which saves you a lot of time and effort.

In short, contact modification templates are similar to molds that can be used to modify your contacts in a standard and specific pattern with the exact values required. These templates have two important components to customize, control and secure the contact modification process, namely:

• Modification Rules
• 'Drag-n-Drop' Customization of Templates

Modification Rules

Using 'modification rules', you can configure a set of conditions which will be evaluated every time a contact is modified to:

• Auto-fill certain attributes whenever a contact is updated or modified.
• Update specific attributes based on the modifications made to other attributes.

The following illustration will highlight the benefit of contact modification rules.

Illustrative Corp. is a company that operates from multiple cities across the country. ACME is the organization that maintains the air-conditioning system in all the offices of Illustrative Corp. Assume ACME frequently transfers its employees, leading to frequent changes to contact attributes in AD. Consider a scenario in which a technician who is part of ACME's team that maintains the air-conditioning system of Illustrative Corp.'s Atlanta office is transferred by ACME to its Houston team.

Once ACME intimates that they have transferred a specific technician from their Atlanta team to Houston, Illustrative Corp. has to update all the appropriate attributes of this specific contact in its AD. Here, instead of having to modify the attributes one after the other, just apply the appropriate template, update one attribute say 'Office' manually while 'modification rules' can be used to update (in the background) other attributes like:

• City: Update this contact's 'City' to Houston as per the new value in the 'Office' attribute.
• 'memberOf': Fill 'memberOf' attribute with 'support-houston' to add this contact to ACME's Houston support group for easy communication in times of need.

Highlights of modification rules:

• These rules are automatically triggered in the background whenever a contact is modified.
• The specified contact attributes will be automatically updated with the appropriate values.
• You do not have to manually check and update all the attributes for each case or scenario.
• Completely secure process as all important attributes can be updated with the appropriate values automatically.

Using the customization option of Contact Modification Templates, you can modify the templates to meet the exact demands and requirements of your organization.

'Drag-n-Drop' Customization of Contact Modification Templates

Contact modification templates can be modified by administrators to serve the demands and requirements of their organizations. With the customization feature administrators can set up:

Technician-specific Modification Templates:

With the 'drag-n-drop' customization option, you can completely customize the templates. This allows you to have complete control over the modification process as you can easily dictate the contact attributes that each technician can modify. In other words, you can configure technician-specific templates to allow each technician to modify a different set of attributes based on their roles. These templates also allow you delegate the contact modification task but still retain complete control over the modification process. You can now have the best of both worlds!

Advantages of contact modification templates:

• Based on your requirements or the technicians, you can display only a specific set of attributes.
• You can ensure attribute level security as you have the complete control to make any attribute editable, read-only or even hide it.
• It is possible to save the standard values of attributes and reuse them whenever you modify contacts, instead of manually configuring them every single time.

This tool not only simplifies the contact management process but it also helps in bulk user management as well as Active Directory reporting through its 150+ pre-built Active Directory and Exchange Server specific reports.

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