Configuring Attribute Flow

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Last updated: Sept 17, 2018 by Phillip Hanegan
3 min read

EmpowerID supports the configuration of attribute synchronization rules for flowing attribute changes between directories and the EmpowerID Identity Warehouse. Attribute Flow rules are visually configured and are always relative to the relationship between an attribute in a directory and the corresponding attribute in the EmpowerID Identity Warehouse. Attribute Flow rules define the specific fields and attributes that are synchronized between the EmpowerID Identity Warehouse person objects and the external user accounts to which they are linked. Additionally, Attribute Flow rules can be weighted by account store. For example, if you have connected EmpowerID to an HR system as well as Active Directory, and you want any changes made to an attribute in the HR system to take priority over changes made in Active Directory or EmpowerID (while allowing changes to be made in any system), you would give a higher score for each CRUD operation originating from the HR account store and correspondingly lower scores for the Active Directory account store.

The following flow rules are available:

  • No Sync — When this option is selected, no information flows between EmpowerID and the native system.
  • Bidirectional Flow — When this option is selected, changes made within EmpowerID update the native system and vice-versa. For most attributes, this is the default setting.
  • Account Store Changes Only — When this option is selected, changes can only be made in the native system and are then passed to EmpowerID.
  • EmpowerID Changes Only — When this option is selected, changes can only be made in EmpowerID and are then passed to the native system.

The following CRUD operations are available:

  • Create — This operation is used to create an attribute value for an existing attribute when the value of that attribute is null.
  • Update — This operation is used to update the value of an attribute.
  • Delete — This operation is used to delete the value of an attribute.

For attribute flow to occur, the following prerequisites must be met:

  1. Each involved account store must have the Enable Attribute Flow setting set to true.




  2. The Attribute Flow - Directory Change Processor Job must be enabled on at least one EmpowerID back-end server. 


EmpowerID retrieves attribute values for each user account in a connected account store and maps them value for value to the corresponding Person attributes stored in the EmpowerID Identity Warehouse. In this way, if the value of "State" for an AD user account is "Massachusetts" then the value of "State" for that account's Person object in EmpowerID is "Massachusetts." However, EmpowerID allows you to create your own Attribute Flow Handlers to customize these values. You do this by creating a class library in Workflow Studio that inherits from the DefaultAttributeflowHandler class and by overriding the method specific to the account store (external or EmpowerID) you wish to effect. For more information on customizing Attribute Flow, see Creating Custom Attribute Flow Handlers in the Developer's Guide.
The Mail attribute should always flow from Exchange to EmpowerID.

To configure Attribute Flow

  1. From the Navigation Sidebar of the EmpowerID Web interface, expand Admin > Applications and Directories and click Attribute Flow Rules.
  2. From the Attribute Flow Rules page, click the Advanced Search drop-down button, enter the name of the account store for which you want to configure the flow rules and then click Search to filter the rules shown in the grid.

    The attributes from the EmpowerID Person object are displayed in the left column with the corresponding attributes from the account store displayed in the right column.

  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.

    EmpowerID only considers scores for attribute CRUD operations when multiple account stores with the same user records are connected to EmpowerID, such as would be the case if an HR System and Active Directory were being inventoried by EmpowerID.