Create and Edit Session Policies

To create or edit a session policy, navigate to /login > Users & Security > Session Policies.

Session Policies Expanded View

The Session Policies section lists available policies. Click the arrow by a policy name to quickly see where that policy is being used; its availability for users, rep invites, and Jump Items; the support tools configured; and the prompting configured.

  1. To create a session policy, click Add, or click the Copy icon to copy an existing policy.
  2. Provide the following details for your policy:
    • Create a unique name to help identify this policy. This name helps when assigning a session policy to users, public portals, and Jump Clients.
    • Set a code name for integration purposes. If you do not set a code name, one is created automatically.
    • Give this policy a description to further detail the permissions available in this policy. The description is seen when applying a policy to user accounts, group policies, and rep invites.
  3. In the Availability section, choose if this policy should be available to assign to users (user accounts and group policies). Also select if it should be available for representatives to use when inviting an external representative to join a session and if it should be available to assign to Jump Items. If this session policy is already in use, you should see the number of users, public portals, and Jump Items using this policy.
  4. For all of the permissions that follow, you can choose to enable or disable the permission, or you can choose to set it to Not Defined. Session policies are applied to a session in a hierarchical manner, with Jump Clients taking the highest priority, then support portals, then users, and then the global default. If multiple policies apply to a session, then the policy with the highest priority will take precedence over the others. If, for example, the policy applied to a Jump Client defines a permission, then no other policies may change that permission for the session. To make a permission available for a lower policy to define, leave that permission set to Not Defined.

  5. Set which support tools should be enabled or disabled with this policy, as well as which tools should prompt the customer for permission.

Permissions and support tools are described in more detail in the Admin Interface.

  1. Click Save to make this policy available.
  2. Additionally, you can export a session policy from one site and import those permissions into a policy on another site. Edit the policy you wish to export and scroll to the bottom of the page. Click Export Policy and save the file.
  3. You may now import those policy settings to any other BeyondTrust site that supports session policy import. Create a new session policy and scroll to the bottom of the page. Browse to the policy file and then click Select Policy File. Once the policy file is uploaded, the page refreshes, allowing you to make modifications. Click Save to make the policy available.

Best Practices

Policies for Specific Object Types

Session policies can be created for specific types of objects. For example, a session policy can be created for a certain Jump Clients, and another only for a particular support portal. To help identify which policies are created for which objects, preface the name of the session policy with the object type for which you have created the policy (e.g., "[Jump Client] Screen Sharing Only").

Only Essentials Defined

When defining session policies, set only the permissions you know are required for a given scenario. Be careful which permissions you allow, especially when defining policies for Jump Items or support portals. Remember that allowing a permission for a higher-ranking session policy means that permission is available in the session, even if the representative's account disallows that permission. This effectively grants the representative permission to perform an action they are not normally allowed to do.

Similarly, if you deny a Jump Item a particular permission, then even a highly privileged representative is unable to perform that action.

When configuring Jump Item or support portal session policies, set only what you know needs to be set, and leave all other permissions undefined. This allows those remaining permissions to be assigned by next applied session policy.

Lowest Privileges for Global Policy

When properly configured, a session's permissions should be set by its applied policies and never reach the global default policy. When this is not the case, the global default session policy acts as the fallback policy for all sessions. Set the permissions in this policy to the lowest privileges you would wish to allow.

Any permissions which should be available for every representative in every possible session can be set to Allow. However, for any permissions which should be denied to some representatives or which should be disallowed for some end-users, set the policy to Deny.