How To Handle Expiring SAP User Role Assignments

There are many reasons why SAP customers need to provide temporary access to their applications. These include short-term contractors or consultants, backup access when an employee is on vacation or suffering a long-term illness or disability, and emergency access scenarios. Regardless of the reason, organizations often encounter a common challenge: temporary SAP user role assignments expire without alerting the users. This lack of notification could potentially leave users locked out of applications or without the ability to perform their assigned tasks.

One of our clients, a leading multinational company based in Sweden, brought this to our attention and asked us to create an automated process for handling these expiring temporary SAP user roles.

The Challenges Of Managing Expiring SAP User Roles With A Manual Process

Having to manually search through hundreds of thousands of profiles to find which roles have expired is time-consuming. In addition, it may lead to human errors and frustrated users. An automated role management solution effectively checks if a user still needs a particular role and automatically extends a required role or removes any unused roles.

For example, let’s consider an SAP user, Sarah. She has a role assignment expiring for her user ID in three days. She would not know that her ID expired until she logs in to the system on the third day and receives an error message. Next, Sarah must contact the helpdesk or her manager to request an extension. The approval process for this request could take 1-2 business days or more. The entire workflow would entail a series of manual processes and approvals. This would affect her ability to perform her daily tasks and negatively impact her productivity.

Use Automation To Prevent Temporary Roles From Expiring

Working with our client, Pathlock created a process that automates how temporary SAP user role assignments are handled. It helps keep the users in control and accountable for their roles and authorizations while allowing them to extend roles if needed. In addition, the process ensures that users are not left without their roles, allowing them to continue performing their regular tasks. This helps improve the user experience and productivity for our SAP customers.   

In a nutshell, Pathlock’s automated role management and authorization solution helps SAP customers with the following:    

• Fewer inquiries: Automating the SAP user role management and authorization process leads to fewer requests placed with the IT department and improves the turnaround time.
• Limited glitches: Users would no longer lose the ability to perform their usual duties due to the sudden expiry of temporary role assignments.
• Time management: Authorization managers no longer need to waste their time manually adding or removing roles.
• Automation: IT teams are relieved of manual approvals and processes.
• Resource management: Teams freed from time-consuming manual processes are better utilized for other functions.
• Documentation: All processes are now documented, making the workflow more efficient and audit-ready.
• Better user experience: With minimal glitches and less time spent on manual processes, there is a significant improvement in user experience.

Contact us today for a full demonstration of how to automate role management and authorizations in your SAP applications.