SailPoint's IdentityNow Advanced Implementations Training

Ahmed Musaad -

Practical Details

Duration: Three days (5.5 hours/day)
Delivery Method: Instructor Led
Teaching Methods: Lessons, Knowledge Checks, and Hands-on Labs
Student Materials: Slides, Exercise Book, Exercise Answers, Sample Data.
Lab Access: Yes (for two weeks)
Price: $2000.00 USD

The IdentityNow Advanced Implementations course is the second course in the IdentityNow training track and one of the two courses required before taking the Certified IdentityNow Professional exam. Unlike the Essentials course, this one delves into some advanced topics and provides an interesting glimpse in the complex world of IdentityNow architecture and APIs.

Requirements

  • Before you can attend this training, you must prove that you attended the IdentityNow Essentials training, either instructor-led or the e-learning version.
  • The training focuses on advanced topics, so a basic understanding of IdentityNow is crucial for optimal learning and smooth hands-on practise.
  • You need Postman installed and preferably, you should be familiar with its interface.
  • You need to have some experience working with JSON files.

Review

The IdentityNow Advanced Implementations course is the second course in the IdentityNow training track and one of the two courses required before taking the Certified IdentityNow Professional exam. Unlike the Essentials course, this one delves into some advanced topics and provides an intriguing glimpse in the complex world of IdentityNow architecture and APIs.

The training is split over three days, with a daily session length of 5.5 hours. Unlike the Essentials course, this one focuses more on hands-on practise with a healthy dose of instruction and discussions. Much like the Essentials course, working and taking this training at the same time wasn't a great experience, as it meant I was in front of my computer for more than 10 hours every day. The long lessons aren't an issue, as long as you have lots of good coffee nearby.

The training takes place over Zoom (for the lessons) and sandbox IdentityNow tenants (for the hands-on labs). Zoom meetings made the learning experience a breeze, specially when it came to using the various interactions. The training tenants worked smoothly, and I haven't noticed or faced any issues. Overall, the technical logistics worked smoothly and allowed me to focus on learning and practising, hence making the most out of the course.

Day 1

We kicked the training with a quick intro from our instructor, a glance over the agenda and a heart-warming round of introductions. The rest of the day focused on introducing us to the IdentityNow APIs and the numerous possible operations. We got to learn about and use the Postman collections, which helped simply API interactions. Other topics covered during this day included API architecture, various possible interactions, the available API versions, and where to find documentation and examples of API requests.

API Authentication Flow (source)

Day 2

Day two was all about search, event triggers and workflows. We revised the basic search syntax and examples that were introduced in the essentials course, but we also learned more complex search syntax and after some practise, I finally got the hang of how search works in IdentityNow (it might sound simple, but I promise you, it is anything but.)

We learned how to search through the API and the important differences between using the UI and API when searching for something. Finally, we learned about Event Triggers and Workflows, two newly released features revolving around automation of various activities within the IdentityNow tenant (e.g. alerting on important events, building complex access request flows, etc.)

The Search UI

Day 3

The last day was fully dedicated to Transforms and Rules, the two most complicated and confusing features of IdentityNow. Jeff gave us a solid foundation on what both features are, the differences between them, and when to use one or the other. We went through numerous examples, and I spent about four hours digging into the various lab exercises associated with these two topics. I will spend some time over the next two weeks practising transforms as much as I can to solidify all the lessons I learned. Jeff took us through the various certifications available to us and how the exam process works, along with some great tips on how to prepare for said exams.

A Simple Transform
After completing both the essentials and advanced implementations trainings, you are eligible to take the Certified IdentityNow Professional and Certified IdentityNow Engineer certification exams.

Some Thoughts

I really enjoyed this course. The instructor was wonderful, he was knowledgeable, engaging, and so patient with all of my boring questions. I enjoyed the hands-on labs because some of them were challenging and helped me understand things better.

That being said, I wish there was more training on advanced concepts and less focus on the hands-on labs during the three days period. Since we have access to the labs for two weeks, and we can practise the hands-on portion on our own. There are many advanced topics that I still need to learn about, and I wish more of the course time was devoted to that.

I still have two weeks of lab access, and I intend to use this time as much as possible to learn more about IdentityNow and practise/improve my hands-on skills before I book any of the certification exams.