Tools4ever UMRA Review
Use Cases and Deployment Scope
We use Tools4ever UMRA in our organization to manage staff user accounts in AD (Active Directory), which translates over to email accounts, and server access. Tools4ever UMRA has made the start up of our school year much easier to deal with because it now generates the new account info for both students and staff. We no longer have to either export student records in a format that we used to import into our AD environment, Tools4ever UMRA does this step automatically now. It also ties in to our staff and financial side of things, also reducing our manual workload by disabling accounts for folks who are no longer in our system. It was definitely worth buying. I was skeptical at first but after we tweaking the systems involved it makes life a lot easier for us now.
Pros
- Imports students and staff into our Active Directory and email system.
- It manages those same accounts, disabling accounts for folks who have left, and creating "Windows" when accounts should be enabled.
- It interacts with our Microsoft AD and our student management software seamlessly. Once accounts are in our AD environment, our student management and other systems create new email accounts automatically for us.
Cons
- We have been attempting to get single sign on for students, so they have the ability to change their passwords on their own. The documentation of this process is very dated, and often support isn't even aware that their site issues/ references those older documents.
- During the initial buildup of our server Tools4ever UMRA support was a bit hit and miss, but I will say our ongoing support has been very good.
- Some integration tools had to be custom created.
Return on Investment
- We save considerable work hours by a multitude of staff having the system manage and generate accounts for us on a daily basis.
- We have some peace of mind knowing accounts for staff and students who leave our district can no longer gain access to our systems because it automatically disables those accounts.
- Because of the way the system interacts with input that is put in, it automatically creates logical positions which dictate different levels, meaning it automatically sets up when staff gain access and lose access depending on the position they are filling.
Other Software Used
Securly Filter, Securly Classroom, Securly 24