PIM Groups Azure: A Comprehensive Guide

In Azure, PIM groups are a crucial part of managing access and permissions across your organization. They allow you to create groups of users or resources that can be easily managed together.

PIM groups in Azure are tied to the Azure Active Directory (Azure AD) and can be used to manage access to resources such as Azure subscriptions, resource groups, and even individual resources. This makes it easier to grant and revoke access to resources as needed.

One of the key benefits of using PIM groups in Azure is that they can help reduce the risk of security breaches by limiting the number of users who have access to sensitive resources. By only granting access to resources when it's absolutely necessary, you can reduce the attack surface of your organization.

PIM groups in Azure can be created using the Azure portal, PowerShell, or Azure CLI, making it easy to manage your groups from wherever you are.

PIM stands for Product Information Management, which is a system that helps organizations manage and maintain accurate and up-to-date product information across all channels and systems.

PIM systems are designed to centralize and standardize product data, reducing errors and inconsistencies that can occur when multiple teams and systems handle product information.

By using a PIM, organizations can improve the customer experience by providing consistent and accurate product information across all touchpoints.

A PIM typically includes features such as data normalization, catalog management, and data syndication to ensure that product information is accurate and consistent.

PIM systems can be integrated with other systems, such as e-commerce platforms, CRM systems, and marketing automation tools, to provide a seamless customer experience.

By automating product information management, organizations can reduce the time and resources spent on manual data entry and updates.

To configure PIM for groups, start by navigating to the Groups section within Privileged Identity Management and selecting a group for which you intend to configure role settings.

You'll then need to click on the Settings option under the Manage section. This is where you can review and update your existing role settings.

Choose the role you want to configure, whether it's Member or Owner. This will allow you to fine-tune the role settings within PIM for groups.

Upon selecting the Edit option, you'll encounter three tabs: Activation, Assignment, and Notification. Each of these tabs provides a distinct area where you can modify and fine-tune the role settings.

Here's a breakdown of the steps:

By following these steps, you'll be able to configure role settings in PIM for groups and enjoy the benefits of risk reduction, just-in-time access, security alerts and notifications, audit trail, and review of privileged roles.

Group management is a crucial aspect of Azure AD PIM. You can enable Azure AD PIM for a group by logging in to the Azure portal and navigating to Azure AD Privileged Identity Management, then selecting Groups and Discover groups.

To add a user as an eligible member to a group, you'll need to select the group name, followed by Assignments in the group page, and then + Add assignment to initiate the configuration process. This will allow you to configure the user's role and set the allowed eligible duration.

Here are some key considerations for assigning membership or ownership in PIM for groups:

You can assign a security or Microsoft 365 group to a Microsoft Entra role, but this is only possible for groups that are created as role-assignable groups.

Admins with elevated privileges can manage these groups, ensuring that no other users can alter the credentials of active group members.

Role-assignable groups cannot have nested groups, meaning a group cannot be an active member of another role-assignable group.

Microsoft recommends creating role-assignable groups for highly valued resources, such as managing highly valued data and implementing an approval process for eligible member assignments.

You can use over 500 groups per tenant in PIM, which is a significant increase from the previous restriction.

To create a role-assignable group, choose Member or Owner under "Select role" in the Membership tab.

Here's a step-by-step guide to creating a role-assignable group:

By following these steps, you can effectively manage your role-assignable groups and ensure that only authorized users have access to sensitive resources.

Group enablement is a crucial step in managing groups in Azure Active Directory (Azure AD). To enable a group, you need to onboard it to Azure AD Privileged Identity Management (PIM). This process involves logging in to the Azure portal, navigating to Azure AD PIM, and selecting the group to manage.

To add a user as an eligible member to the group, select the group name, followed by Assignments in the group page. From there, you can add the user and set the allowed eligible duration, such as 1 year. Keep in mind that the assignment cannot be set for a duration of less than five minutes.

To configure the approval process for the role, select Settings in the assignment page. From the Role list, select Member to access the PIM settings for the role. Then, select Edit to modify the default settings and require approval to activate.

Here's a summary of the steps to enable a group:

By following these steps, you can effectively enable groups in Azure AD PIM and manage access to your organization's Azure resources.

To discover resources in your organization, you'll need to sign in to the Microsoft Entra admin center as a Privileged Role Administrator.

You'll then browse to Identity governance > Privileged Identity Management > Azure Resources, where you'll see a list of resources that are currently being managed by another administrator.

If no one has started managing Azure resources yet, you'll see a Discover resources page.

To get started, select Discover resources to launch the discovery experience.

On the Discovery page, you can use Resource state filter and Select resource type to filter the management groups or subscriptions you have write permission to.

Here are some options to consider:

Select any unmanaged resources that you want to manage, and then select Manage resource to start managing the selected resources.

Once a management group or subscription is managed, it can't be unmanaged, which prevents another resource administrator from removing Privileged Identity Management settings.