Self Account Unlock with Active Directory Self Service Software

Employees are often suggested to keep their accounts password tough so that no one can break it and misuse it. But, remembering that difficult password is another challenging task, which leads into the failed login attempts, as employees often forget the password. Several times unsuccessful login attempts leads into the account lockout.

Once the user account is locked, the employees need to generate and send the account unlock ticket to the administrator. The administrator needs to take an action on such tickets immediately to reduce the employees' downtime. Depending on the availability of the time, the administrator unlocks the locked account. The administrator needs to face the same issue daily, which frustrates him and the employees as well. See all these in the form of a flow diagram:

Lepide Active Directory Self Service - Self-account unlock software enables the employees to unlock their accounts without raising any ticket to the administrator. This saves the significant time of the both employees and administrator. The self account unlock software not only saves the time but also removes frustration and increases the ROI. Once the employees have registered in the software, they will no longer need to call the administrator for account unlock.

To let the domain users to unlock the locked account by their own, the administrator has to send a notification email to all domain users asking them to enroll in the LADSS database. Once the user has been enrolled in the software, s/he can easily unlock his/her account from any remote computer in domain using Web browser.

While enrolling in the software, the user needs to select a number of preset questions and provide subsequent answers to them; however, users can frame their own set of questions too. Administrator can keep a check on all these activities by defining the number and type of questions user may ask. This is how administrator can ascertain secure enrollment process by configuring validation settings. Mentioned below are the options that an administrator may configure for registration process of self-account unlock policy:

• Number of questions to be asked
• Number of user-framed questions with maximum and minimum characters
• Maximum and minimum characters for answers

Once the employees are registered with the LADSS software, they just need to execute the four steps to unlock the locked out accounts:

Numerous unsuccessful and incorrect attempts to log-on forces LDAP (Lightweight Directory Access Protocol) to lockout account. Calling helpdesk to perform account unlock will compel you to wait for long duration and be unproductive; also all this will add to one more ticket to be attended by the support team. LADSS saves the domain users from frustration of waiting too long to get their complaints answered. Moreover, it enables the user to unlock account easily and securely by answering a set of preset questions.

The single-click report generation feature of LADSS software helps the administrator to collect the on time password and account status report. On behalf of that status report, the administrator can help the employees to keep their password updated.

Depending on the employees' password and account status report, the administrator can notify them about changing password after regular intervals to prevent probable account unlocks due to password termination. Self account unlock tool shoots automated notifications to the user whose password is soon-to-expire. This forewarning saves the user from unwanted frustration due to expired Windows passwords and account lockouts thereby saving the time required to unlock the account.