When your organization invests in a new product or service, it is essential that you take advantage of all the features it has to offer. This will help you to maximize your return on investment (ROI). If you have purchased or are thinking about purchasing a self-service password reset (SSPR) tool, one of the most important things you will need to do is make sure that 100% of users are registered to use it.

If you leave user enrollment optional, many people will delay registration, or decide not to use it at all. This often happens because people think that they will not ever be locked out of their account, or that it is fast and easy to contact the help desk if they do. While your help desk may be able to provide great support to your users, it comes at a significant cost. According to one study from Forrester Research, every password reset that the help desk performs costs approximately $70. With that price, it is easy to see that every user who isn't enrolled in uReset is a major liability.

If you are paying for an SSPR solution, it would not be very smart to continue covering the costs of manual password resets. These are some features that can help you force user registration. You'll want to keep these in mind when evaluating a password reset solution.

Administrative Registration

The easiest way to get all your users enrolled is to have the system take care of it for them. The software should allow you to add users into the system, without any action from the users themselves. One solution from Specops Software allows your system administrators to configure the password reset software to access various Active Directory identifiers.

Users are automatically enrolled, and can immediately use existing verification information to manage their passwords. This is done by sending a verification code to the user's Mobile Phone Number in Active Directory.

Alternatively, if your organization is using third-party authentication methods such as Duo, Okta Verify, PingID, and Symantec VIP, the user can use the same identifiers during a password reset.

The best part about using the administrative registration is that other than enabling the feature when setting up the system, the administrator does not have to do any manual work. This means there is virtually no manual work required from either IT staff, or end-users, to get everything configured correctly.

There is one potential downside to using the administrative registration option. Since the system will be set up automatically without user involvement, employees and other users may not fully understand how to use the system when they lock their account or forget their password. It will be important to ensure everyone is properly trained on this system, so they are not contacting the helpdesk.

Mandatory Enrollment Screen

If you want your end-users involved in the enrollment process, you will need multiple options available. The fastest way to get everyone registered for the system is by forcing registration with an unclosable full-screen browser.

With this option, the next time a user logs into their system, a browser will be opened to the registration page. This browser will take up the entire screen and will not allow the users to close it out until they complete the registration process. Registration only takes moments, so this will not be a major disruption for most users. It will also allow you to reach 100% registration within a very short amount of time.

If you choose to go with this option, make sure you alert your users that this requirement will be coming soon, so they are expecting it. If the registration window pops up unexpectedly, some users may be suspicious and calling the help desk for assistance.

Optional Reminder Options

The other option from enrollment reminder mode is to give users constant reminders to complete their registration but make it optional. This is less invasive than the full-screen option but still gets great results since users will quickly get tired of the notifications.

The reminders can be set to be delivered as frequently as you would like. In the Specops password reset solution, the options for reminders include balloon tip pop-ups and emails to unregistered users. Both options will provide direct links to the registration forms and can also include instructions or other information about the system.

Never Leave Money on the Table

Every organization has a limited IT budget that needs to be stretched as far as possible. Investing in Specops uReset is an excellent way to get the most bang for your buck, but only if you take full advantage of everything that it has to offer.

By forcing SSPR registration, you will be able to eliminate a huge number of calls to your help desk each year, which will save you a lot of money. In addition, this system will get your users back up and working after an account lockout faster than ever before, which means less downtime.

Whether you are just setting up uReset for the first time, or you have been using it for a while, it is important to ensure you have 100% user registration. Take advantage of the built-in reporting features to see how many of your users are already enrolled, and if you haven't already, implement mandatory enrollment policies to get everyone on board as soon as possible.