Review access rights
Review access rights
In this use case are described review access right use cases for end-users and IGA admins. Generally re-certification and review access rights are used for different purpose, but for especially for end-users clarity in IGA solution these use cases are combined under review access right use cases.
Access right reviews are periodic audits or evaluations of the access that users have to various applications and resources within an organization. The goal is to ensure that access is appropriate based on the individual's current role, responsibilities, and needs. Reviews can help detect and remove excessive or unnecessary access, reduce security risks, and improve compliance.
Difference to re-certification, is that it refers to the formal process of reviewing and confirming that users' access rights are still appropriate and necessary for their role, typically at regular intervals. This process often requires managers or system owners to affirm or "re-certify" that a user still requires access to specific resources, systems, or data.
Key aspects of access right reviews & re-certification:
- Periodic assessments: Regular reviews (e.g., quarterly, annually) of user access rights to ensure they are up-to-date and formal request to managers or access owners to confirm whether the access levels granted to users are still valid.
- Role-based access checks: Verifying that the access granted aligns with the user's job role and current responsibilities.
- Identifying risks: Spotting unauthorized access, access to sensitive data that’s not needed, or potential vulnerabilities.
- Compliance with regulations: Some industries require access re-certification to meet regulatory standards, such as GDPR, NIS2, DORA or applying requirements for certifications like ISO27001 etc.
Both access right reviews and re-certifications are essential for maintaining a strong security posture, minimizing risks, and ensuring compliance with internal policies and external regulations. These activities are typically supported by automated tools and require coordination between IT, security teams, and business units to be effective.
Bring M42 Intelligence - Comms assistance (add-on) to ensure that communication towards end-users is clear and it is easy to understand why access right review requests are important to perform periodically and what is expected from the user. This feature for example ensures that users get the information in their native language.

Use cases
Use cases for end-users
User can also review access rights by using My Things functionality in the Self-Service and managers have similar capabilities to review subordinates access rights by using My Employees functionality.
Use case described here are guided services, which enables end-users also to request access rights or removal of access rights, and at the end of the service end-user gives review comments which are stored for auditing purposes.
End-users use cases described below:
- Review my access rights
- Review access rights (manager)
- Review access rights (approver)
| Description | |
| Overview |
In this use case are described review access right services in Self-Service, and how end-users can review active access rights at any time, or when there are open review requests like for example need to review if one single access right is still valid for all the users (also known as re-certification).
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| Operators |
End-user Manager Approver Self-Service IGA solution |
| Prerequisites |
For reviewing access rights at any time end-users will need access to review service(s) in the Self-Service. For reviewing open access right review requests, IGA admin has created re-view request in the IGA solution, and user has received an email notification about review requests waiting for actions. |
| Result | Users access rights are reviewed, updated, unnecessary ones are removed. Results are stored for auditing purposes, and review in ended. |
| Review my access rights |
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| Review access rights (managers) |
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| Review access rights (approvers) |
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Use cases for IGA admins
Here are described use cases for IGA admins to start, cancel, re-review, monitor and report access right reviews. Customer can decide if other users like for example application owners can start etc. access right reviews for the application where the user is marked as owner.
IGA admin use cases described here:
- Create new review request
- Cancel ongoing review request
- Start re-review
- Monitor and report
| Description | |
| Overview |
In this use case are described how IGA admin can start, define, monitor and audit access right review requests.
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| Operators |
IGA admin IGA solution |
| Prerequisites | Relations between users entitlements, business roles, access right records, accounts and work periods needs to be correctly in place. |
| Result | One-time or recurring review request has been created, reviewers are notified, results are visible and auditing details are saved. |
| Create new review request |
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| Cancel ongoing review request |
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| Start re-review for requests which were not approved in during the review period (scheduling) |
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| Monitoring & reporting review requests |
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M42 Intelligence - Comms assistance
IGA solution supports different AI related use cases (add-on), and review access rights use case is one of the use cases when IGA admin needs to clearly communicate to end-users to ensure that they are aware why review requests are made and what is expected from the reviewers and end-users.
M42 Intelligence - Comms assistance
When enabled, IGA can use Comms assistance for writing message to the reviewers (end-users, managers and approvers), which usually requires some comprehensive explaining what is the access right review about and what actions are expected from the user.
Comms assistance helps IGA admin with,
- Correct and improve messages with end-users e.g.: via email
- Out of box use cases optimized for IGA admin communication towards end-users
- Easy to setup & adjust towards your company language

