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The University of Southern California (USC) is a private research university based in Los Angeles, California. One of the leading research institutions in the United States, USC operates numerous research institutes and offers undergraduate, graduate, and professional programs across a wide range of disciplines. The university employs thousands of staff and conducts substantial sponsored research activity.
University of Southern California
Education
Los Angeles, California, United States
20,000+
USC's research institute had been running on the same Active Directory environment for over 25 years. Over time, the absence of standardized administrative practices left its mark. The organization's user records were inconsistently maintained, critical fields important for the administration were routinely missed, and different administrators had developed their own ways of handling updates. Auditing an environment that had accumulated decades of inconsistency had become a significant challenge.
Beyond the data quality issues, processes that relied on the IT team were also creating a bottleneck. Every new user account had to go through IT, even for routine HR tasks, which was an inefficiency the team wanted to eliminate by enabling HR staff to handle account creation themselves through standardized templates.
ÑGary, system administrator, USC
The team deployed ADManager Plus as the central point for all Active Directory administration, using it to bring structure and consistency to an environment that had long operated without it. HR staff were onboarded to handle user account creation directly through role-specific templates with the help of the delegation feature, removing the dependency on IT for every provisioning request. Template permissions were configured to ensure the HR security group could create accounts with the correct group memberships, eliminating the incomplete or incorrectly configured accounts that had previously required IT follow-up.
Reporting capabilities were put to use immediately, giving the team visibility into newly created users and supporting ongoing auditing efforts as it worked through broader cleanup and standardization of the directory.
The implementation involved resolving supporting infrastructure issues, including a load balancer that was routing traffic to the wrong ports and causing significant login delays. This ensured ADManager Plus could operate reliably within the existing environment.
ÑGary, system administrator, USC
The implementation came during a time-sensitive rollout, and early handoff issues had already caused delays before OnboardPro, ManageEngine's implementation and professional services team, started working on the project. Once in place, the OnboardPro team, headed by Dixid Murali, proved decisive, particularly in working through the template and permissions configuration that made HR-led provisioning viable. The guidance gave the team the confidence to troubleshoot issues independently and continue onboarding at its own pace, without being dependent on the IT team to course-correct every step.
ÑGary, system administrator, USC
ADManager Plus gave USC's IT team a structured, centralized approach to Active Directory management, replacing years of ad-hoc practices with consistent, template-driven provisioning. HR staff can now create user accounts independently, freeing the IT team from routine requests and reducing the risk of incomplete or incorrectly configured accounts. Reporting has created a clearer foundation for auditing as the team continues to work through the broader standardization of a 25-year-old directory.
ADManager Plus is an identity governance and administration (IGA) solution that simplifies identity management, ensures security, and improves compliance. With ADManager Plus, manage the user life cycle from provisioning to deprovisioning, run access certification campaigns, orchestrate identity management across enterprise applications, and protect data on your enterprise platforms with regular backups. Use over 200 reports to gain valuable insights into identities and their access rights. Improve the efficiency of your IGA operations with workflows, automations, and role-based access control policies. ADManager Plus' Android and iOS applications help with on-the-go AD and Entra ID management. For more information about ADManager Plus, visit manageengine.com/products/ad-manager/.
OnboardPro is a ManageEngine service that provides solution implementation to clients upon request. This service includes the installation and customized configuration of ManageEngine solutions. It enables clients to seamlessly begin work without worrying about the complexities of product installation, deployment, and use. Every client environment is unique and requires additional support beyond the basic installation and standard features. With custom onboarding, clients have the option to engage a team of product experts to manage the installation, implementation, customization, and training based on their business needs. For more information, visit manageengine.com/onboarding/manageengine-onboardpro-iam-and-siem-professional-service.html.
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