Automated Contact Deletion in Active Directory

Obsolete and inactive Active Directory (AD) contact objects take up a large chunk of disk space and serve as an entry point for network security threats. To combat this, cleaning up your AD environment periodically is essential. When this AD contact deletion process is done manually at frequent intervals, it becomes monotonous and becomes a burden in an administrator's workload.

ADManager Plus offers automatic purging of contact objects off your AD. Basically, it is a scheduler that combs the network or the specified container looking for contacts to be deleted and gets rid of them. In environments, where there is a need for routine bulk delete operation for Active Directory contacts, this feature proves to be very helpful.

Workflow-controlled automated deletion

ADManager Plus, unlike the native AD tools or PowerShell, completely automates the contact deletion process. In scenarios where you cannot resort to blind bulk deletion of contacts, it implements checkpoints in the automated process via an approval workflow engine.

What's approval workflow?

Approval Workflow is a linear hierarchy which clearly defines who reviews the process and who approves it. Workflow available in ADManager Plus is configurable, wherein you can define various levels of pit stops for the automated process. For example: Assume, you decide to have a reviewer/ approver and executor for this automatic contact purging process. In this case, the automated process will first generate a report of contacts to be deleted and subjects it to review. Once the reviewer is done perusing the report and approves it, the process moves on to the next stage, which is the approver.

How it works:

You specify the runtime for the AD bulk contact delete automation and also which contacts will be deleted. During the runtime, the scheduled automation sweeps the mentioned container and deletes the contacts. If you enable workflow in the process, it finds the contacts and reports it to the reviewer for validation, followed by the approver to approve the request. Once it is approved, the process moves ahead to the executor, who will execute the task with a single press of a button. You can also track the status and view the history of automated operations whenever needed.

CSV files

ADManager Plus also gives you yet another option to choose the contacts to delete - CSV files.You can put them in a csv file, and while configuring the automation specify the path to the file in the "location of CSV" field.

Highlights of ADManager Plus' automated contacts deletion:

• Execute multiple operations leading to contacts deletion automatically
• Leverage review-approval based contact deletion automation
• Keep track of the entire automation process

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