Active Directory tool

[davewarman]

I have been asked to research a new AD provisioning tool, we are currently using a freebee from our "friends" at NSO however we need a proper one, can anyone recommend a tool they use or know of?

Mostly we will be using it to create bulk users (September isn't that far away) and do day to day admin

Love to hear what is out there and working how it should,

we currently use Hyper v with server 2008 R2 Enterprise

 

Thanks for the help

[FN-GM]

We do it using this - SalamanderSoft Limited

 

Its really good. It just pulls the data from SIMS. Accounts are created and disabled automatically. Renames are all automatic, I can't fault it at all! We have all sorts of groups based on gender, classes etc. Means people can target specific distribution groups on the email system. Staff and student both have time tables in outlook using this. Some staff use is as a digital way of doing lesson planning. Once its in outlook you can sync with tablets and phones, a massive plus. The support chaps are really good, get back to you quick and always helpful. They will also go the extra mile for you if you have an new requirement. They have just sorted our new year 7 accounts out, got back to me in no time at all.

 

@rpwillis can tell you more

Edited June 13, 2014 by FN-GM

[themightymrp]

Just had a look at their site - it looks really good! What are their prices like? Roughly

[fiza]

We do it using this - SalamanderSoft Limited

 

Its really good. It just pulls the data from SIMS. Accounts are created and disabled automatically. Renames are all automatic, I can't fault it at all! We have all sorts of groups based on gender, classes etc. Means people can target specific distribution groups on the email system. Staff and student both have time tables in outlook using this. Some staff use is as a digital way of doing lesson planning. Once its in outlook you can sync with tablets and phones, a massive plus. The support chaps are really good, get back to you quick and always helpful. They will also go the extra mile for you if you have an new requirement. They have just sorted our new year 7 accounts out, got back to me in no time at all.

 

@rpwillis can tell you more

 

How does it deal with naming conventions?

What kind of cost?

[davewarman]

It does look good can you provide any screen shots ?

[FN-GM]

Just had a look at their site - it looks really good! What are their prices like? Roughly

 

Not sure off top of my head.

 

How does it deal with naming conventions?

What kind of cost?

 

Any system you like. You name it, it will do it.

 

It does look good can you provide any screen shots ?

 

Its all managed by them, most of it is built on powerhsell. They handle any changes etc.

[TheScarfedOne]

+1 for salamander here. Takes the hassle out of ad management. It is also mailing out new student details to heads of house, staff to hr. Simples. £999 per year with a setup fee I think?

[clareq]

+1 for Salamander - always ready to go the extra mile. Can't fault them.

[Abaddon]

We used Dovestones until last year. Pretty good tools, and cheap. Now moving towards SIMS ADP.... (please save me).

[Sephiroth]

At risk of sounding facetious, Powershell...

 

I've written powershell scripts to take a csv export created by sims, and do everything for me:

• Create the user
  
• set group membership
  
• set and create profile path an permissions
  
• set and create home direcotory path and permissions
  
• set quota limits for both profile and quota
  
• create e-Mail mailbox
  
• assign photocopier PIN
  
• Dump all information (password, PIN, etc) into a text file
  
• A few other things that I can't quite remember at the moment!
  

 

I have yet to get it to check against the list and disable any account that no longer exists, but I know how to.

 

If anyone wants any more information or code for that then let me know, I'll be happy to help.

 

We did use a 3rd party tool to manage AD but it made a hell of a mess, didn't work properly and lacked a lot of things that I've since put in with simple PS calls. Personally I would never use one again, but that's me.

[Marshall_IT]

I can't recommend salamander soft highly enough! You could write your own ps scripts to do a lot of what they do but not everything as they link directly with Sims. No exporting needed.

 

I've also asked them to look at provisioning personal SharePoint sites used by office 365 one drive as you need to log in below it creates the site normally and we have all our students using it on ipads and it just adds another step.

 

Really good software, really good support.

[Davit2005]

At risk of sounding facetious, Powershell...

 

We used to use DoveStones for years but a few things made us go down the PowerShell script route.

 

I've cobbled together a script to additionally create Office 365 accounts and emailing different responses on success or failure by way of comparing imported csv with a check to see if they have a Office 365 mailbox.

 

You will find PowerShell in most things these days, Active Directory, Server 2008 R2 +, Exchange, Office 365, Veeam and VMWare. Once you start getting into it you can really see the Power .

[kmac2326]

Hey Sephiroth,

 

I know this is an old thread, but would you still be able to share your script? I've been using Arposh but it unfortunately doesn't have the capability to set group membership. Thanks!

 

At risk of sounding facetious, Powershell...

 

I've written powershell scripts to take a csv export created by sims, and do everything for me:

• Create the user
  
• set group membership
  
• set and create profile path an permissions
  
• set and create home direcotory path and permissions
  
• set quota limits for both profile and quota
  
• create e-Mail mailbox
  
• assign photocopier PIN
  
• Dump all information (password, PIN, etc) into a text file
  
• A few other things that I can't quite remember at the moment!
  

 

I have yet to get it to check against the list and disable any account that no longer exists, but I know how to.

 

If anyone wants any more information or code for that then let me know, I'll be happy to help.

 

We did use a 3rd party tool to manage AD but it made a hell of a mess, didn't work properly and lacked a lot of things that I've since put in with simple PS calls. Personally I would never use one again, but that's me.

[Matt_Renato]

I haven't got a script on hand I can share with you, but can add your users to groups using the Add-ADGroupMember cmdlet in Powershell.

[Sephiroth]

For group memberships, I do the following:

 

$Goups = @("List of groups to add")
$CurrentGroups = Get-ADPrincipalGroupMembership -Identity $Admission
$CurrentGroupNames = @()

Foreach ($CurrentGroup in $CurrentGroups) {
   $CurrentGroupName = $CurrentGroup.Name

   If (!($Groups -contains $CurrentGroupName)) {
       If ($CurrentGroupName -ne "Domain Users") {
           Remove-ADGroupMember -Identity $CurrentGroupName -Member $Admission -Confirm:$False
       }
   }
}

Foreach ($GroupVar in $CurrentGroups) {
   $CurrentGroupNames += @($GroupVar.Name)
}

Foreach ($Group in $Groups) {
   If (!($CurrentGroupNames -Contains $Group)) {
       Add-ADPrincipalGroupMembership -Identity $Admission -MemberOf ($Group)
   }
}

 

This will find the groups that a user is currently a member of and check that against the list of groups to add. If there's a group that isn't in the new list that isn't the group "Domain Users", it gets removed. it then adds all groups that the user isn't already a member of.

 

If you're creating only, not updating, then you could just use the bottom foreach loop with the groups array.

[kmac2326]

Would you be able to share your whole onboarding script? AD, exchange, set paths, pulling from CSV and etc?