The Identity & Access Management (IAM) program’s foundation release of the SailPoint IdentityIQ provisioning and identity management system in August was a critical effort in building the foundation for a truly unified identity ecosystem across the Harvard Community. Now, as the new academic and fiscal calendars move fully into view, exciting next steps are taking shape as the IAM program works with Schools and programs across the University to take user identity and access to the next level.
“With the IIQ foundation release, we have established a great footing upon which to build,” says Gretchen Grozier, IAM community manager. “As we move forward towards the next milestones in all our initiatives, we get closer to creating a truly unified identity for members of the Harvard Community.”
The IdentityIQ foundation release enables IAM to provision user access rights and roles to the University Active Directory, a central resource shared by Central Administration, the Harvard Divinity School, and the T.H. Chan School of Public Health.
Over the course of Fall 2014, IAM will also bring the Harvard Alumni Association into the fold by migrating their records into the University’s central identity database (IdDB). This means that — instead of the current process, in which outgoing students must proactively register as alumni when leaving the University — newly minted graduates are simply given an “alumni” role within the IdDB, and are automatically granted the full privileges of Alumni Association members.
In addition, IAM is currently working with the Harvard Medical School to migrate user mailboxes to the Harvard “single tenant” of Microsoft Office 365 — a move that, by the end of FY15, will enable HMS users to share files, address book, and calendar free/busy details with more than 20,000 users across the Faculty of Arts & Sciences, Central Administration, Graduate School of Education, T.H. Chan School of Public Health, Harvard Divinity School, and the Graduate School of Design. Other Schools and units under discussion for migrating to the Office 365 shared tenant include the School of Engineering and Applied Sciences, Harvard Law School, the John F. Kennedy School of Government, and more. This major milestone represents a significant collaboration effort between IAM development, HMS, and HUIT Unified Communications.
Finally, joint efforts between IAM and the Student Information Services (SIS) program to endorse Salesforce as a HUIT-wide client relationship management (CRM) platform have gained traction with the Harvard Business School, which is including SIS and IAM in their ongoing discussions about the governance and potential use of the tool.
For more information about the IAM program, including the full three-year program plan and updates on project and overall progress, please visit the IAM website at iam.harvard.edu or contact iam@harvard.edu.
>> See all news from the Identity and Access Management program