Rolesearch

Rolesearch is a feature in identity and access management (IAM) systems that enables administrators and authorized users to locate, inspect, and compare defined access roles within an organization. It supports querying roles by attributes such as name, description, permissions, resource scope, owner, creation date, and status. The goal is to facilitate governance, design, and auditing of role-based access control (RBAC) models.

Typical capabilities include keyword search, filters for permission sets and resource scope, support for saved queries, sorting, and exporting results to CSV or reports. A role's metadata—including its permissions, assigned users or groups, approval status, and related workflows—can usually be viewed from a single view. Some implementations offer role mining or analytics to suggest consolidations or identify gaps.

Common use cases include onboarding and offboarding, access reviews and certification campaigns, RBAC design and optimization, and compliance audits. Rolesearch helps identify redundant or overly permissive roles, promotes the principle of least privilege, and supports separation-of-duties analyses.

Implementation considerations include integration with the IAM catalog, tagging and metadata standards, version control for role definitions, and governance policies governing creation and modification. Performance considerations include indexing and caching for fast search responses in large role inventories. Access controls should enforce that only authorized administrators can perform sensitive searches that reveal role details.