Hello all,

Apptio is announcing the General Availability (GA) of Enhanced Access Administration on Thursday November 9th, 2023. This release delivers a comprehensive refresh of the existing look and feel of Frontdoor's Access Administration. In addition to aesthetic enhancements, we have extended functionality to improve usability and update our underlying technology. This will ensure users can continue to securely access to our products while providing a foundation for future innovation.

For a downloadable pdf of the following content, follow the link to the supporting article here: Enhanced Access Administration Enablement 
 
The purpose of this post is to summarize upcoming changes to Access Administration, to give you information about our plans to release, and to provide enablement material to prepare you for these changes.
 

Q: What is being released and why?

We are releasing a stable version of our refactor of Frontdoor's Access Administration across all customers to prepare your team for the deprecation of the existing "legacy" Access Administration. With this release, all users on your account will have access to both the legacy and enhanced experiences. Administrators will not be able to turn off access to the enhanced experience for select users.

Q: What improvements have been made?

We've made several improvements to simplify user authentication and access management:

• Simplified our home page and core functionality
• Streamlined bulk actions to provide clarity and transparency into user permissions
• Upgraded to modern table and UI components
• Aligned our user interface with familiar Apptio product experiences.

How do I use it?

Frontdoor is Apptio's authentication and authorization service. It is used to control user authentication and access management across Apptio applications. Access Administration is the user interface to manage these settings.

Enhanced Access Administration is deployed as a separate frontend application to the existing Access Administration. For customers, the enhanced experience is accessed via the gear dropdown on the toolbar located at the top of the page across our applications. Within the enhanced experience, users can toggle between the enhanced and legacy experience via the gear menu.

 Figure 1: Accessing Access Administration from the Frontdoor Landing Page 
 

Figure 2: Accessing Access Administration from our applications 
 

Aligning our user interface with familiar Apptio product experiences 

You will first notice that the design and layout of the enhanced experience mirrors that of Apptio products. We have implemented the left-hand navigation menu and will soon add the header menu bar to deliver the different pages. 

Figure 3: Apptio common menu components in Enhanced Access Administration 
 

Simplified home page around core functionality 

For administrators familiar with the legacy experience, you will first notice how the experience is centered around a home page. You will see both a Users and Environments tab at the top of your window reflecting the two primary entry points into managing access. From the Users tab, you can search for a user and view what environments they have access to by selecting the username of a given user. From the resulting page, you are provided information about what the user has access to. By selecting the checkbox, you will be directed to a workflow to manage the specified users access on the specific environment. 

Figure 4: Legacy to Enhanced Access Administration Comparison 
 

Here is a User Home page. To begin managing access, please click on the highlighted username corresponding to the user you wish to manage. This action will direct you to the User page, where you can view the User Profile and proceed to Grant Access

Figure 5: Home - Users page 
 

 In this view, you have the option to revoke access to the environment. Simply tick the checkbox next to the environment's name and click on "Remove Access." You can grant access by clicking on "Grant Access," which will lead you to the Access Wizard.

Figure 6: Home - Users page > user access 
 

Similarly, you can approach access from an environment perspective. From the Environments tab, search for a given environment to understand which users have access. Search for the environment and select the appropriate environment via Environment name. On the resulting page, you can see which users have access to the environment. Administrators will be familiar with this page. It is equivalent to the Environment Access page in the legacy experience. Select the customer you want and the environment from the list below that you want to be directed to a workflow to manage the specified user's access on the specific environment. 

Figure 7: Home - Environments page 
 

To manage access for a specific environment, select the environment of interest. Then, click on the icons next to the username to tailor access settings for that particular user.  You will be redirected to the Access Wizard.

Figure 8: Home - Environments page > environment access 
 

Provide transparency into how access is managed across our applications 

On Environment page you do not have to open button -> click property pane on top

In addition to the restructuring of pages, we implemented changes to the user interface to make information more accessible. One such change is the introduction of the properties pane. This pane can be accessed via selecting any cell link across our tables. From the pane, you can view related panes, by selecting other links, and access different tabs to view how the objects that underlie the permission model are related. 

Figure 9: Accessing a properties pane 
 
 To activate or deactivate users, you may do so through the user pane.

Figure 10: Accessing a User properties pane to Activate/Deactivate user 

We updated the Roles page to include additional improvements. First, the ability to view roles granted to an environment, including custom role management, remains under a tab named Explore by Environments. We added Standard Roles and Permissions tabs to help administrators explore how these objects are configured. One example is selecting a Role's properties pane, then selecting the permissions tab to view what permissions are tied to the Role. We look forward to considering improvements based on your feedback. 

Figure 11: Changes to the Roles page 

 
Streamline administrative bulk actions 

A welcome addition to our design is addressing bulk actions. First, across any table where bulk actions are relevant, you can select the left aligned multi-select checkboxes to highlight the bulk actions left-aligned at the top of the table. From here you can quickly launch bulk workflows. 

Figure 12: Bulk actions example 

 
Perhaps the most significant change is the addition of the Access Wizard. The Access Wizard is your new tool for managing access by providing greater ease of use when selecting environments, users, and roles. Additionally, all access workflows are funneled through the wizard for ease of use. 

Figure 13a: Access Wizard > Environment selection 
 

Figure 13b: Access Wizard > User selection 
 

Figure 13c: Access Wizard > Role selection 
 

Figure 13d: Access Wizard > Confirmation 
 

Modern table and frontend components 

We have modernized the tables and frontend components to help deliver several nice to haves to assist you with using the tool for a variety of use cases. 

Common Table Action Menu: Hover your mouse over a column header to surface the menu. Select the hamburger icon to open the menu. 

Appearance: The left-most section on the menu allows you to control the table column's appearance. 

Filter: The middle section allows you to control which rows appear based on the contents of a given column. 

Note: Filtering is only available on certain columns. We'll look to standardize filtering across columns over time. 
 

Show/Hide Columns: The right-most section enables you to control what columns appear on the table. 

 
Sorting and Common Table Actions: Sorting is provided by simply clicking on the header of a given column. When filters/sorting are turned on, an icon appears on the associated column header. The Common Table Action Bar becomes selectable to clear all filter/sorts across the table. The download button on the far right enables you to download any table. 

You can find all the details regarding the new features in EAA and instructions for their use in the Help Center.