Why have my transactions failed?

There are many reasons why a transaction(s) can fail ranging from incorrect data to Directory Manager being any able to connect to Active Directory, if you would like to know why your transaction(s) has failed please contact the BDS Service desk

A User has come through with a different EmployeeID – What do I do?

A user will occasionally come through with a different EmployeeID when critical personnel data has been changed and the record has been reassessed by Directory Manager. Typically, Directory Manager will deal with this change silently, however, if you discover that a number of records are appearing as ‘new’ because Directory Manager is not recognising their relationships to existing accounts, there might be a need to change your configuration.

I am unable to find a record in the portal – What do I do?

If you are unable to find a record(s) in the portal it may have been approved or suspended by another by someone else. You can check ‘Recent Transactions’ under the administration section of the portal to see if it has been processed recently. Alternatively, you can use the suspended search to search through any suspended transactions.

If you are still unable to find the record(s) it may have not come through from ESR or another data input source yet. If you are unsure when your data sources are set to run please see the section regarding Data Sources.

Please note that ESR Records will not come through from ESR until the next working day after being submitted to ESR.

I have accidentally approved a Change/Rename Transaction – What do I do?

As soon as you realise you have accidentally approved a change or rename transaction please inform the BDS Service Desk, the sooner after the transaction has been approve the more likely we are able to roll this back.

I have approved a record but my account has not been created/updated – What do I do?

If you have approved of a record but the account associated with the transaction you have approved has not been created or updated there could be a couple of reasons for this, one reason for this is that the input has not yet been assessed this will happen in the next ‘heartbeat’ of Directory Manager.

Another reason that your account may not have been created/updated is because the underlying services are stuck or are not running. For more information regarding this please see the section regarding Services.

 If you do not believe it is one of these please contact the BDS Service desk.

An AD Account Already Exists for a pending transaction – What do I do?

There may be a scenario where a record has appeared in the Web Portal as a ‘new’ transaction, however it should have matched to a pre-existing AD record. If this occurs, then the records can be matched together manually by clicking on the pending ‘new’ transaction’s Employee ID. This will open a new tab that displays all of the record’s details, along with a ‘Link’ button.

Clicking the ‘Link’ button will open a pop-up containing a drop-down that contains all potential pre-existing AD records that can be matched to the ‘new’ Transaction. Once the two records have been linked, the ‘new’ Transaction may return as a ‘change’ transaction, allowing the record to be updated with the relevant details extracted from the source system/input.

If you cannot see the desired pre-existing AD record within the ‘Account’ drop-down, then please see the section regarding an account is not visible in the linking list

How do I Suspend a record?

In order to Suspend a record(s), you will need to be part of the Directory Manager Control Group or another group that has been given the required permissions in order to Suspend pending transactions. Once you are part of one of these groups log in to the Directory Manager portal and navigate to pending transactions, once in this section you will see transactions split up into the following categories; New, Change, Rename and Expiry, these can then be split up further into departments. After you have located the pending transaction(s) tick the checkbox under the Suspend column for the Record(s) you would like to Suspend and then click the apply selection button located beneath the table at the bottom of the page.

Alternatively, if you are unable to locate your record via the pending transactions option you could utilise the pending search feature where you can search for the record(s) by the name(s) of the user(s) that you would like to find.

if the record(s) cannot be found via either of the two above methods please see the section regarding being unable to find a record.

How do I Approve of a record?

In order to approve a record(s), you will need to be part of the Directory Manager Control Group or another group that has been given the required permissions in order to approve pending transactions. Often it is easiest to locate a transaction by selecting the ‘Pending Search’ option and searching for the name of the related member of staff.

Alternately, all pending transactions are grouped by transaction type (i.e. New, Change, Rename or Expiration) and then by department. These can be browsed via the main ‘Pending Transaction’ page. After you have located the pending transaction(s) tick the approve checkbox for the record(s) you would like to approve and then click the ‘Apply Selection’ button located beneath the table at the bottom of the page.

If the record(s) cannot be found via either of the two above methods please see the section regarding being unable to find a record.

The Record I Want To Link Is Not In The Linking Drop-Down – What Do I Do?

When trying to manually link a record via the Web Portal, the pre-existing AD record may not appear in the ‘Account’ drop-down. For a record to meet the manual matching criteria, an Active Directory account must either have no Employee ID value, or have a Directory Manager generated Employee ID starting with a ‘D’ (these are called ‘Temporary IDs’ or ‘’D’ Codes’). Also, the account must have been created in the last 90 days, and have a similar name. For example, for an account under the name Joe Bloggs, records under the name John Bloggs, or Joe Blog may appear in the ‘Account’ drop-down as they have similar names.

If the account has an Employee ID value that is not a ‘Temporary ID’, then this can mean that the account is currently linked to another record managed within Directory Manager (i.e. another ESR record), or there is an invalid Employee ID value against the AD account. In both scenarios please contact the BDS Service Desk and one of our consultants will be able to assist

How do I unlink records?

In the event that a record has been linked to the incorrect pre-existing AD record, an unlinking process, similar to the linking process, can be carried out to remove the link. If an unlink is required, then the link can be removed by clicking on a pending Transaction’s Employee ID. This will open a new tab that displays all of the record’s details, along with an ‘Unlink’ button.

Clicking the ‘Unlink’ button will remove the link between the Transaction and the pre-existing AD record, and then the pending Transaction will be re-assessed, generating a pending New transaction for the newly unlinked record. Please note that this works for Change, Rename and Expiry Transactions. If you are attempting to unlink a Change, Rename or Expiry Transaction and the button is labelled ‘Link’ rather than ‘Unlink’, please refresh the pending list page and try again. If the issue continues, please contact the BDS Service Desk.