Automated Prompts

Occasionally in your daily computing tasks at Salt Lake Community College (SLCC) you may run across actions that you need to take to perform your job that require elevated privileges on your device. Normally this would require a call to the Help Desk and a visit from a member of the Office of Information Technology (OIT) wasting valuable time. Or maybe you’ve been granted the local administrator role on your device which increases the chance you might accidentally do something that infects or harms your device preventing you from working.

SLCC now has a new way to streamline these tasks while improving the security of your device with Admin By Request. Now many of the most common administrative tasks will simply give you a confirmation prompt. The uncommon tasks may require you to provide a reason for the action and possible submit a request for approval before you can perform the action.

Elevating an application on Mac

The first step when installing or updating software on a Mac device is to check the Self-Service App. You can find this by searching in either the Finder, Spotlight, or Applications on you Mac. This will have various software already prepared to install without the need to elevate permissions.

The next method will be to request an Elevated Session by opening the Admin by Request application from the dock or menu bar on your Mac.

You will be presented with a window that will request your contact information and the reason for the elevation. It is important on MacOS that you put the name of the software you will be installing, updating, or changing settings for. If you do not have the name of the software, the request will be denied. You will also will need to enter in a business reason for why this action needs to be taken. 

After this is submitted, the request will be reviewed by the Help Desk. If the request is approved, you will receive an email with instructions and a desktop notification that this has been approved. You will then open the application from your dock or menu bar again, but this time instead of a request form you will have a 15 minute timer that indicates the time left to complete administrative actions.

The last method for elevating an application is to drag the installed application to the Admin by Request dock icon and you will receive one of the two prompts below, either a confirmation prompt if pre-approved, or provide a reason prompt.


 

Confirmation Prompts

When you receive a confirmation prompt it should appear with a simple Yes or No prompt to proceed with the action. These actions have been pre-approved by OIT and can be completed by simply clicking Yes.

If you choose to click No the task may fail gracefully or if it is from an installer, you may find that your device hangs for a bit while it processes the failure and performs any cleanup actions required.

Provide A Reason or Submit a Request

Some actions or applications have not been preapproved by OIT and will require an additional review before moving forward. These actions will require you to provide a reason for the action being taken will require your email address, a phone number, and a short but specific reason describing what you are attempting to do. You will then click on the Ok or Cancel buttons seen in the screenshot below. If this action requires OIT approval, you will then see a notification that your request has been submitted.
 

Additional Support

If you have questions, feedback, or simply require more assistance, please contact the Help Desk.