Connect to Zendesk

EmpowerID provides connectors for a wide range of user directories and resource systems. As an administrator, you can use these connectors to quickly connect EmpowerID to your organization's identity-aware systems and applications. When you do so, you create an account store for that application in the EmpowerID Identity Warehouse and use that account store to configure how you want EmpowerID to manage the identity information in that system.

Step 1 – Create a Zendesk account store in EmpowerID

1. On the navbar, expand Admin > Applications and Directories and select Account Stores and Systems.

2. On the Account Stores page, select the Actions tab and then click Create Account Store.
   

   

3. Under System Types, search for Zendesk.

4. Click the Zendesk record to select the type and then click Submit.
   

   

5. On the Zendesk Settings page that appears, fill in the following information:

   • Name — Enter a name for your account store.

   • User Name — Enter the username for your Zendesk Administrator.

   • Password — Enter the password for your Zendesk Administrator.

   • Subdomain — Enter your Zendesk domain.

6. When finished, click Submit to create the account store.

EmpowerID creates the account store and the associated resource system. The next step is to configure the attribute flow between the account store and EmpowerID.

Step 2 – Configure attribute flow

1. From the Account Stores tab of the Account Stores and Systems page, search for the account store you just created and click the Account Store link for it.

2. Click the Attribute Flow Rules tab to view the current rules for the account store. Please note that the attributes available depend on the account store.

3. To change the flow for an attribute, click the Attribute Flow drop-down located between the Person Attribute column and the External Directory Attribute column, and select the desired flow direction from the context menu.

4. To change the score for any of the available CRUD operations (Create, Update and Delete), enter the new score in the appropriate field. By default, scores are weighted evenly, which means that a change to an attribute originating in one connected external directory has the same authority as a change to an attribute occurring in another connected external directory.
   

Now that the attribute flow has been set, the next steps include configuring the account store and enabling EmpowerID to inventory it.

Step 3 – Configure account store settings

1. On the Account Store and Resource System page, click the Account Store tab and then click the pencil icon to put the account store in edit mode.

   
   This opens the edit page for the account store. This page allows you to specify the account proxy used to connect EmpowerID to your ServiceNow system as well as how you want EmpowerID to handle the user information it discovers in ServiceNow during inventory. Settings that can be edited are described in the table below the image.

