Integrated robotics and access management for target systems

• US 9,817,967 B1
• Filed: 01/13/2017
• Issued: 11/14/2017
• Est. Priority Date: 01/13/2017
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Accenture Global Solutions Limited (Accenture PLC)
• Original Assignee: Accenture Global Solutions Limited (Accenture PLC)
• Inventors: Shukla, Sanjeev, Tandon, Gaurav, Thexton, Rexall E., Joshi, Neha, Parker, David Michael, Ramesh, Avinash, Dasari, Krishna M., Ramakrishnan, Parvathy
• Primary Examiner(s): Chiang, Jason C
• Application Number:
  US15/406,559
• Time in Patent Office: 305 Days
• CPC Class Codes: B25J 9/1674 characterised by safety, monitoring, diagnostic
• CPC Class Codes: G05B 19/042 using digital processors G05B19/05 takes precedence
• CPC Class Codes: G05B 2219/24158 Access only for service, hide, forbidden tamperfree keys, program
• CPC Class Codes: G05B 2219/39371 Host and robot controller
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 21/45 Structures or tools for the administration of authentication
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 21/52 during program execution, e.g. stack integrity ; Preventing unwanted data erasure; Buffer overflow
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 2221/031 Protect user input by software means
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 2221/2117 User registration
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 30/00 Computer-aided design [CAD]
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 63/10 for controlling access to devices or network resources

Abstract

An access management robot facilitation system facilitates a robot to execute access management tasks on a target system.

Claims

1. A access management system comprising:

an identity and access management (IAM) system comprising;

a central directory data storage storing electronic identities of individuals and credentials of the individuals; and

an IAM computer to;

receive a request to perform an access management task on an associated target system;

determine whether the request is approved;

in response to determining the request is approved, generate an access management request to perform the access management task based on the received request;

an access management robot facilitation (AMRF) system comprising;

a robot instruction queue; and

an access management robot facilitation computer to;

receive the access management request from the IAM system and extract information from the access management request;

generate an access management instruction in the robot instruction queue based on the extracted information;

determine whether the access management instruction is missing required information;

obtain the required information from the central directory data storage if the access management instruction is missing the required information, and insert the obtained information in the access management instruction;

mark the access management instruction in the robot instruction queue as not yet started;

identify when the access management instruction in the robot instruction queue has failed; and

determine one or more remedial actions that can be performed for the failed access management instruction based on information associated with the failed access management instruction, wherein the one or more remedial actions comprise automatically reprogramming a robot of a plurality of robots included in a robotic process automation (RPA) system to execute the failed access management instruction based on recorded desktop operations of a system administrator, the desktop operations successfully executing access management tasks associated with the failed access management instruction;

the robotic process automation (RPA) system comprising;

the plurality of robots configured to control access to a plurality of target systems that include the associated target system,

the plurality of robots comprising the robot, wherein the robot is identified as controlling access to the associated target system, the robot including a processor to;

monitor the robot instruction queue for new access management instructions;

identify the access management instruction in the robot instruction queue;

mark the access management instruction in the robot instruction queue as pending;

execute the access management instruction on the associated target system specified in the access management instruction; and

update a status of the access management instruction in the robot instruction queue based on the execution of the access management instruction.

2. The access management system of claim 1, wherein the AMRF system transmits the updated status to the IAM system, and the IAM system sends an operation request to the AMRF system to delete the access management instruction from the robot instruction queue.

3. The access management system of claim 1, wherein in response to not obtaining the missing information, the access management robot facilitation computer is to update the status of the access management instruction to failed in the robot instruction queue.

4. The access management system of claim 1, wherein the robot is programmed to perform exception handling in response to identifying a predetermined exception when executing the access management task on the associated target system, and to mark the status of the access management instruction in the robot instruction queue as exception when the predetermined exception is identified.

5. The access management system of claim 4, wherein the access management instruction in the robot instruction queue includes a remarks field, and the robot is programmed to populate the remarks field with a cause of the predetermined exception when the predetermined exception is identified.

6. The access management system of claim 1, wherein the robot updates the status to completed if the execution of the access management instruction is successfully completed;

wherein the robot updates the status to failed if the execution of the access management instruction failed; and

wherein the robot updates the status to exception if a predetermined exception is encountered during the execution of the access management task.

7. The access management system of claim 1, wherein the robot is programmed to automate access management tasks on the associated target system.

8. The access management system of claim 7, wherein the access management system tasks include creating, deleting or modifying user accounts on the associated target system.

