The case for temporary membership
You are sitting around a table to discuss the current status of a critical project. Things are not looking real good and it seems that there is no way to reach the end of the project by the necessary deadline with the staff currently tasked with the work. There is no question, to reach the next milestone you will need some help. Help from people outside of the current group.
We have all probably been in similar situations in the past. Whether it be a time sensitive assignment or a project that is quickly outgrowing the original scope, you find yourself in need to include more human resource assets at something. Usually, this timeline slippage or scope creep can be handled with the inclusion (usually temporarily) of additional assets to the project. These assets come in the form of people.
With regular growth of a department or project, the best practice is to apply perpetual access to the needed resources through automated means. In those cases where there is no perpetual need for inclusion, a project lead may wish to delegate such access. Control is given through delegated access to those stakeholders using industry leading tools that allow for change control to those closest to the business that the access is determined.
IT workers are sometimes hesitant to give such control due to the lack of ability for oversight. With purpose built delegation tools, that control and oversight is built in. Regular attestation through enforcement of expiration renewal policies ensures accuracy. What type of control however is being applied down to the individual membership? Fortunately, that level of granular attestation is applicable through temporary membership.
Temporary membership grants owners of assets the ability to comfortably grant temporary access to information and resources that would otherwise be assigned perpetually. Such temporary membership is further enhanced through the ability not only to assign temporary membership but to extend the opt-in capability for the workers to choose temporary joining.
The next time you need to quickly, but temporarily, need to grow the group working on a project, do so with a fixed timeframe or date of inclusion.
Someone going on medical leave, vacation, or other? Add someone else temporarily to the groups that manage SharePoint access, grant access to file shares, and application access, include them on distribution lists, and more. Set the end-date and have confidence that their access to the resources will end at the desired timeframe.
I am sure you have had cases where you needed to add someone to a group temporarily. We would love to hear about your use cases. Comment below to tell us your story.
Jonathan Blackwell
View ProfileSince 2012, Jonathan Blackwell, an engineer and innovator, has provided engineering leadership that has put GroupID at the forefront of group and user management for Active Directory and Azure AD environments. His experience in development, marketing, and sales allows Jonathan to fully understand the Identity market and how buyers think.