Setting up access provisioning

Step-by-step guide to configure applications, approval templates, access policies, access levels, and agent-assisted access requests.

“Can I get access to X” is the single most common IT request and the one most often handled by a DM to whoever answers first. Set up access provisioning and that becomes a flow where users request through a form or your AI agent, each request routes to the right approvers, and access is granted automatically once approved. This guide walks through the complete setup from application catalog to agent-assisted requests.

Learn about access provisioning concepts

What good looks like

How the pieces connect

Access provisioning is built from four layers that cascade into each other. You configure them from the bottom up:

Layer	What it defines	Attaches to
Approval template	Who approves, in how many rounds, and whether any or all approvers must sign off	An access policy
Access policy	Who is eligible to request, which approval template applies, allowed durations, whether business justification is required	One or more access levels
Access level	A permission tier within an application, and how access is provisioned once approved	An application
Application	The tool or service being requested	Your catalog

The result is a single access request form that adapts to each requester. Users pick an application and an access level, the form shows only what they are eligible for, the access policy routes the request to the approvers defined in its approval template, and provisioning runs through the access level’s provisioning method.

You do not need to build a workflow for this. Approval routing and provisioning both happen automatically from the policy and access level configuration. Workflows are for the exceptions, covered in optional workflow automation below.

Before you begin

Before starting, make sure you have:

• A request channel already running, which the IT help desk playbook covers
• An identity provider integration (Okta, Microsoft Entra ID, Google Workspace, JumpCloud, Cloudflare, or OneLogin) for automated provisioning
• An understanding of your organization’s application catalog and which apps require access management
• A clear picture of who should approve access, so you can turn that into approval templates
• (Optional) An AI agent deployed to a Slack channel for conversational requests

Step 1: Import or create applications

Applications are the foundation of access provisioning. You can sync them from your identity provider or create them manually.

1. Sync applications from your identity provider

   Navigate to Settings > Integrations, connect Okta, Microsoft Entra ID, JumpCloud, OneLogin, or Cloudflare, and enable application syncing. Applications and their groups import automatically.

   Google Workspace is the exception: it syncs users and groups but not applications. Create those applications manually in the next step.

2. Create applications manually

   Navigate to Settings > Applications, click Add Application, and fill in the name, domain, owner, approver, and workspaces. Save the application when complete.

Catalog the applications people ask for, not your whole estate. Pull a month of requests, count them, and start with the top ten. Record an owner on each one, because that is the field that stops every approval question becoming an IT question later.

Learn about applications and access levels

Step 2: Create approval templates

Approval templates define who approves an access request and in what order. Create them first, because access policies reference them.

1. Navigate to approval templates

   Go to Settings > Approvals.

2. Click New Template

   Click New Template to open the template form.

3. Configure template details

   Fill in the following fields:

   • Name: A descriptive label such as “Manager approval” or “Security access review”
   • Description: When this template should be used
   • Workspaces: Which workspaces can use this template. Leave empty to make it available everywhere.
4. Add approval rounds

   Add one round per approval stage. For each round, set:

   • Policy: Any can approve or All must approve
   • Approvers: Specific users, user groups, or dynamic roles such as the requester’s manager
5. Save the template

   Save the template. It is now available to attach to an access policy.

Create one template per approval path you need. A typical setup looks like this:

Template	Rounds	Use for
Manager approval	Manager review (any can approve)	Standard, low-risk access
Team lead and IT	Manager review, then IT sign-off	Access managed by a specific team
Security access review	Manager review, security review (all must approve), IT sign-off	Admin and privileged access

Use the Requester’s manager dynamic approver rather than naming individuals. It resolves at request time, so the template keeps working as your org chart changes. Name individuals only in the rounds where the answer depends on a specific person’s judgment, usually the security review.

Learn about approval templates

Step 3: Create access policies

Access policies define who can request access and under what conditions. Each policy sets how requests are approved: not at all, by users or groups you pick, or through an approval template.

1. Navigate to the Policies tab

   Go to Settings > Applications and open the Policies tab.

2. Click New Policy

   Click New Policy to create a new policy.

3. Configure policy details

   Fill in the following fields:

   • Name: A descriptive label such as “Standard access” or “Privileged access review”
   • Description: When this policy should be used
   • Eligible groups: Which user groups can request access under this policy. Leave empty to allow all users.
   • Ineligible groups: Which user groups are explicitly excluded
   • Approval: Select Approval template and pick the template you created in Step 2. Select Users or Groups for a single round of named approvers, or Not required only if requests under this policy should be approved automatically.
   • Expiry: How long access granted under this policy lasts. See the table below.
   • Business Justification: Toggle on if requesters must explain why they need access
4. Save the policy

   Save the policy. You attach it to access levels in the next step.

