User Impersonation

Alation Cloud Service Applies to Alation Cloud Service instances of Alation

Applies from version 2025.1.2

Overview

Alation provides a way for certain Alation employees to temporarily impersonate customer-selected users in the Alation platform. This feature is primarily intended for support and troubleshooting purposes, allowing Alation Support teams to assist users faster and more effectively by experiencing the platform as the user.

This feature requires your explicit permission to be enabled. A Server Admin must specify which users can be impersonated and for how long. Only Alation employees with impersonation privileges can use this feature, and its use is logged for security and compliance purposes.

You must have the role of Server Admin to enable and configure the user impersonation feature.

Enable User Impersonation

The user impersonation feature is disabled by default. To enable it, you must have Server Admin privileges.

Enabling this feature is a two-step process. First, you must request Alation Support to enable the feature on their side. Once they confirm that the feature is enabled, you can enable it in your Alation instance.

Step 1: Request Alation to Enable the Feature

  1. Open a ticket with Alation Support requesting to have the user impersonation feature enabled. See Creating a new Alation Support Case for more information on how to open a ticket.

  2. Once Support has enabled the feature, they will let you know. At that point, the feature will be enabled on the Alation side, but you must still enable it in your Alation instance. The process for enabling the feature in your instance is described in the next step.

Step 2: Enable the Feature in Alation

  1. Once the feature is enabled by Alation Support, click the Settings gear icon in the top right corner of Alation. The Admin Settings page opens.

  2. Click Authentication. The Authentication settings page opens.

  3. In the User Impersonation section, enable the Allow User Impersonation toggle.

  4. In the confirmation dialog that appears, click Yes to confirm that you want to enable the feature. It may take a few minutes for the feature to be fully enabled.

    Important

    Clicking Yes is a legal agreement that you have obtained permission from your organization’s relevant internal teams to use this feature. If you do not have permission, do not enable this feature.

Set Up User Impersonation

Once the user impersonation feature is enabled, you can set up the impersonation configuration. This involves specifying which users can be impersonated and for how long.

To set up user impersonation:

  1. Click the Settings gear icon in the top right corner of Alation. The Admin Settings page opens.

  2. Click Authentication. The Authentication settings page opens.

  3. In the User Impersonation section, click the Add Impersonation Configuration button to specify the users who can be impersonated. The Create User Impersonation dialog appears.

  4. Click Select Users to choose the users who can be impersonated. You can search for users by name or email address. Repeat this step to add more users. Up to 10 users can be selected at a time.

    Note

    System users can’t be impersonated. System users are created to use Alation APIs for OAuth integrations. They can be found under the System Users section in the Users tab of the Admin Settings page.

  5. Click the calendar icon the End Date field to select the date when the impersonation will end. Click the clock icon in the End Time field to select the time when the impersonation will end.

    Note

    The date and time must be in the future and no more than a year from the current date, based on your browser’s local time zone.

  6. Click Save to save the impersonation configuration.

    Note

    If the Save button is disabled, it means you haven’t selected any users or you’ve selected more than 10 users. You must select at least one user and no more than 10 users to save the configuration.

    The impersonation configuration is now active. Alation Support personnel can now see the the users you selected for impersonation in Alation’s cloud management console and can choose to impersonate them within the time window you specified.

Edit the Impersonation Configuration

You can edit the impersonation configuration to change the users who can be impersonated or the end date and time of the impersonation. Editing the configuration will immediately end any active impersonation sessions.

To edit the impersonation configuration:

  1. Click the Settings gear icon in the top right corner of Alation. The Admin Settings page opens.

  2. Click Authentication. The Authentication settings page opens.

  3. In the User Impersonation section, click View/Edit next to the existing impersonation configuration. You can edit the configuration in the following ways:

    • Add Users: Click Select Users. You can search for users by name or email address. Repeat this step to add more users. Up to 10 users can be selected at a time.

    • Remove Users: Click the X next to a user to remove them from the impersonation configuration. Removed users can no longer be impersonated.

    • Change the End Date and Time: Click the calendar icon in the End Date field to select the date when the impersonation will end. Click the clock icon in the End Time field to select the time when the impersonation will end.

      Note

      The date and time must be in the future and no more than a year from the current date, based on your browser’s local time zone.

  4. Click Save to save the changes to the impersonation configuration.

  5. In the confirmation dialog that appears, click Yes to confirm that you want to save the changes.

    The impersonation configuration is now updated, and the selected users can be impersonated by Alation Support personnel.

    Note

    Editing the impersonation configuration will immediately end any active impersonation sessions. Alation Support personnel will no longer be able to impersonate users who were removed from the configuration.

Disable User Impersonation

To disable the user impersonation feature, you can delete the impersonation configuration and optionally disable the feature entirely.

To disable the user impersonation feature:

  1. Click the Settings gear icon in the top right corner of Alation. The Admin Settings page opens.

  2. Click Authentication. The Authentication settings page opens.

  3. Click Delete next to the existing impersonation configuration.

  4. In the confirmation dialog that appears, click Yes to confirm that you want to delete the impersonation configuration.

    Note

    Deleting the impersonation configuration will terminate all active impersonation sessions. Alation Support personnel will no longer be able to impersonate the specified users.

  5. If you want to disable the user impersonation feature entirely, disable the Allow User Impersonation toggle.

User Impersonation Logs

All impersonation actions are logged for security and compliance purposes. The logs include the user who was impersonated, the Alation Support personnel who performed the impersonation, the date and time of the impersonation, and which actions were performed during the impersonation session.

Alation keeps a screen recording of the impersonation session for one month. All text in the screen recording is redacted for security and privacy reasons.

Contact Alation Support to access the impersonation logs.