Microsoft Entra offers a unified Identity and Access Management (IAM) solution that allows organizations to manage users, resources, and permissions in both cloud and on-premises environments. With its features growing more sophisticated, so does the need for an implementation plan—one that considers both internal and external forms of identities.
While most organizations roll out Entra to support initiatives like Zero Trust or identity governance, actually maximizing the potential of the platform requires more than simply flipping a switch. Misconfigurations or planning gaps can lead to security blind spots, user friction, and slowed project progress.
That’s where implementation partners come in. Our consulting services helps organizations implement Microsoft Entra with a focus on long-term scalability, secure access, and clear identity lifecycle management. We also focus particularly on third-party and non-employee identities—an area that's usually overlooked but highly important for organizations involved in vendor, contractors, or partner relationships.
As part of this broader shift toward modern identity governance, Microsoft has also officially announced the support end date for Microsoft Identity Manager (MIM), its legacy identity product. Mainstream support will be discontinued in January 2026, with extended support concluding in January 2029. This change represents a tipping point: organizations that continue to use MIM will be required to move over to Microsoft Entra ID or seek other solutions to ensure security, support, and compliance.
For current MIM customers, this isn’t just an upgrade option—it's an opportunity to reassess how their handling identities within the organization, particularly for third-party and non-employee users. Microsoft Entra is a more cloud-directed, scalable, and policy-driven solution, but it does require planning to move away from MIM. Our team assists organizations in making the move confidently and avoiding the common pitfalls of migrating from on-premises identity models to cloud-native ones.
Microsoft Entra brings together a suite of identity, access, and permission management products for cloud and hybrid environments. With Entra ID (formerly Azure AD), Permissions Management, Verified ID, and ID Governance, the platform gives organizations the foundation they need to enable Zero Trust principles, streamline compliance, and protect workforce and non-workforce identities.
The platform is built to be adaptable. It has native support for federated identities, role-based access controls, and integrations with HR systems, SaaS applications, and infrastructure providers. For companies looking to unify identity and access management in one model, Entra is a compelling offer.
That flexibility, however, typically comes with tradeoffs. Each module within Entra has its own settings, dependencies, and integration pathways. Certain features—like automated access reviews or Just-In-Time permissions—require planning in advance to ensure they align with internal processes. Others, like Verified ID, may require coordination between departments that don't typically interact with IAM tools.
For companies that have vendors, suppliers, contractors, or other third parties, identity complexities grow. Microsoft Entra ID was developed primarily with the employee lifecycle in mind, so third-party identities are difficult to manage without additional customization. Non-employee users typically don't align with the standard onboarding and offboarding process. They may be from different organizations that have their own identity providers, use different naming conventions, or require project-based access that doesn’t translate directly to typical enterprise roles.
These realities create administrative overhead and increase the risk of misconfigurations, overprovisioning, and visibility gaps. Entra can enable secure third-party access, but only when accomplished as part of a strategy that considers the unique requirements of non-employees and external identity ecosystems.
Implementing Microsoft Entra is rarely a matter of just plug and play. Organizations typically face a mixture of technical, organizational, and process-based blockers—especially with third-party access. Here are some of the most common obstacles that teams face:
Most organizations deal with identity information in multiple systems—HR systems, contractor databases, vendor portals, even spreadsheets. These disparate sources hinder the creation of a cohesive identity model in Entra. The outcome is duplicate accounts, inconsistent attributes, and poor visibility into who has access to what.
Without a defined role or group template, it's easy to provide more than the necessary access. This is especially prevalent with non-employee users, who are likely to be given permissions based on urgency instead of policy. Over time, this produces permission sprawl and makes enforcing least privilege access more difficult.
Unlike permanent employees, third-party users might not have formal onboarding and offboarding procedures. Access is occasionally granted ad hoc or by ad-hoc request with little documentation and follow-up. As a result, accounts are active for longer than intended—or in the worst case, are completely unmanaged.
Entra offers robust governance capabilities, but they need to be purposefully configured. Access reviews, segregation of duties, and approval workflows aren't enforced by default. When they aren't configured, third-party identities can avoid important oversight steps, which elevates the threat of access abuse.
Conditional Access can block dangerous logins or impose MFA requirements, but it must be calibrated very finely. Inconsistent enforcement does the opposite of what is desired—either blocking legitimate access or failing to identify suspicious behavior—specifically for users outside the core workforce.
Internal teams are stretched thin in many instances. Without dedicated time or resources, Entra projects grind to a halt. The consequence: opportunities to automate processes, enforce policies, or close long-existing third-party identity management gaps are lost.
Microsoft Entra includes robust identity security capabilities, but its full value depends on its proper implementation. Technical capability is not enough—organizations need a strategy that supports their internal processes, governance requirements, and range of identities. That means managing external users like contractors, suppliers, service providers, and other non-employees who often stay outside traditional identity procedures.