Tiering by risk

Write your tiers down before you build the policies, because the tiers are what the rest of the configuration hangs off. Three cover most catalogs:

Tier	Examples	Approval	Duration
Standard	A design tool, a note-taking app, read access to a dashboard	Manager, any can approve	No expiry
Elevated	A CRM seat, a billing tool, a repo with customer data	Manager, then the application owner	Requester selects, offer 30 and 90 days
Privileged	Production consoles, admin roles, anything with a break-glass story	Manager, security review with all must approve, then IT	Fixed and short, 8 hours is a reasonable default

One policy per tier, reused across every application, is far easier to maintain than a policy per app. It works for ten apps and collapses at fifty.

Choosing an access duration

Mode	What happens	Also configure
No expiry	Access is permanent, with no duration field on the form	Nothing
Fixed duration	Access always lasts a set amount of time, with no duration field on the form	Duration: the enforced length, entered as a number and a unit, such as 8 Hours
Requester selects	The requester chooses from a list of allowed durations on the request form	Duration Options: the durations to offer, each set as a number and a unit. Requesters pick from these on the form. On the policy page, select Edit Options in the Default Duration dropdown to add, reorder, or remove them.

Durations display in words, such as 12 Hours or 1 Month. A month is always 30 days. See configure duration options for details.

Make expiry the default rather than the exception. Permanent access is the reason access reviews are painful, and Ravenna revokes on expiry, so an unused seat leaves on its own and shows up as a reclaimed license rather than an audit finding.

A policy with Approval set to Not required, or with no approval template, auto-approves every request that passes its eligibility check. Choose Users or Groups or attach a template on any policy that needs a human decision.

Learn about access policies

Step 4: Define access levels

Access levels represent the permission tiers within each application, such as Admin, Editor, or Viewer. Each level attaches an access policy and specifies how access is provisioned.

1. Open an application

   Navigate to Settings > Applications and open the application you want to configure.

2. Go to the Access Levels tab

   Select the Access Levels tab on the application detail page.

3. Click Add Access Level

   Click Add Access Level to begin configuring a new tier.

4. Name and describe the level

   Set the Name to a descriptive label such as “Admin”, “Editor”, or “Viewer”, and use Description to explain what this level grants and when it should be requested.

5. Attach an access policy

   Select the Access Policy that should govern this level. This is what determines eligibility and pulls in the approval template you configured in Step 2. If a single level needs its own rules, select Custom and set Approval, Expiry, Business Justification, and eligibility directly on the level. A custom policy can’t be reused by other levels. See custom access policies.

6. Choose the provisioning method

   Set Provisioning Method to control how access is granted after approval. See the table below for which to pick.

7. Map to your identity provider group

   For Group provisioning, select the corresponding group in your identity provider. This is how Ravenna knows which group to add the user to after approval.

8. Repeat for each permission tier

   Add an access level for every permission tier your application supports. Levels with different approval requirements should point at different access policies.

Choosing a provisioning method

Method	How access is granted	When to use it
Group	Ravenna adds the user to the mapped identity provider group	Your default for synced applications. Supported on Okta, Microsoft Entra ID, Google Workspace, JumpCloud, Cloudflare, and OneLogin.
Application	Ravenna assigns the user directly to the application in the identity provider	Okta applications where direct assignment is preferred over groups. Okta is the only provider that supports it.
Manual	An authorized provisioner grants access in the target system, then confirms it in Ravenna	Tools with no identity provider connection
Workflow	Ravenna hands the approved request off to a workflow you build	Complex provisioning that the other methods cannot express, such as calling an external API or chaining several systems

Group and Application are the methods that give you end-to-end automation. Reach for Workflow only when the provisioning itself needs custom logic.

On OneLogin, Group provisioning maps to either a group or a role, and a user can belong to only one OneLogin group at a time. A second group-mapped grant fails rather than displacing the first, so if a user might hold two grants at once, map those access levels to OneLogin roles, which are additive. See OneLogin access provisioning.

Step 5: Configure the request form

The form is how users submit access requests, and it is also what your AI agent presents. Create one form for access requests and let the field configuration adapt it per requester.

1. Create or open a form

   Go to Forms and create a new form (or edit an existing one).

2. Add an Application Select field

   Add an Application Select field. This lets users choose from the applications in your catalog.

3. Add an Access Level Select field

   Add an Access Level Select field. This field dynamically shows the access levels available for the selected application, filtered by the requester’s eligibility.