Delivery instructions
Data Card Flow and Purpose

Data card purpose,
- IGA review access rights - is used by IGA admins to start new and re-review requests, follow and monitor ongoing requests, report and audit information related to review requests.
- Approval - is created in cases when approval type is set to “approval request”, and approval is made by using Self-Service approval functionalities
- IGA service request - is created for new review requests, and it created if user simultaneously requests access rights to be added or removed or re-review is required by IGA admin.
- IGA entitlement - can be content of the review, and defines approvers for entitlement and application reviews. Is used also for reviewing last or never reviewed entitlements
- IGA business role - can be content of the review and defines approvers for business role reviews
- Application - is used for reviewing which applications accesses are reviewed last and when review was made
- IGA work period - is used for reviewing last or never reviewed users
- IGA identity storage - is used for reviewing and auditing all reviews related to the user
- IGA access right record - stores auditing details about the reviews
Configuration Instructions
Please follow up correct instructions, based on if you are configuring new environment (baseline version 2025.1 or newer) or adding these use cases into existing customer environment.
Always remember to,
- Configure use cases first into test environment
- Perform system and user approval testing in the test environment
- Fix all possible findings and perform re-testing
- Move configuration into production environment
- Validate that configuration is correctly moved to the production environment
Configuration instructions for new environment:
- Configuration in the IGA solution (platform)
- Publish IGA service request template
- Publish IGA review access rights workflow
- Publish IGA review access rights template
- IGA review access rights workflow
- Publish IGA service request template
- Configuration in Self-Service
- Publish following services
- Review my access rights
- Review access rights (managers)
- Review access rights (approvers)
- Publish following services
Configuration instructions for existing environment (IGA solution):
- Import from One-Click-Demo (OCD) environments and/or make changes to following templates
- Application
- Add new attribute: Related entitlements
- IGA Entitlement
- Add new attribute in to xx: Review access rights
- Add new attribute (technical field): ESS filtering (shared attribute)
- Save all entitlement data cards
- Listener post-save: Save related application when added to entitlement (2025.1).
- IGA Access Right Record
- Add new class: Review access right information
- Add new attribute: Review history
- Update workflow: 2.0 Add or remove group membership
- IGA Business Role
- Add new attribute: Review access rights
- Add new attribute (technical field): ESS filtering (shared attribute)
- Save all business role data cards
- Import NEW template: IGA review access rights, which includes
- Listeners
- Events
- Workflow
- IGA Service Request
- Add new attributes:
- IGA Review Access Rights
- Unfinished related review access rights
- Entitlements in review
- Business roles in review
- Request rejected
- Requested approver(s)
- Requested approver(s) help
- Publish IGA Review access rights workflow
- Add new attributes:
- IGA Work Period
- Add new class: Review access right information
- Add new attribute: Review access right
- Create new service items:
- Review access rights
- Review comments
- Application
Configuration instructions for existing Self-Service:
- Import new services:
- Review my access rights
- Review access rights (managers)
- Review access rights (approvers)
- Import related MyServices:
- IGA Review / User requests (User)
- IGA Review / Manager requests (Manager)
- IGA Review / Approver requests (Approver)
- IGA Review Business roles (User, Manager, Approver)
- IGA Review Entitlements (User, Manager, Approver)
- IGA Review WPs/Business roles (Manager, Approver)
- IGA Review WPs/Entitlement (Manager, Approver)
- IGA WP Active access rights (User)
- IGA WP Automatic Business role (User)
- IGA WP Automatic entitlements (User)
- IGA WP Requested Business role (User)
- IGA Business role / Approvers (Approver)
- IGA Entitlement / Approvers (Approver)
- IGA Work (my) period - Request and Remove access (User)
- My application accessess (User)
- My application /subordinate accessess (Manager)
- My application /approver
- IGA Review WPs/Application entitlements (Manager)
- IGA Review WPs/Application Business role (Manager)
- My Teams (User)
- IGA Entitlement Approver 1 (User)
- IGA Entitlement Approver 2 (User)
- IGA Business role Approver 1 (User)
- IGA Business role Approver 2 (User)
System- and Approval Testing Instructions
Testing preparations,
- IGA solution contains users who has all needed relations to entitlements, applications, managers, access right records etc.
- Create test users for Self-Service with correct accesses to following services and relations in place in the IGA solution
- User - review my access rights
- Manager - review access rights (managers), has relations to subordinates
- Approver - review access rights (approvers), marked as approver to entitlements and/or business roles
Testing instructions for IGA admins,
- Create different type of review requests according to use case for IGA admins
- Choose all type of content for the reviews
- Choose both type of approvals
- Create at least ten (10) different type of review requests for end users to be able to test different results for the reviews
- Move to testing end-user actions
- After some of the end-users has reviewed their accesses, cancel one of the ongoing requests
- When end-date occurs
- For one of the requests, start re-review for those users who did don't perform the review in defined time frame.
- Validate results and ensure that reports are showing information correctly
- Validate that review requests status and results are showed correctly
Testing instructions for end-users,
- Login to Self-Service
- All users should see review my access rights service
- Managers who have subordinates should see review access rights (manager) service
- Approvers who have approver responsibilities defined in IGA entitlement and/or IGA business role data cards should see review access rights (approvers) service
- In case end-user have several review responsibilities, it is possible that one or more review services are visible in the Self-Service
- Validate that correct service(s) are available for the test user according to assigned role
- Open the service
- Validate that text and instructions are correct
- Select review all my access rights
- Validate the service is working according to the use cases described for the role
- Select ongoing access right request
- Select the request where IGA admin has included user review
- Validate that information is showed correctly for the end-users.
- Compare the visible information to related users IGA identity storage data card
- Validate that managers can only see own subordinates, not all users
- Validate that approvers can see only information related to accesses where they are marked as approver (IGA entitlement or IGA business role)
- Approve and decline single entitlement or business role approval requests, visible in the front page
- Validate that enough information is visible to review the access rights
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