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Version: 1.8.0

EasyLife 365 Identity 101

Why application lifecycle management matters​

Every organization using Microsoft Entra ID faces a critical challenge: applications, certificates, and secrets expire — and when they do, business services fail.

The cost of credential expiration​

When a certificate or secret expires unexpectedly:

  • Customer-facing applications stop working, damaging user experience and trust
  • Internal business processes halt, blocking employee productivity
  • IT teams scramble for emergency fixes, often outside business hours
  • Revenue is lost during service outages
  • Reputation suffers from preventable disruptions

Why manual management fails​

Microsoft Entra ID provides limited built-in alerting for expiring credentials. Organizations attempt to manage this manually through:

  • Spreadsheet tracking that quickly becomes outdated
  • Calendar reminders that get ignored or forgotten
  • Email forwards that create diffused responsibility
  • Quarterly reviews that happen too late

As your application portfolio grows to hundreds or thousands of apps, manual approaches become impossible to sustain.

The governance crisis​

Beyond credential management, growing Entra ID environments face governance challenges:

  • Orphaned applications with no clear owners create security risks
  • Unused integrations waste SaaS licenses and increase attack surface
  • Inconsistent ownership makes it impossible to respond to incidents quickly
  • Compliance audits fail without documented ownership and access reviews
  • No visibility into which applications are still being used

Business benefits of EasyLife 365 Identity​

EasyLife 365 Identity transforms application lifecycle management from reactive firefighting to proactive governance:

Prevent business disruption​

✅ Avoid application outages - Identify and renew expiring credentials before services fail
✅ Reduce emergency interventions - Plan maintenance during business hours instead of scrambling at 2 AM
✅ Ensure business continuity - Maintain uninterrupted service for critical applications
✅ Minimize incident response costs - Eliminate expensive after-hours emergency credential renewals

Improve operational efficiency​

✅ Eliminate manual tracking - Replace spreadsheets and calendar reminders with automated monitoring
✅ Centralize visibility - See all applications, credentials, and ownership in one dashboard
✅ Reduce notification noise - Send alerts only to people who can and should act
✅ Streamline workflows - Assign tasks to specific individuals with clear accountability

Strengthen security and compliance​

✅ Enforce ownership standards - Ensure every application has designated technical and business owners
✅ Identify unused applications - Automatically detect dormant integrations consuming licenses
✅ Support compliance - Provide evidence of proactive credential management and ownership for audits
✅ Reduce attack surface - Find and remove applications that are no longer used

Enable governance at scale​

✅ Automate compliance enforcement - Daily policy checks replace manual governance reviews
✅ Integrate with existing tools - Trigger tickets in ServiceNow, Jira, or other ITSM systems
✅ Scale with your organization - Manage thousands of applications with consistent, automated rules
✅ Support M&A integration - Quickly identify and govern inherited applications

How EasyLife 365 Identity works​

EasyLife 365 Identity provides comprehensive application lifecycle management for Microsoft Entra ID, combining credential monitoring, ownership tracking, automated notifications, and policy-based governance in a single platform.

Continuous credential monitoring​

The platform continuously scans all app registrations and enterprise applications in your tenant:

  • Tracks certificate and secret expiration dates
  • Identifies credentials approaching expiration based on configurable thresholds
  • Provides at-a-glance status (current, expiring, expired) across your portfolio

Intelligent notifications​

Instead of generic email blasts, notifications are sent to the right person at the right time:

  • Weekly scans identify expiring credentials every Monday
  • Task-based routing sends alerts only to the assigned individual
  • Ownership-based fallback ensures notifications reach application owners when no task exists
  • Microsoft Teams integration delivers alerts where your team already works
  • Direct links take users straight to the application page for quick action

Clear ownership and accountability​

Three distinct ownership roles ensure both operational capability and business accountability:

  • Application owners (Entra ID owners) have full control
  • Technical owners are designated operators who can manage credentials without excessive Azure permissions
  • Business owners provide non-technical accountability and business justification

Task management for execution​

Convert expiration alerts into assigned, trackable work:

  • Single point of accountability - One person responsible for each credential renewal
  • Progress tracking - Visibility into what's new, in progress, and completed
  • Reduced notification noise - Only the assigned person receives alerts
  • Audit trails - Document who did what and when

Policy-based governance​

Enforce consistent standards across your entire application portfolio:

  • Ownership rules require minimum numbers of application, technical, and business owners
  • Activity monitoring (Professional plan) identifies unused enterprise applications
  • Automated escalation triggers notifications or webhooks when applications remain non-compliant
  • Default policies ensure even new applications are governed automatically

Self-service capabilities​

Empower application owners to manage their own apps:

  • View and manage owned applications
  • Rotate certificates and secrets
  • Assign additional owners
  • Mark applications as self-managed when credentials are handled externally

How to access EasyLife 365 Identity​

EasyLife 365 Identity provides two distinct applications designed for different user roles:

User App​

The User App is designed for end users who need to manage their assigned applications and complete tasks. Users can:

  • View their owned applications
  • Complete assigned tasks
  • Manage certificates and secrets for their apps
  • Track expiration dates

Admin App​

The Admin App provides comprehensive administrative capabilities for IT administrators and governance teams, including:

  • Full tenant-wide visibility of all applications
  • Policy configuration and management
  • System settings and configuration
  • Bulk operations and reporting

Access options​

Both apps are accessible through:

  • Web browser: Direct access via web portal
  • Microsoft Teams: Integrated app experience within Teams

Each app has different permission scopes tailored to its intended audience, ensuring users only see and manage what's relevant to their role.

What you get with EasyLife 365 Identity​

The platform delivers measurable value:

  • Zero unexpected outages from expired credentials when properly configured
  • 80% reduction in manual tracking effort compared to spreadsheet management
  • Faster incident response with clear ownership and direct notification routing
  • Complete compliance visibility for audits and governance reviews
  • License optimization by identifying unused SaaS integrations (Professional plan)
  • Scalable governance that grows with your organization

Get started​

Ready to prevent credential-related outages and govern your application portfolio?

  1. Explore key concepts - Learn how credential expiration, notifications, ownership, tasks, and policies work together
  2. Complete onboarding - Follow the onboarding guide to configure your tenant
  3. Set up policies - Define governance rules in the Admin portal
  4. Assign ownership - Ensure all applications have designated owners
  5. Enable notifications - Configure Teams and email alerts for your organization

Learn more​

To understand how these features work in detail, explore the Concepts section, which covers: