End User Management

Video Transcript

VIDEO TRANSCRIPT: END USER MANAGEMENT IN ADDIGY

Welcome and Agenda

Very happy to have everyone here, folks from all over the place. It’s always an honor to instruct you, whether it’s through the training courses or these webinars. We’ve done a couple of these webinars now, and it’s great to see folks rejoining and finding value in them.

Alongside me I have Anna, who’s part of our team. She’ll make sure logistics run well. I also have Ali, another member of the solutions architect team, who will be watching the chat in case any questions come in as I go through the webinar. We’ll pause along the way for questions, and there will be some polls as well.

There will be a recording of this afterwards, so if any colleagues weren’t able to attend, no worries. It will be uploaded into Addigy Academy in its own section.

Up until this point, whether you’ve gone through ACA, ACE, or ACP training, we’ve mostly focused on managing the machine and setting configurations for the machine. The idea behind end user management is that we’re scoping to the end user, based on specific fields filled out on that user in their identity provider, like job title, department, or office location. You can take these fields from your IdP and create Flex Policies with them in Addigy.

Here’s the agenda: what end user management is for, why we’re managing people and not just machines, and the three pillars: sync, assign, and manage. I’ll stop on certain slides and move into a live demo so it’s not just me reading text off slides.

What Is End User Management?

End user management is built for MSPs and internal IT teams whose users live in an identity provider. Currently, we support Microsoft Entra and Okta. Google is currently not supported. It’s for when a person, not the serial number, is the natural unit of management. Machines don’t change, but people do.

Say I log in to a machine via Addigy Identity. I receive settings and configurations specific to my job title or office location. If I log out and Tim logs into the same machine with his credentials, he receives settings and configurations meant for Tim. This is based on the end user management facts in Addigy. There are also identity-based facts, but they’re not the same, and I’ll show you what I mean.

If any information changes in your IdP, such as a role change or office location, then instead of manually moving the machine in Addigy, it moves according to the filters you set in your Flex Policies. The key is that we’re scoping for the user and the attributes associated with the user, not the machine itself.

Who End User Management Is For

The right fit is MSPs and IT teams managing Apple devices assigned to individual employees, using Entra or Okta. You’re managing people, not machines. As soon as an employee logs in, they receive the apps and settings they need based on their department. Those settings are personalized, so solutions architects might receive different configurations than sales. You can also see which devices belong to which employees.

There’s also a fact called Active. Whenever you delete a user from the IdP or unassign them, that value becomes false, and the machine can be placed into a policy where it’s easily visible.

Who is this not for? If you don’t have an identity provider, there’s really no way to use this. Users log in through the Addigy Identity window, Addigy retrieves their information, and pushes settings accordingly. End user management depends on information coming directly from the identity provider. If those fields aren’t filled out in the IdP, nothing happens.

Question: Any ETA on Google support?

I don’t have an ETA, and no one from the product team is on the call. Our team is aware it’s something admins are looking for.

Question: Can I set configuration profiles for a specific user, like email or calendar settings?

Yes. You can still deploy system-level profiles. If a system-level profile is in the policy and the user lands in that policy, based on office location or employee ID, the machine receives those profiles. You can also use the user fields as variables inside a device settings profile. Replace the field ID with something like employee ID or office location for an additional layer of scoping.

Prerequisites: Policies and Addigy Identity

First, configure your policies the way you want to differentiate machines. Does Alpha Networks plan on separating by office location, or by team? There’s no right or wrong way, as long as you understand inheritance. Start by establishing a baseline for what your company needs.

As an MSP, the first thing to check in a policy is Integrations and Settings, to confirm the MDM enrollment profile is there so you can begin enrolling machines. Step two is Addigy Identity. I selected Microsoft.

In Entra, I keep four tabs favorited. These are the primary tabs you need for end user management or Addigy Identity: Users, Groups, App registrations, and Enterprise apps. Users are the people in your IdP who can log in through Addigy Identity. When they log in to the machine, they can sync with a local user or become a brand-new user. Groups let you assign settings to users in training, engineering, support, and so on.

App registrations are what you use to create the Addigy Identity login. From there you get three fields: the client ID, the tenant ID, and the client secret, which is generated when you add a certificate.

Having the Identity window configured doesn’t mean you’re ready for end user management yet. There’s a specific setting you need to enable: Assign users to devices automatically. Without it, the feature won’t work.

There’s also Collect user attribute data. Think of that as the legacy option. It collects some identity facts, but not the facts used for end user management. There’s a whole new tier of facts for Flex Policy filters.

Creating Flex Policies With User Attributes

For Alpha Networks, I’ll create a Solutions Architects policy. Add filters. In training we’ve covered device facts, custom facts, static fields, and identity-related facts. For end user management, scroll down the list and you’ll find user attributes. These pull from the user’s properties in the IdP.