9. The access management system of claim 1, wherein the access management robot facilitation computer is to:

determine whether the received the access management request is a composite request;

in response to determining that the access management request is a composite request, determining a series of tasks to be performed on the associated target system to execute the composite request; and

generate access management instructions in the robot instruction queue to perform the series of tasks by at least one robot of the RPA system.

10. The access management system of claim 1, wherein the access management robot facilitation computer is to further:

generate an alert fix if no remedial actions are determined for the failed instructions; and

automatically execute the one or more remedial actions if it is determined that the one or more remedial actions can execute the failed instructions.

11. An access management robot facilitation system comprising:

a storage device storing a robot instruction queue; and

an access management robot facilitation computer comprising a processor to;

receive an access management request for an associated target system selected from a plurality of target systems from an identity access management system;

extract information from the received request;

generate an access management instruction in the robot instruction queue based on the extracted information;

determine whether the access management instruction is missing required information;

obtain the required information from a directory of an access management system if the access management instruction is missing the required information;

insert the obtained information in the access management instruction; and

mark the access management instruction in the robot instruction queue as not yet started;

identify, from a plurality of robots controlling access to the plurality of target systems, a robot controlling access to the associated target system, wherein the robot includes a processor that is programmed to;

monitor the robot instruction queue for new access management instructions;

identify the access management instruction in the robot instruction queue;

mark the access management instruction in the robot instruction queue as pending;

execute the access management instruction on the associated target system specified in the access management instruction; and

update a status of the access management instruction in the robot instruction queue based on the execution of the access management instruction;

identify when the robot has failed to execute the access management instruction; and

determine one or more remedial actions that can be performed for the failed access management instruction based on information associated with the failed access management instruction, wherein the one or more remedial actions comprise automatically reprogramming the robot to execute the failed access management instruction based on recorded desktop operations of a system administrator, the desktop operations successfully executing access management tasks associated with the failed access management instruction.

12. The access management robot facilitation system of claim 11, wherein the access management robot facilitation computer is to receive an operation request from the robot to update a status of the access management instruction in the robot instruction queue to pending in response to the robot executing the access management instruction on the associated target system, and the access management robot facilitation computer updates the status to pending.

13. The access management robot facilitation system of claim 12, wherein the access management robot facilitation computer is to further update the status of the access management instruction in the robot instruction queue based on the execution of the automated access management task by the robot in the associated target system.

14. The access management robot facilitation system of claim 13, wherein the further updated status comprises completed if the execution of the automated access management task is successfully completed;

wherein the further updated status comprises failed if the execution of the automated access management task failed; and

wherein the further updated status comprises exception if a predetermined exception is encountered during the execution of the automated access management task.

15. The access management robot facilitation system of claim 11, wherein in response to not obtaining the missing information, the access management robot facilitation computer is to update status of the access management instruction to failed in the robot instruction queue.

16. The access management robot facilitation system of claim 11, wherein the access management instruction in the robot instruction queue includes a remarks field, and the robot is programmed to populate the remarks field with a cause of a predetermined exception if the predetermined exception is encountered during execution of the automated access management task.

17. A computer implemented method to facilitate execution of access management tasks by at least one robot, the method comprising:

receiving an access management request for an associated target system from an identity access management system;

extracting information from the received request;

generating an access management instruction in a robot instruction queue based on the extracted information;

determining whether the access management instruction is missing required information;

obtaining the required information from a central directory of the identity access management system if the access management instruction is missing the required information;

inserting the obtained information in the access management instruction;

marking status of the access management instruction in the robot instruction queue as not yet started;

identifying, from a plurality of robots controlling access to a plurality of target systems, a robot controlling access to the associated target system, wherein the robot includes a processor that is programmed for;

monitoring the robot instruction queue for new access management instructions;

identifying the access management instruction in the robot instruction queue;

marking the access management instruction in the robot instruction queue as pending;

executing the access management instruction on the associated target system specified in the access management instruction; and

updating a status of the access management instruction in the robot instruction queue based on the execution of the access management instruction;

identifying when the robot has failed to execute the access management instruction; and

determining one or more remedial actions that can be performed for the failed access management instruction based on information associated with the failed access management instruction, wherein the one or more remedial actions comprise automatically reprogramming the robot to execute the failed access management instruction based on recorded desktop operations of a system administrator, the desktop operations successfully executing access management tasks associated with the failed access management instruction.