To help our customers use our AD products to the fullest, we wanted to make a blog series of undervalued features of our products.
In this post, we discuss three underused features of ADManager Plus and how organizations can improve remote AD management from using them.
1) Active Directory organization unit (OU) management
2) Active Directory automation
3) Remote mailbox creation in Exchange Server
1. Active Directory organization unit (OU) management
Organizational units in Active Directory (AD) are primarily used to apply group policy objects on users, groups, and computers. Any error that occurs during the configuration or modification of OUs can compromise the functionality and security of the entire AD environment. However, AD does not make it easy to manage OUs. For any modification or application, administrators have to open the native AD console, locate the OU in the domain, and then perform the desired actions.
On top of this, when a change has to be replicated to multiple OUs, administrators have to repeat the process for every OU, making for a mundane and error-prone process. Alternatively, they could use Powershell scripts to apply changes in bulk; however, this requires extensive coding experience.
With its predefined features for creating, modifying, or deleting OUs, ADManager Plus simplifies OU management.
Figure 1. OU management options in ADManager Plus.
With ADManager Plus, administrators can:
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Configure the relevant settings for an OU using OU templates
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Create single or multiple OUs with desired settings and values using the web UI
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Modify, move, or delete OUs with ease.
2. Active Directory automation
From user provisioning to user deprovisioning, AD tasks are critical, yet repetitive and time-consuming. To ease AD administrators job during WFH, ADManager Plus makes it easy to automate crucial AD tasks.
ADManager Plus allows administrators to get things done quickly with:
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Review approval-workflows for controlled automation.
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Automated and template-controlled user provisioning.
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Automated user account management, with the help of prebuilt actions.
3. Remote mailbox creation in Exchange Server
When it comes to the bulk creation of remote mailboxes in Exchange Server, native AD tools are of little help, and PowerShell scripts are extremely complex.
With ADManager Plus, you can easily create remote mailboxes in Exchange Server 2010, 2013, and 2016, while provisioning new AD accounts for users either individually or in bulk; additionally, you can easily configure the remote routing address during user account creation.
You can even use templates to create mailboxes or import them from CSV files. What’s more? Administrators can task non-administrative employees with creating remote mailboxes without raising their AD privilege.
Figure 2. Remote mailbox creation in ADManager Plus.
Want to explore more features?
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In the next installment of this 3 part blog series, we’ll take a look at some of the undervalued features of ADAudit Plus, and we’ll examine how it can help with everyday AD auditing and reporting.