4. Add a Business Justification field

   Add a Business Justification text area field. It renders only for access levels whose policy requires a justification, and it is required whenever it renders.

5. Add a Duration field

   Add a Duration field. It renders only for access levels whose policy uses Requester selects, and it is required whenever it renders. Levels on a fixed duration or no expiry hide it automatically.

6. Save and publish the form

   Save your form and publish it so it is available to users.

The Access Level Select field is dependent on the Application Select field. It only shows access levels for the selected application, filtered by the requester’s eligibility based on the attached access policy.

Add both the Business Justification and Duration fields even if only some policies need them. The access policy decides whether each one appears, so you do not need a separate form per policy.

One form covers your whole catalog. Because eligibility filtering and policy-driven fields both resolve per requester, two people opening the same form see different applications, different access levels, and different fields.

Step 6: Enable agent-assisted requests

Once your form is published, you can enable your AI agent to handle access requests conversationally through Slack. The agent fills out and submits the form you built in Step 5, so it inherits the same eligibility filtering, approval routing, and provisioning. It has no separate path of its own.

1. Open your agent

   Navigate to Agents in the sidebar and select the agent you want to configure.

2. Go to the Identity tab

   Select the Identity tab on the agent configuration page.

3. Enable Software Access Requests

   Scroll to the Advanced Settings card and toggle Software Access Requests on. This exposes eligibility-aware tools to the agent.

4. Create agent rules for access request scenarios

   Add a rule so the agent presents the form and prefills what the requester already described.

   When someone asks for access to a tool, present the Software Access Request form. Prefill the application and access level from what they said. Do not tell them who the approvers are, the request routing handles that.

   CopiedCopy prompt
5. Deploy the agent to your Slack channel

   Deploy the agent to your Slack channel so users can submit access requests conversationally.

The agent needs a published access request form to work with. It does not have a built-in form of its own, so complete Step 5 before enabling this.

Requests submitted through the Ravenna API or an MCP client are different. They do not need a form you built, because Ravenna creates and reuses a Software Access Request form in the target workspace. It appears in Forms with a System badge and is marked Managed by Ravenna, so it cannot be edited. Leave it in place.

Learn about software access requests for agents

Step 7: Test the flow

Validate the complete setup before rolling it out to your organization.

1. Submit a test request

   Submit a test access request via the form or through the agent.

2. Verify approval routing

   Confirm that the access policy’s approval template was applied to the ticket and that the expected approvers were notified.

3. Approve and verify provisioning

   Approve the request and confirm that provisioning occurs. For synced applications, check the identity provider to verify the user was added to the correct group.

4. Confirm the entitlement is created

   Verify that the entitlement appears in the Entitlements tab on the relevant application.

5. Test manual provisioning

   For access levels using Manual provisioning, test the flow by marking the entitlement as provisioned after granting access in the target system.

Test with a real requester from an eligible group, not just an admin account. Eligibility filtering is the part most likely to surprise you.

After you launch

Watch three things through the first two weeks:

• Provisioning failures. Check the Entitlements tab on your busiest applications. A failure here is silent from the requester’s side.
• Requests that skip the form. If people still DM for access, the agent rule is not firing or the catalog is missing the app they want.
• Approvals sitting. An approval nobody actions is worse than no approval. Add a reminder before you add more rounds.

Learn about entitlements

Optional workflow automation

Your access provisioning setup is complete without any workflows. Add one only when you need behavior the policy and access level configuration cannot express:

• Custom provisioning logic: set an access level’s provisioning method to Workflow and build a workflow that performs the provisioning steps, such as calling an external API or chaining several systems together.
• Post-provisioning follow-up: use the Entitlement Status Changed trigger to send a confirmation message, alert on provisioning failures, or notify a team when access is revoked.

Learn about workflow triggers and actions

Where teams get this wrong

A policy per application

It works for ten apps and collapses at fifty. Tier the risk instead.

Approvals on everything

If a manager approves a note-taking app, they stop reading the ones that matter.

Cataloging the estate instead of the requests

Nobody requests the app that was already provisioned at hire.

Skipping the test with a real requester

Eligibility filtering behaves differently for an admin. Test as someone in an eligible group.

Next steps

Access reviews

Prove who has what, on a schedule.

Monitor entitlements

Track active access grants and handle provisioning failures.

Refine policies

Adjust eligibility and duration options based on usage patterns.

Add more applications

Expand your catalog as teams request additional tools.

Put this to work in the employee lifecycle, employee onboarding, and employee offboarding playbooks