My user is in the Customer Success department, the job title is Solutions Architect, and the office location is Miami. Whatever fields are filled out are brought into Addigy. I can take Title and set it to Solutions Architect. If a solutions architect logs in to the machine via Addigy Identity, they receive whatever is in this policy.

Next, a Sales Team policy. Select the parent, Alpha Networks, add a filter, scroll to user attributes, and select Title. There are about 61 options, including email and even nickname. I’ll set Title to Sales. If the user logs out and the machine is no longer tied to someone in sales, it no longer receives what’s in the Sales Team policy.

One last example, an Engineering Team policy. Note that Identity Job Title and Title are different. They look the same, but Identity Job Title won’t pull the Solutions Architect value. Title will. Use Title, not Identity Job Title.

Greenshore Systems might organize by office instead: NYC Office, Tampa Office, Dallas Office. For these, use the Office Location user attribute and set it to the city, like Dallas. If a machine’s user is in the Dallas office, it receives those settings.

Now we have two separate hierarchies. One separates users by team, the other by office. No right or wrong approach, as long as you understand inheritance. Back in Alpha Networks, Integrations and Settings, Identity, the three fields are filled in, and Assign users to devices automatically is enabled. Save and deploy.

Question: Does the user’s login inherit across the hierarchy?

Yes, but only within that hierarchy unless a Flex Policy filter specifies otherwise. The machine enrolls into Alpha Networks and gets the baseline Alpha Networks settings. From there, depending on whether the user is a solutions architect or in the Dallas office, it receives those specific settings.

Most of you selected Microsoft Entra in the poll, so that’s the example we’ll use. The same applies to Okta. For Google support timing, reach out to our product team.

Connecting Entra to Addigy With SCIM

Users flow from your IdP to Addigy via SCIM, the System for Cross-domain Identity Management. That’s what brings users from your IdP into the end user management list. To clarify: App registrations are for Addigy Identity. Enterprise apps are for SCIM.

In Entra, go to Enterprise apps and create your own application. I’ll name it Alpha Networks Webinar SCIM, select the option to integrate any other application you don’t find in the gallery, and click Create.

Next, open Provisioning and create a new configuration. It asks for a tenant URL and a secret token. Those come from Addigy. In Addigy, go to End Users and set up end user management. Copy the SCIM URL into the tenant URL field and the token into the secret token field. Test the connection, and if it succeeds, click Create.

Before provisioning, assign the users you want to bring into Addigy under Users and groups. What you don’t want to do is provision and forget to select a user. If you do, you may wait around 40 minutes for the user to show up after you fix it. I’ll select the Addigy Certified Training group and click Assign. You can select a specific user or a group.

Back in Provisioning, make sure the provisioning status is on and syncing successfully, then save. I’ll use Provision on demand to bring my user in immediately. Confirming in Addigy, my user is there, along with the rest of the Addigy Certified Training group.

Question: How often does information update from the IdP into Addigy?

It depends on the IdP. From my understanding, with Entra it’s roughly 30 to 40 minutes for changes to come into Addigy. I’m not sure if Okta is the same.

In the End Users list, you can choose the columns that are most relevant: title, groups, whether the user is active. And you can use these same fields to create Flex Policies. The moment this user logs in through Addigy Identity, Addigy knows they’re a solutions architect, and they receive whatever is in the Solutions Architects policy.

Offboarding With the Active Fact

You can create an Offboarding Users policy with the filter Active equals false. If I unassign or delete a user in my IdP, any machine whose user is inactive lands in this policy, so you can see which users are no longer active. Active means the user is still in the IdP and enabled. If it shows red, the user was deleted or disabled in the IdP.

Four Ways to Assign Users to Devices

There are four ways a user gets assigned a machine:

Addigy Identity: the user logs in on macOS and is assigned automatically.
Enrollment SSO: for iOS, iPadOS, and macOS. Assigns the device to the employee during initial setup, before they reach the desktop. Requires Apple Business and ADE enrollment.
CSV upload: assign devices in bulk from the End Users panel.
Manual assignment: click a user and assign a device individually.

If anything changes in the IdP, like office location or job title, it’s reflected in Addigy. Make the change in the IdP and it flows down.

Signing In With Addigy Identity

Here’s the Addigy Identity login window on my machine. I log in with my Addigy credentials, and I’m welcomed back by name. Whatever is in the Solutions Architects policy, or whatever user fields I’m using in my profiles, is sent to the machine.

Question: What fallbacks are available with no network?

Enable the local user login option so the user can log in locally even without a network. I’d consider it a mandatory setting. Your network might be perfect, but if you work in IT long enough, you’ll deal with a network issue. Better to be prepared.

