Setting Up Password Access Control

Setting Up Password Access Control

Many of your business-critical activities can be carried out with your shared passwords. These passwords can be used by multiple employees on a regular basis, without restriction. We highly recommended that you maintain an additional layer of security for such critical accounts. You can ensure these passwords are accessed only for valid reasons with Zoho Vault by enforcing access control. For example, you could share the admin password of your server with multiple administrators in your company. When you enable access control, users would require your approval to access these passwords. Users will have to raise access requests with valid reasons to access passwords enforced with access control. You can validate the user's reason for access, and approve their requests accordingly.


Enforcing access control

  1. Select the password, then click More. 
  2. Click Enforce access control.
  3. Select one or more administrators who can grant access to this password in your absence.
  4. Exclude selective users, if necessary, from this workflow. 

Requesting access 

To access a password protected with access control:
  1. Click the password, then select Request immediate access for immediate access, or Request approval in advance, then enter a specific time to access the passwords in the future
  2. Enter a valid reason, then click Request 
  3. If the password owner approves your request, select the password, then click Check-in to access it for a time-limited period 
  4. Select Check out to return access to the password after completing your tasks.  


Note: Users will be unable to access passwords if the password owner rejects the access, or the validity of the request expires. The password owner can also revoke the user's access at any time.

Additional Settings

You can further tighten the security for these passwords by setting additional access constraints. You can: 

  • Mandate that at least two administrators approve password access
  • Define when the unapproved access requests become invalid
  • Set in minutes how long the users can access these passwords
  • Configure automatic access approvals by selecting one of the following options, then click Save and enable:
    • On all weekdays
    • On all weekends
    • At a specific time 00-23 hours and 00-58 minutes
    • When a valid ticket from help desk is referenced
    Note: You can revoke this configuration at any time.

    Managing access requests

    1. Select Password access requests under the Password management tab from Settings.
    2. Access all requests pending your approval from Approval requests. Approve or Reject the requests accordingly.
    3. Track the status of all your access requests from My Requests.

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