How does it work?

UNIFYConnect uses the employee information in your HR system to automatically manage access to your corporate systems. It does this by creating, updating and disabling accounts in your corporate directory. When an employee is added to your HR system, the employee information is read by the service and a new directory account is created. Changes made to existing employees will similarly be updated in the corresponding directory account. When employees are terminated in the HR system, their corresponding directory account will be disabled.

If you have an HR system that is not supported, please let us know, and we’ll update you when support is added.

Which corporate directories does it support?

UNIFYConnect currently supports Entra ID (formerly Azure Active Directory)) and on-premises Active Directory (AD). If you have a corporate directory that is not supported, please let us know, and we’ll update you when support is added.

How does onboarding work?

UNIFYConnect monitors your HR system, looking for new employees that do not already exist in your corporate directory. When it detects a new employee, it will create the account with detail from the HR system and activate the account on the morning the employee starts in the organisation. This new account can be used to drive automatic group management, role-based access controls and licensing (including Office 365 or Microsoft 365).

How does offboarding work?

UNIFYConnect monitors your HR system, looking for employees that have a termination date set. When the real date exceeds the termination date of the employee, the account will be blocked, prevent the ex-employee from using the account.

How does movers work?

UNIFYConnect monitors your HR system, looking for changes to employee information, such as name, office location or position title. Once a new position starts, or in some cases, like name changes, immediately, the directory account for that employee will be updated. This change can be used to drive automatic group management, role-based access controls and more.

Does this really help me sleep at night?

Well, it’s not a doctor prescribed sleeping aid, but knowing that your organisation is protected from ghost accounts, disgruntled employees; gets efficiency gains in provisioning, and deprovisioning; gives the right access by having accurate position information in your directory; and is fully supported by UNIFY Solutions certainly should be better than a placebo.

What do I need to have?

You must have an HR system and a corporate directory. These also need connectivity to the internet; see “Do I need to install anything?” below for more details.

Do I need to install anything?

UNIFYConnect needs to be able to connect to your HR system and corporate directory. If both are cloud-based or accessible from the internet, you won’t need to install anything. If these systems are on-premises and only accessible from inside your corporate network, you will need to install software to enable connectivity. This software can be either our on-premises agent, which connects to the UNIFYConnect service, or VPN software to allow the UNIFYConnect service to access your corporate network.

Where is the service hosted?

The UNIFYConnect service is a cloud-based service. We use Microsoft Azure cloud hosting offerings. Your tenancy will be hosted in data centres nearest to you. For customers in Australia, this is the Australia East and Australia Southeast regions.

How secure is the service?

All data imported from your corporate systems is stored separately from all other customers. We use ISO 27001 certified data stores, and data is encrypted in transit and at rest.

ISO27001 is the international standard for ensuring data security, meaning that your data is protected by data security experts and you can rest assured that your data remains exactly that – your data!

What counts as a “user” for billing purposes?

A “user” is defined as a current employee or contractor, with records in your HR system and corporate directory, which UNIFYConnect manages. You may have active accounts for employees who are no longer with your organization that need to be cleaned up — we won’t bill you for these.

How frequently does synchronization occur?

UNIFYConnect synchronization frequency is fully configurable based on both inbound and outbound schedules. You should consult with UNIFY as to the optimal synchronization frequency.

How do I manage my Office 365 Licenses?

Microsoft Entra ID (formerly Azure Active Directory) provides a feature known as Group Based Licensing (GBL). This feature assigns licences to authorized users based on group membership - either fixed or dynamic membership. See Azure AD GBL for more information. If you require assistance with this feature, please let us know.

We plan to implement this functionality with our own developers. What does your solution offer that ours wouldn’t?

There are numerous benefits:

As a Cloud based service it is rapidly and cheaply deployed;
It is fully supported as a Cloud based service;
Extensibility with other Identity-as-a-Service offerings;
Integration without compromising your HR and Payroll environment;
Real-Time, Bi-Directional integration with your HRIS system including custom attributes (depending on your HR system);
Road map and strategy, future proofing version; and
User community and shared experience.

What about my payroll data?

The UNIFYConnect service uses only the HR system vendors preferred integration method. Payroll information is inaccessible to our service using our recommended security settings.

We have developed this functionality with our own developers. What does your solution offer that ours doesn’t?

UNIFY Solutions’ UNIFYConnect solution removes several key risks that you current face:

In bespoke developments, your organisation’s IP lies with the developer(s) that designed and implemented your solution. The operational and future enhancement of your system is dependent on individuals, not on the depth of service that comes with Commercial off the shelf solutions;
The UNIFYConnect solution provides a full solution support program. Typically it is either endorsed by the HR vendor, or uses their preferred integration methods without compromising your HR and Payroll environment;
UNIFY’s solution future proofs version compatibility with low cost subscription;
Your peer-to peer connector is unlikely to facilitate effective integration of your HR system into an enterprise wide system in future phases;
Out of the Box, UNIFYConnect can provide Real-Time, Bi-Directional integration with your HR system (system dependent); and
Implementation is a configuration exercise, not a development one.

How do I avoid lock-in?

Your major investment, and commitment, has been in deciding your HR/Payroll system. Now that you’ve made that investment, the focus needs to be on ensuring you leverage options to minimise risk and operational costs. UNIFY’s UNIFYConnect solution achieves this and complements your investment in your HR system. The solution has no impact on the technology choices being made by your organisation and will integrate easily into the platforms of most identity management platforms.

After the agreed initial period, you can terminate your agreement with 60 days’ notice.

What warranty do we get?

The Service Level Agreement with UNIFY specifies the expected up-time and throughputs of the service, with penalties to UNIFY if they are not met.

How do I get support?

Since its introduction in 2007, UNIFYBroker has proven to be a very low maintenance solution. However, service support is included as part of the UNIFYConnect subscription fee, and is provided by highly skilled support engineers from UNIFY Solution’s Support Centre.

What other software do I need for this solution?

Nothing. You only need make your HR system and Active Directory accessible either through firewall rules or by using a VPN from our Cloud Datacentre. We provide everything else.

What do I get for the subscription fee?

As well as the peace of mind from having your Directory governed, you will get:

24x7 Access to UNIFY support knowledgebase;
Ability to directly lodge issues and monitor their progress in the UNIFY Support Systems;
Expert assistance from UNIFY team familiar with the product;
Access to UNIFY 1300 support number or email support if other channels are not available; and
Regular reviews and health checks showing a summary of performance and operations.

What if I can’t meet all of the prerequisites, or don’t know how?

UNIFY can be engaged with packs to assist with your readiness, with service items such as:

Readiness Reporting and Recommendations;
Active Directory data cleansing and preparation; and
Anything else that you might need assistance with.

What staff will I need deploy to assist with the Project?

An HR Stakeholder;
An IT representative with administrative access to AD; and
An IT representative that can do the networking changes required to make your HR system and AD accessible, if they are not already accessible.

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