Our consulting and implementation services are designed to assist your team at every phase of the process—starting with initial planning all the way through to ongoing governance.
The first step is understanding your environment. We help you review your current identity posture and determine what success looks like for your Entra deployment. This includes an in-depth look at how internal and external users are onboarded, how access is added and revoked, and where there are manual processes or risk exposures now.
Key deliverables are:
• A full identity inventory across internal systems, legacy directories, and third-party platforms.
• Employee, contractor, vendor, and partner role and access mapping.
• Identification of unmanaged or inactive accounts across business units.
• Gap analysis of current practices versus Entra capabilities.
• A tailored rollout plan with work phases, schedules, and governance milestones.
This part of the implementation sets the foundation for a deployment that not only provides functionality, but also compliance and sustainability.
With a clear strategy in place, we can begin the deployment and setup process. We embed Entra's capabilities into your existing systems and processes to remove friction, improve adoption, and provide scalable access management.
Our implementation services include:
• Entra ID setup in hybrid or cloud-native identity environments.
• Department, job function, geography, or access scope-based group and role organization.
• Integration with HRIS platforms, ITSM systems, and procurement software to enable both third-party and employee onboarding.
• Configuration of Verified ID for secure identity verification during vendor or contractor onboarding.
• Creation of bespoke access models to enable Just-In-Time access, temporary credentials, or time-limited entitlements.
We ensure external identities are no longer an afterthought. Our solution introduces order to non-employee identity management—putting them under governance with defined rules, traceability, and timely deactivation.
Many Entra deployments stall after initial configuration since follow-through on governance does not happen. We avoid that by including governance in the solution from the beginning.
Our optimization and governance work includes:
• Scheduling automated access review cycles with employees and non-employees.
• Setting up attestation workflows so that access is reviewed by the right stakeholders (e.g., business managers, vendor owners).
• Tuning Conditional Access policies on user risk score, location, device health, and access sensitivity.
• Enforcing entitlement cleanup to remove unused or redundant access permissions, especially third-party identities.
• Configuration of automatic account deactivation based on project closure, contract expiry dates, or inactivity triggers.
• Creating recurring monitoring processes, reporting dashboards for tracking access patterns, anomalies, and policy drift.
We also help you decide who owns identity governance for different user types—an all-too-familiar issue in federated/big organizations.
Entra is not a one-time deployment. As your organization grows, merges systems, or introduces new business processes, your identity structure must adapt. We offer regular support to help you tune your strategy, deal with new needs, and keep third-party access in line.
Our teams can help with:
• Periodic review and re-orientation of access policies.
• Integrations with new systems or rollouts of Entra modules.
• Embedding Verified ID or Permissions Management in new scenarios.
• Support for internal audits or compliance scans.
Regardless of whether you're starting from scratch or optimizing an existing deployment, we provide the practical know-how and cross-functional insight needed to make Microsoft Entra operational—inside and out, for all who need access.
Every organization has its own mix of internal and external users, as well as its own set identity management challenges. The following are a few scenarios that reflect the types of projects we help with Microsoft Entra.
A multiregional retailer needs to streamline identity management for thousands of vendor reps who accessed inventory systems at regional stores. We can help establish Entra Verified ID and Conditional Access policies that automate identity proofing and grant scoped, time-limited access based on project or contract status.
A medical group with operations across several facilities has no centralized process to onboard temporary personnel and specialty contractors. We can deploy automated onboarding and access review workflows with Entra ID Governance, reducing dormant accounts and improving HIPAA compliance.
A large energy company struggles with third-party access to operational technology environments. We can implement Entra Permissions Management to gain more visibility into privileged access across systems and implement least privilege policies—without disrupting critical workflows.
All these examples have one thing in common: organizations need identity systems that are flexible, but also the governance and processes to support them.
Deploying Microsoft Entra is more than just turning on features, it's about building an identity model that suits your business’ needs. That means mapping Entra’s capabilities to how your people, systems, and external users actually operate. It means defining clear ownership, automating access decisions, and having the platform evolve around your business.
We specialize in helping companies do just that. Our team understands the real-world challenges that come with managing identities across departments, regions, and partner ecosystems. Whether you’re introducing governance for the first time or working to bring structure to non-employee access, we offer more than implementation—we offer a path forward.
We take a practical, collaborative approach. You’ll get the benefit of repeatable frameworks, technical depth, and experience working with Entra in complex environments. Just as important, we focus on long-term maintainability—so your team isn’t overwhelmed trying to manage access by hand a year from now.
If you’re dealing with unmanaged identities, limited visibility, or inconsistent third-party access processes, we can help.
Want to get more from your Microsoft Entra deployment? Reach out to our team at info@anomalix.com to schedule a discovery session or Entra readiness assessment.
