National Geographic eases administration of employee accounts

National Geographic, one of the largest non-profit scientific and educational institutions in the world, has deployed a new identity and access management system to enhance security, create an audit trail and better handle employees’ access to systems worldwide.

National Geographic has implemented technology from Tools4ever, which includes its User Management Resource Administrator (UMRA), Self Service Reset Password Management (SSRPM) and Password Synchronization Manager (PSM). The organization will use UMRA to increase the efficiency of account management to deal with its high turnover rate of contractor employees; SSRPM, to allow employees to reset passwords without having to contact the help desk; and PSM, to enable employees to synchronize their passwords so they have a single set of credentials.

Dan Backer, director of campus technology at National Geographic, says, “I don’t feel that we purchased a product as much as a process with Tools4ever … With Tools4ever’s solutions in place, calls to the help desk for password issues have drastically decreased, as well as time spent on user account management.”

Before implementing the new solution, National Geographic manually processed the provisioning and de-provisioning of accounts. That inefficient process could take up to a day to complete and involved numerous employees. Also in the past, employees in locations around the world were unable to reset their passwords if they were in a time zone outside of the standard business hours of the help desk.

Tools4ever’s UMRA now synchronizes National Geographic’s PeopleSoft HR system to Active Directory, so when a hiring manager enters a new personnel request, accounts are automatically provisioned.

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