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Overview of Microsoft Entra ID Governance using Microsoft Graph

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Microsoft Entra ID Governance allows you to balance your organization's need for security and employee productivity with the right processes and visibility. It provides you with capabilities to ensure that the right principals have the right access to the right resources and at the right time.

The principals (or identities) whose access you can govern include users, groups, and applications (or service principals). The users can be your employees, business partners, vendors, or contractors. The resources to which you can govern access include groups, access packages, and privileged roles.

You manage Microsoft Entra ID Governance capabilities programmatically by using the following identity governance APIs in Microsoft Graph.

For more information about Microsoft Entra ID Governance, see What is Microsoft Entra ID Governance?.

Manage the lifecycle of users in your organization

Organizations have processes that are carried out during at least three stages of an employee's life cycle - when they join the organization, when they move within the organization, and when they leave the organization. Such processes may include provisioning and deprovisioning access and resources where required.

The lifecycle workflows APIs in Microsoft Graph allow you to automate the basic lifecycle processes for users in your organization. These lifecycle processes enable the organization and its users to be efficient, secure, or compliant.

Automate user access to resources

Employees in organizations may need access to various resources to perform their jobs. Partners and vendors may also need access to your resources. In complex organizations, it may be difficult for users to identify what access they require, how to request for access, and who should grant them access.

The entitlement management APIs in Microsoft Graph allow you to automate access request workflows, access assignments, reviews, and expiration.

Attest to the access that principals have to resources

When a principal has access to resources in your organization, it's important to verify periodically that the principal still requires access. Use the access reviews API to programmatically verify the access.

For example, suppose your organization automates employee access to a specific business-sensitive resource. For guests, you've granted them access to the resource through a group. It's important to periodically confirm that the guests still have a legitimate need for access to the group and by extension, the resource.

Access reviews are a form of auditing the effectiveness of the organization's internal controls. For more information, see the overview of access reviews.

Manage access to privileged roles

Every organization has employees that require privileged administrative roles to perform their duties. In Microsoft Entra ID, you can grant such privileged assignments through Microsoft Entra built-in roles. Because of the kind of permissions that these roles allow, it's important to mitigate the risks of excessive, unnecessary, or misused privileged roles.

The privileged identity management APIs in Microsoft Graph allow you to programmatically manage the lifecycle of privileged Microsoft Entra roles in your tenant.

Enforce terms of use for your resources

Every organization has its terms and conditions that users may need to abide by before they can access the organization's resources. You can define and enforce these terms and conditions through Microsoft Entra Terms of Use.

Terms of use can be a general company policy for all users in your organization; or terms for individual users like guests and contractors; or terms that users must agree to before they can use a sensitive app in the tenant.

The terms of use APIs in Microsoft Graph allow you to configure the terms and conditions that users may need to accept and agree to before they can access your resources.

Zero Trust

This feature helps organizations to align their identities with the three guiding principles of a Zero Trust architecture:

  • Verify explicitly
  • Use least privilege
  • Assume breach

To find out more about Zero Trust and other ways to align your organization to the guiding principles, see the Zero Trust Guidance Center.

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