Web interface customization
The web interface enables you to perform almost any task in Active Directory, Entra ID, Exchange, and Microsoft 365. On paper, the sheer volume of things you can accomplish should make the interface complicated to learn and use. But it is quite the opposite.
Customization is the main driver of simplicity here – you can tailor the UI to match your daily management routine so that it feels as natural as possible. It also becomes surprisingly easy to delegate tasks to other users if the interface doesn't allow them to do anything beyond what you delegated.
A lean UI is a good UI
A lean UI means every button and menu has a purpose, and that purpose is crystal clear for the end user. Nothing is ambiguous, nothing is useless.
That's why you can hide every interface element that you deem irrelevant to the job duties of your end users. Starting from simple things like disabling various operations (user deletion first comes to mind), you can go all the way to disabling entire UI components.
If your HR users will never review approval requests, don't let the approval request menu hang in their peripheral vision. If you don't want your employees lurking around the directory, disable directory search and browsing. Charts and reports might be useful for help desk technicians and admins, but for other users they are a waste of screen space.
It is important not to confuse disabling features with sacrificing functionality. You are doing the exact opposite – aligning functionality with the users' job roles. It is much easier to use a tool if you don't have to weave around features that you will never click on.
How to disable web interface components
Tailoring forms and views
The web interface is all about managing users, groups, and other objects in your directory. To make it as convenient as possible, you can customize every bit about how these objects are displayed and edited.
Let's take a look at a user object. Every section and every field can be rearranged, renamed, grouped together with other fields, or simpy hidden.
You can also impose restrictions on editing those fields. For instance, the Department field can become a drop-down list of predefined departments. The Manager field can allow selecting a manager only from the same office as the signed-in user.
This opens new roadways, such as delegating user creation to HR. A previously complex creation form can become nothing more than several essential fields that HR will know how to fill. Sprinkle that form with predefined values and hints, and let your automated provisioning workflow take care of the rest.
How to customize forms for user creation and editing
Navigating navigation
Letting your users freely navigate around your directory is asking for trouble. The AD structure is not the simplest of things, and Entra ID has no structure at all. Even seasoned help desk veterans will appreciate the ability to quickly locate the objects they work with on a daily basis. Hence, Adaxes offers several customization options to improve the navigation experience of your users.
Instead of displaying your real directory structure, you can present a virtual structure of business units. The contents of each business unit will be governed by custom criteria and will be dynamically updated by Adaxes. Any user will confidently orient themselves among business units with logical names like Marketing department.
Maybe some user categories are fine with working with the real directory structure. But do they really need to see all of it? Here's another way to simplify navigation – allow them to browse only from a specific OU. Also, set a filter to hide all objects they won't work with. Disabled accounts, service accounts, accounts with admin in their description... a browsing filter can be as simple or as sophisticated as you want.
Add customizable searches on top of that, and also the fact that Adaxes automatically hides objects that the users don't have the rights to see. There is no doubt you will find the perfect combination of navigation settings for your specific user base.
How to limit access to the directory structure
Streamlining functionality
Viewing objects is one thing, but what about performing actions on those objects? These are customizable as well. Any action, from your bread-and-butter password resets and group membership updates to object creation has a variety of options you can tweak.
The philosophy of Adaxes is to make the tool fit the process. Even if your processes are so unique that the built-in actions don't cut it no matter how you customize them, you can always rely on custom commands.
Custom commands essentially let you add buttons to the UI that will do any sequence of actions in your directory and beyond. This is as close as you can get to an in-house custom-coded solution, except you don't really need to code anything.
Making it yours
It is a well-known fact that users put more confidence in a product if it has your company's aesthetics written all over it. No matter how convenient a web interface is, it becomes pointless if people are reluctant to use it.
Adding your company logo and changing the color scheme to match your branding can go a long way toward making your employees feel at home. But it doesn't stop there.
You can translate every piece of UI text to any language and enable single sign-on via your corporate identity provider. All to ensure that your users recognize Adaxes as an internal system and place their trust in it.
How to set custom logo and colors
Unfortunately, it is impossible to describe every customization feature and define the boundaries of what you can or cannot do. This article would've been at least ten times longer. The key takeaway is that Adaxes focuses on practicality instead of having an all-you-can-customize buffet just for the sake of having it.
For a more in-depth perspective on customization capabilities, you can have a look at this demo video about the web interface, read the tutorials, or kindle your curiosity and try out Adaxes yourself.
