Automating Process for Deactivating Expired & Inactive GAIL User Accounts

Automating Process for Deactivating Expired & Inactive GAIL User Accounts

As you are all aware, DAR IT takes the security of our donor information very seriously.  One of the fundamental ways to protect information is to limit access to it, and a primary principle of this is that unused user accounts need to be closed when they are identified.  This principle, common to many information systems, including other information systems on campus, is summarized in our (longstanding) policy 6.2.1.2 “Closing User Accounts”, which states in paragraph 2 “[u]ser accounts will also be closed if no sign-in occurs within six months”.  The policy goes on further to say “[a]ccess will be removed automatically and employees may request reactivation through normal channels”, and “[i]f more than one-year has lapsed(sic) since the last sign-on then the employee will need to fulfill training requirements”.  Account deactivation in the past has been relatively error prone and labor intensive for us.  The use of the word “automatically” in the policy, really only indicated that we would do it without any prompting from you, the user.

Beginning in January 2020, a truly automatic method of identifying and disabling unused user accounts will be put into place.  This new system will monitor GAIL user access (or lack of access in this case), and will issue warnings to the user two weeks before expiration, one week before expiration, one (business) day prior to expiration, and a final notice once the account has actually been disabled.  Each of the warning emails will contain links to the policy mentioned above.  The final notice will contain a link to the policy, along with links to AskIT and the GAIL support site, and a link to the GAIL user access form, which must be filled out again in order to regain access.  The emails are automated, and like other automated emails, should not be replied to.  If there are any questions, the user should contact us with either AskIT@uga.edu or the GAIL support site live chat functionality. Please reach out with any questions you might have.

It is important to note that the system of record is our main GAIL database at crm.gail.uga.edu.  Access to other GAIL instances (such as training) will not be monitored, and will not be captured by this new system.