Access & Permission Requests

The request said: make me like Sam. Sam had been at Redbrook Engineering for nine years. Over those years, he had been granted access to everything anyone had ever asked him to look at. None of it had been taken away. So Sam could now see the payroll share, the board papers and a folder called OLD DO NOT USE that was used daily. The new starter did not need to be like Sam. She needed four things, and the desk could name them. But the request form did not ask what she needed. It asked who she should be like, and the answer was always the longest-serving person on the team.

This series is about asking the better question. It covers the access request done properly: what, for whom, why, for how long and who approves. The ticket is the permanent record. The series covers approval workflows that do not stall, which need an owner, a deputy and a timer, not a committee. It covers least privilege under pressure, when the request is for admin and the manager is standing behind it. Then come shared folders and the permission tangle that nine years of Sam produces. It covers access reviews managers actually complete, because they ask keep-or-remove and nothing else. And it covers measuring access requests, so the repeat asks become a role bundle instead of a queue.

Articles in This Series

• The Access Request, Done Properly: Five Questions, One Record
  What, for whom, why, for how long, who approves. Covers the form that asks exactly that and the ticket as the permanent record. Also covers the request that says make me like Sam, and the request form.
• Approval Workflows That Do Not Stall: Owner, Deputy, Timer
  An owner per resource, a deputy for each, a timer and a chase, and pre-approved bundles by role. Also covers the approval recorded on the ticket, the convention when the tool has no approval step, and the matrix.
• Least Privilege Under Pressure: Saying Yes, Smaller
  The just-give-me-admin request, the time-boxed grant, read-only first, the manager who insists, the honest trade-off said plainly, and the time-boxed grant note.
• Shared Folders and the Permission Tangle
  Group-based permissions in plain words, the folder nobody owns, the inherited mess, the exception that lasts forever, untangling one share at a time, and the folder ownership register.
• Access Reviews Managers Actually Complete
  The quarterly keep-or-remove list to each manager, the leavers it catches, service accounts, the review sized for a small organisation in hours, and the access review sheet.
• Measuring Access Requests: Turnaround, Stalls and Repeat Asks
  Median turnaround, the stalled approvals and where they stall, the repeat requests that should become a role bundle, the quarterly report line, and the access scorecard.

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This series is part of the QuerySolv helpdesk topic library. It covers the foundations, processes, communication, knowledge, tooling, metrics, classic ticket domains, people and strategy behind a support desk that works. The library pairs well with the software we build: QuerySolv. It is a self-hosted help desk that runs as one Windows service on your own network. It is licensed once per installation, not per agent per month.