Create and Manage Users via the Users Page (EA)

Now in Early Access (EA), ActivTrak has introduced a new user management feature to simplify user administration and offer several other benefits requested by account administrators. These capabilities are currently available to Early Access (EA) customers of Next-Gen User Management. Unsure whether you are part of EA? Admins will see the Users page in their left navigation under Settings > Users & Groups, right above User Agents.

The Users Page allows Administrators to transition from managing individual user agents and their device logins to managing Users with one or more agents, rich profiles and other integrated datasets. This design is akin to an employee directory and can be integrated with a variety of source systems to automate user management.

A User record contains employee profile information (i.e. display name and identifiers), agent assignments, and tracking settings. Administrators can take actions on Users, like stopping tracking or deleting data, which are automatically applied to all associated agents. 

Notes:

• Licensing is still based on the number of User Agents, not the number of User records. Learn more about how ActivTrak licensing works here.
• As capabilities are migrated to the Users Page, related legacy pages such as User Aliases and Do Not Track will be gradually deprecated to provide Admins with a simplified and centralized user management experience. During the transition, legacy pages are available in read-only mode in order to assist in verifying the changes initiated on the Users page.

Learn more about the Users Page:

• Create Users
• View & Edit User Profiles 
• Assign / Reassign Agents
• Untrack / Resume Tracking Users
• Delete Data at the User Level

Create Users

Adding a User creates a container to manage the display name, identifiers, agent assignments, and historical data deletions from the lens of an individual employee. Creating users does not impact license count.

A new User needs only a user identifier (email, employee ID, or User Principal Name), and both display names and identifiers must be unique within the account. Users can have multiple identifiers of each type but only one display name, which is how they are presented in reports (previously managed under User Aliases).

Multiple user identifiers may be necessary to:

• Specify all the ways a User may log into tracked devices, so their agents will be automatically associated with the User
• Specify all the ways a User may log into tracked devices, so that Users set to not track will be blocked from reporting data
• Provide external IDs used by the User, so that integrations will match the correct user
• Provide additional IDs used for external reporting

All agents, whether they are currently tracking or have stopped, are automatically added to user records and can be found on the Users page. ActivTrak’s Identity AI engine automatically detects agents belonging to the same User and associates them together, adding any additional identifiers and display names detected for that User.

Admins may create additional user records, for instance to:

• Reassign any Agents incorrectly associated with the same User
• Split a User’s Agents into separate records that have different tracking settings
• Pre-load User profiles and tracking settings before deploying Agents to ensure proper onboarding

To create a User:

From the Users page, click "Add User" as shown below:

Only a unique email address is required to complete setup, but a display name is strongly encouraged. At this stage, admins can also assign an existing agent or add other unique identifiers:

View & Edit User Profiles 

For each User, ActivTrak accepts the following profile information and uses them as follows:

1. Display Name: Used as a friendly way to represent the user in reports. This replaces User Aliases at the User Agent level.

2. Emails and Employee ID:

a. Used by integrations to look up the Users in ActivTrak. Enter all known identifiers for best matching outcomes.

b. Listed in the Identity view within ActivConnect for external reporting.

Given these use cases, it is important to keep user profiles up to date.

The Users page shows a subset of key profile information for each User in the account:

To view or edit a User:

Click on a User from the Users page to open their full profile in the User Details page:

Notes: 

• Primary ID is not being used by the app. All emails, UPNs, and employee IDs are referenced when matching users with integration datasets.
• Name is not being used by the app and will be deprecated in the next release, in favor of Display Name.
• When an Agent comes online, if no email is detected and it cannot be automatically assigned to an existing user, a new user record is created with a placeholder email in the form of username@logon_domain. The placeholder can be deleted once other emails are provided.

Assign / Reassign Agents

Agents may be assigned to a specific user in the instances where:

• A new User is created for an Agent that is already in ActivTrak
• An Agent is incorrectly assigned
• There are multiple Agents to a user, some of them need to continue tracking while some can be untracked (therefore another user is created to contain the tracked/untracked agents).

When an agent starts reporting activity data, ActivTrak attempts to automatically assign it to the correct user. If no user is found, a new User is created for that agent.

There are multiple options for assigning / reassigning agents to users:

1. Assign Agent from the Add User screen:

2. Assign Agent from the User Details page:

3. Reassign from the User Details page:

IMPORTANT: When moving an Agent to a different User, please review whether any of the emails need to be updated/moved from the source to the destination user.

Untrack / Resume Tracking Users

A user can be set to Untracked (previously Do Not Track) to prevent them from reporting and storing activity data. This is often required if the ActivTrak agent is deployed on all computers or on shared devices, but not all users are intended to be tracked, or to protect privacy of personal user profiles. If the User has already recorded data and then set to Untracked, the admin may opt to retain the historical data or delete it, freeing up a license.

Tracking settings are set at the User level and then applied to all their associated Agents. When the tracking status for a User is set to “Tracked”, the associated Agent/s can report activity. When the tracking status for a User is set to “Untracked”, activity data is blocked from upload and storage.

To stop tracking a User:

Find the User on the Users page, click the three-dot menu, and select "Stop Tracking", as shown below:

The admin can then choose to only stop tracking or to stop tracking and also delete historical data, which will delete each of the associated agents and their data, freeing up those licenses.

ActivTrak determines how to block Untracked Users based on the identifiers in their profile. All associated Agents will be blocked, based on a match with their username + logon domain. Any Users logging in with one of the associated email addresses in their username will also be blocked. You can verify all the blocking rules created when setting a User to Untracked via the Do Not Track page. When setting a User back to “Tracked”, these blocking rules are removed and they can resume tracking.

Note: To preemptively exclude Users from tracking, ensure that all their login identifiers are up to date. If not working properly, try cycling between "Tracked" and "Untracked" to reset the blocking rules.

To resume tracking a User,

Find the User on the Users page, click the three-dot menu, and select "Start Tracking", as shown below:

Note: To exclude default system users on each device from tracking (e.g. “System Administrator”, “ITadmin”, “defaultuser”, etc.), add these non-employee usernames to the Global Tracking Exclusions on the Account Configuration page.

Delete Data at the User Level

Deleting data at the User level is typically done to wipe data and "start fresh" when an ActivTrak trial is completed, or when an employee is terminated/de-provisioned.

To delete the data for all of an employee’s agents, find the User on the Users page, click the three-dot menu, and select "Delete User Data", as shown below:

Learn More:

• New User Management Feature Early Access (EA)
• Create and Change Aliases or Display Names
• The Do Not Track (DNT) List
• Manage global tracking exclusion rules
• Managing User Agents
• Managing Computer Agents
• About ActivTrak Licensing