By now you have probably seen the Support announcement indicating that 14.7 is coming this weekend! This is a big release filled with many features that simplify and improve the product. The complete list of features was summarized in the Support email; but, let me give some additional color to the following:

1. Improved usability features (Quick Start Wizard and simpler flows for adding mobile apps),
2. Additional provisioning support and improved provisioning support for Office 365, and
3. Enhanced integration with Active Directory.

Improved Usability Features

Our focus for this release has been to greatly improve the user experience for the administrator, starting with the first time experience for a new administrator. With 14.7, when a sysadmin logs into Cloud Manager, he / she will be presented with a Quick Start Wizard that was designed to enable the admin to quickly setup their tenant. This wizard can be run at any time and can be used in fully deployed environments. The wizard enables you to do the following:

• Manage mobile devices
• Add web apps
• Add mobile apps
• Add users, and
• Invite users

If you are using Centrify for mobile device management, I’d suggest you run the wizard and see how easy it is to update your APNS certificate for your iOS devices.  In building the wizard, we streamlined and simplified the process for adding mobile apps to push out to your users’ devices. That UI has also been added to the core product under “Apps.” In both places, adding mobile apps is done by simply searching for the app by name and clicking “add.”

Added Provisioning Capabilities

User provisioning is an area where we continue to invest.  To that end, I'm happy to announce we have added user provisioning support for 4 more apps:

1. Amazon Web Services
2. Concur
3. EchoSign
4. WebEx

In addition, we have improved the Office 365 + Provisioning app as follows:

• In the past, this app had to be used with the provisioning feature enabled...it can now run wih or without provisioning.  (For those of you familiar with Microsoft's solutions, the base app provides a replacement for ADFS and the provisioning feature eliminates the need for DirSync.)
• We've also redesigned the layout of the app to make it easier to configure by moving the entry for the admin user name and password from the Provisioning tab to Application Settings, and removing the "Domains" tab entirely (you will now find that under Application Settings). This new UI streamlines the setup process and eliminates the need to jump around between many tabs.

Enhanced Active Directory Integration

At Centrify, we pride ourselves in our deep knowledge of, and support for, AD.  To that end, we've added two new features to better support User Suite deployments leveraging Active Directory:

1. Lost Password Support.  Configurable through policy, we now offer the ability to enable users to reset a lost password from the login screen.  When using this feature, the user must prove his/her identity by providing any of our supported MFA options.
2. Password Expiration Notification.  Within 14 days of password expiration, users will see notifications in the User Portal that their password needs to be changed.  The notification includes a link for the user to reset their password.  As the password expiration date approaches the notifications change from a subtle reminder, to a pop-up asking the user to change the password.  The timing for when those appear is controlled via policies.

I hope you see value in these new features, and look forward to hearing your feedback.  Enjoy!