Ajit Singh, Manager, Product Testing and Marketing Operations, Lepide Software 

In large organizations, the two basic tasks which are always there for IT help desks are: account unlock and password reset.

In any IT infrastructure, the major share of IT help desk time is mainly consumed by password related calls. Organizations create complex password policies as they want to ensure the security of data along with prevention of unauthorized access.

Various problems are associated with a large number of IT helpdesk calls, like:

• It requires the consumption of organizational resources to handle the helpdesk calls
• It decreases the overall productivity, as employees have to wait for some period of time to get their passwords reset
• A lot of time and money is wasted in making these calls

These problems can be addressed. The administrator can either solve all these issues on their own or can assign these tasks related to account management to some other dedicated users, as these tasks don’t require much effort and after training can be handled by non-technical users as well.

But, this process also requires time and effort of both users and the administrator. In case of large organizations with thousands of employees, this process will need dozens of employees to solve these issues.

Apart from this, the administrator can also use automated self-service password reset software which is specially designed to handle these issues. These applications enable the end user to tackle the problems of user account management on their own without the help of administrator. This solution is far better than the previous one, as all workload of administrators related to user accounts will be handled by the users themselves through self-service password reset solution. With the help of this software, users can reset the password directly from their login screen.

Before opting for self-service password reset solution, make sure it is equipped with the following features:

• It must enable users to reset password only after answering the security questions
• It must offer optimizing ability, so that user can optimize the questions and answers by themselves
• It must notify the users about password expiration in a set specific time. Reminder notification should also be there if in case user ignores the first one
• Both administrator and user should be informed about the password expiration, so that administrator will also be aware of the change
• It must enable users to update their latest personal information on their own
• It must enable users to do all the tasks on their own without the involvement of any co-worker or administrator
• It must provide a secure environment, to prevent any unauthorized access
• It should provide Web-based interface to manage domain setting from anywhere in the network
• It must provide enrollment notification to employees, so that they can enroll themselves with self-service password reset solution
• It should be easy to install and use
• These were some of the important features which must be provided by self-service password reset solution. This software is essential for any organization, as it helps the organization in a number of ways, like:
• It reduces the cost connected with help desk calls.
• It improves return on investment by reducing the downtime.
• It keeps the Active Directory updated with the latest personal information of employees.

To help you with these issues, various self-service password reset solutions are available equipped with all the above mentioned features.

---

Related articles:

Anatomy of a password hack Password Managers Address the Cybersecurity Problem Strong user authentication in self-encrypting drives