   Account Store Settings
   Setting	Description
   General Settings
   IT Environment Type	Allows you to specify the type of environment in which you are creating the account store.
   Account Store Type	Allows to specify a type to help identify the purpose of the account store you are creating. Default is the most common usage.
   Option 1 Specify an Account Proxy	Allows you to change the credentials for the account that EmpowerID uses to connect to and manage the account store.
   Option 2 Select a Vaulted Credential as Account Proxy	Allows you to use a credential that you have vaulted in EmpowerID as the account that EmpowerID uses to connect to and manage the account store.
   Inventoried Directory Server	Allows you to select a connected server as the directory server for the account store.
   Authentication and Password Settings
   Allow Password Sync	Enables or disables the synchronization of password changes to user accounts in the domain based on password changes for the owning person object or another account owned by the person. This setting does not prevent password changes by users running the reset user account password workflows.
   Queue Password Changes	Specifies whether EmpowerID sends password changes to the Account Password Reset Inbox for batch processing.
   Password Manager Policy for Accounts without Person	Specifies the Password Manager Policy to be used for user accounts not joined to an EmpowerID Person.
   Provisioning Settings
   Allow Person Provisioning (Joiner Source)	Specifies whether EmpowerID Persons can be provisioned from user accounts in the account store.
   Allow Attribute Flow	Specifies whether attribute changes should flow between EmpowerID and the account store.
   Allow Provisioning (By RET)	Allows or disallows the Resource Entitlement (RET) Inbox process to auto-provision accounts for this domain for users who receive RET policy-assigned user accounts, but have not yet had them provisioned.
   Allow Deprovisioning (By RET)	Allows or disallows the Resource Entitlement Inbox process to auto de-provision accounts for this domain for users who still have RET policy-assigned user accounts, but no longer receive a policy that grants them a user account in the domain. De-provisioning only occurs if the de-provision action on the Resource Entitlement policy is set to De-Provision.
   Max Accounts per Person	This specifies the maximum number of user accounts from this domain that an EmpowerID Person can have linked to them. This prevents the possibility of a runaway error caused by a wrongly configured Join rule. It is recommended that this value be set to 1 unless users will have more than 1 account and you wish them to be joined to the same person.
   Business Role Settings
   Allow Business Role and Location Re-Evaluation	Specifies whether the account store allows Business Role and Location re-evaluation.
   Business Role and Location Re-Evaluation Order	This is an optional policy setting that can be used by provisioning workflows to determine which Account Store has priority when determining the roles and locations that should be assigned to a person. Account Stores with a higher value take precedence.
   Inventory Auto Provision OUs as IT System Locations	Specifies whether OUs in the external system are added as IT System locations in EmpowerID. If true, the OUs appear under the All IT Systems location node.
   Inventory Auto Provision External Roles as Business Roles	Specifies whether EmpowerID automatically provisions external role as Business Roles. This is useful for role-mapping where indicated.
   Default Person Business Role	Specifies the default EmpowerID Business Role to be assigned to each EmpowerID Person provisioned from the user accounts in the account store.
   Default Person Location (leave blank to use account container)	Specifies the default EmpowerID Location to be assigned to each EmpowerID Person provisioned from the user accounts in the account store.
   Group Settings
   Allow Account Creation on Membership Request	Specifies whether EmpowerID creates user accounts in the account store when an EmpowerID Person without one requests membership within a group belonging to the account store.
   Recertify All Group Changes as Detected	Specifies whether detected group changes should trigger recertification.
   SetGroup of Groups to Monitor for Real-Time Recertification
   Directory Clean Up Enabled
   Directory Clean Up Enabled	Specifies whether the SubmitAccountTermination permanent workflow should claim the account store for processing account terminations. When enabled, accounts in the account store that meet the qualifications to be marked for deletion are moved into a special OU within the external directory, disabled and finally deleted after going through an automated approval process. This process involves setting a number of system settings in EmpowerID and requires multiple approvals by designated personnel before an account is finally removed from the account store.
   Report Only Mode (No Changes)	When enabled, a report of what the Directory Clean Up process would do is written to the log. The process itself is ignored and all accounts are set to Termination Pending,
   Special Use Settings
   Automatically Join Account to a Person on Inventory (Skip Account Inbox)	Specifies whether EmpowerID should attempt to join user accounts in the account store to an existing EmpowerID Person during the inventory process. When enabled, the Account Inbox is bypassed.
   Automatically Create a Person on Inventory (Skip Account Inbox)	Specifies whether EmpowerID should create new EmpowerID Persons from the user accounts discovered in the account store during the inventory process. When enabled, the Account Inbox is bypassed.
   Queue Password Changes on Failure	Specifies whether EmpowerID should send password changes to the Account Password Reset Inbox only when the change fails.
   Inventory Settings
   Inventory Enabled	Allows EmpowerID to inventory the user information in the account store.
   Inventory Schedule Interval	Specifies the time span that occurs before EmpowerID performs a complete inventory of the account store. The default value is 10 minutes.
   Membership Settings
   Enable Group Membership Reconciliation	Allows EmpowerID to manage the membership of the account store’s groups, adding and removing user to and from groups based on policy-based assignment rules.
   Membership Schedule Interval	Specifies the time span that occurs before EmpowerID runs the Group Membership Reconciliation job. The default value is 10 minutes.

   
   

2. Edit the account store as needed and then click Save to save your changes.

Next, enable the Account Inbox permanent workflow to allow the Account Inbox to provision or join the user accounts in ServiceNow to EmpowerID Persons as demonstrated below.

Step 4 – Enable the Account Inbox Permanent Workflow

1. On the navbar, expand Infrastructure Admin > EmpowerID Server and Settings and select Permanent Workflows.

2. On the Permanent Workflows page, click the Display Name link for Account Inbox.
   

   

   
   

3. On the Permanent Workflow Details page that appears, click the pencil icon to put the workflow in edit mode.
   

   

4. Check Enabled.
   

   

   
   

5. Click Save to save your changes.

Step 5 – Monitor Inventory

1. On the navbar, expand Identity Lifecycle and select Account Inbox.
   
   The Account Inbox page appears. This page provides tabbed views of all information related to processing new user accounts discovered in a connected account store during inventory. An explanation of these tabs follows.
   

   

   • All — This tab displays a grid view of all user accounts and the status of those accounts in relation to the Account Inbox.

   • Dashboard — This tab provides a quick summary of account inbox activity.

   • Orphans — This tab displays a grid view of all user accounts without an EmpowerID Person.