End User Management for Multi-Tenant MSPs

Question: How does end user management work for multi-tenant environments?

When this feature was in beta, there was just one panel, which was a challenge for MSPs. Now you go to Connections and add a connection for each client. Alpha Networks might use Entra and Greenshore Systems might use Okta, and you create a connection to each IdP. For policies, Addigy Identity configured on Alpha Networks inherits to its Engineering, Sales, and Solutions Architects policies. Greenshore doesn’t get that Identity window. If Greenshore wants Addigy Identity and end user management, configure it on the Greenshore policy.

In Entra, a user’s account status shows as enabled. If it’s disabled, for example because the employee left the company, the machine ends up in the offboarding policy.

Where User Attributes Can Be Used

You can use user fields as variables in a device settings profile. I thought end user management facts were also available in device tables, but they’re not yet. Identity facts are there. End user management facts are primarily for Flex Policies, like offboarding users or grouping users by team, office, or employee ID. The End Users panel also has its own table with these columns.

My machine enrolled into Alpha Networks and receives baseline Alpha Networks settings, plus whatever is specific to solutions architects. I agree it should be a feature request to use these facts in device tables, and possibly monitoring alerts, so you can see when a user goes inactive or a job title changes. You can do that today with identity facts, but not with end user management facts.

Identity Facts vs. End User Management Facts

Collect user attribute data only collects information while the user is signed in. When they sign out, those identity facts go back to N/A. End user management facts stay the same after the user logs out. I’d suggest enabling both.

Recap and Key Takeaways

To summarize, end user management focuses on the end user, not the machine. Start in your policy’s Integrations and Settings. As an MSP, confirm the MDM enrollment profile is there. Make sure Addigy Identity is configured, and under Customize Identity, enable Assign users to devices automatically.

In your IdP, in this case Entra, use App registrations to configure Addigy Identity and Enterprise apps to configure SCIM. Assign the users or groups you want to provision, provision them, and confirm they appear in Addigy. Then use those fields in Flex Policy filters. Once configured, employees simply sign in, Addigy identifies who they are, and the appropriate settings and apps are applied automatically.

You now have four tiers of filters for Flex Policies: device facts, custom facts, static fields, and user attributes. The key takeaway: your identity provider tells Addigy who your employees are, Addigy connects them to their machines, and Flex Policies automate their management.

For offboarding, the fact to use is Active. You can combine it with other facts, like a machine not online for over 30 days and an inactive user, so you can reprovision it for the next user.

We have KB guides for Okta and Microsoft. Everything I covered comes directly from the KB, so follow the article step by step to configure both Addigy Identity and end user management.

Closing Q&A

Question: What happens if a user logs into another Mac?

That’s not an issue. A user can have multiple Macs. A Mac can’t have multiple users for this feature. If the user signs in to another Mac, it’s simply assigned to them as well, and they receive whatever Flex Policies they match.

Question: Can it bind to a local account?

Yes. Identity users can either create a new user or sync to an existing user on that machine.

If you’re interested in more training, we have ACA, ACE, and ACP courses, plus a free Addigy Academy Basics tier. For the recording, ask your customer success manager or account manager, and look for it in Addigy Academy. Thanks to Anna and Ali for helping in the chat, and thanks, everyone, for your time.

FAQs

What is end user management in Addigy?

Addigy end user management scopes Apple device settings to the person instead of the machine. It uses attributes from your identity provider, like job title, department, or office location, as filters in Flex Policies so the right settings apply when a user signs in.

Which identity providers does Addigy end user management support?

Addigy end user management supports Microsoft Entra and Okta. Google is not currently supported.

What needs to be enabled to use Addigy end user management?

Addigy Identity must be configured in the policy’s Integrations and Settings, and the Assign users to devices automatically setting must be enabled. Without that setting, end user management does nothing.

How do users sync from Microsoft Entra to Addigy?

Users sync via SCIM. Create an Enterprise app in Entra, add the SCIM URL and token from the Addigy End Users page under Provisioning, assign the users or groups to bring in, and turn provisioning on.

How long does it take for IdP changes to show up in Addigy?

It depends on the identity provider. For Microsoft Entra, changes typically take roughly 30 to 40 minutes to appear in Addigy.

What is the difference between Title and Identity Job Title in Addigy filters?

Title is the end user management attribute pulled from the identity provider and is the one to use in Flex Policies. Identity Job Title is a separate identity fact and will not match end user management values.

How do I find devices whose users have left the company?

Create a Flex Policy with the filter Active equals false. When a user is deleted or disabled in the identity provider, their machine lands in that policy so it can be offboarded or reprovisioned.