Sometimes people need temporary rights in RACF

Situation:
In every company and every government office, it happens every year throughout the year: people go on vacation, or on business trips, or on sick leave, and someone else has to do their job for them.
Let's take Jeannie, for example. She'll be taking over for John while he's on a 2-week training course. She can do the job, no problem, but during those two weeks she'll need the same RACF privileges as John, so she needs to be connected to the same groups.

Complications:
RACF administrators don't spend 365 days a year in the office, either, and in any case, this kind of thing happens so often that it's hard to keep track of who needs which extra privileges when and for how long.
It's important that people get their access rights as soon as they need them; on the other hand, giving a person access rights before they need them, or leaving someone with more rights than they need when their term of duty is over, always poses an unnecessary security risk. Who can always be sure of setting up temporary connects exactly when they're needed, and removing them again as soon as they're no longer needed? The same goes for temporary permits that need to revoked and resumed. Even if all this is written down, there's no guarantee that the administrator won't be ill when the time comes, for example, or maybe in an important meeting.

Solution:
The RACF administrator could solve the problem by putting a whole batch of RACF commands into a scheduler. Assuming, of course, that this administrator is authorized to use the central scheduler. In any case, this procedure is going to be time consuming and error prone, and unnecessarily complicated.

The ideal solution is offered by the Timed Commands function of the Beta 88 zSecurity Administrator. It enables you to easily set timed commands and their time slots online. Then, when the time comes, it connects and removes users and groups, gives access permits, or revokes and resumes users for as long as needed, and keeps a record of everything it's done.
So, at precisely 9 a.m. on the first day that John is not in the office, Jeannie will get her connects, and at precisely 5 p.m. on the last day they'll be removed again.

Click here to find out more about Beta 88 zSecurity Administratorin general and Timed Commands in particular.