Configure an access policy
An access policy defines the conditions that control how and when a user can log on to your network and resources. With UserLock, you can apply restrictions by machine, time, location, session limit, or multi-factor authentication (MFA).
Useful resources
This tutorial walks you through creating your first access policy using the configuration wizard.
🧪️ For a quick test, we propose to deny access to a specific machine for a given user.
- In the UserLock console, go to Access policies. 
- Click on the Add button. 
- The policy wizard opens, guiding you step by step. 
- You first need to select the target type on which the access policy will be applied. The target is an object of your Active Directory and can be a user, a group or an organizational unit. 
 🧪️ For our quick test, click on User. 
- Search the target.  - 🧪️ For our quick test, make sure to select a target for which you know the login details. 
- If you know the exact account name, type it directly in the field and click Continue. 
- If you don’t know the exact name: - Enter at least two characters of the account name. 
- Click Find. 
- UserLock will run an LDAP search to list all matching accounts. 
 
- If the search takes too long or shows too many results, enter more characters to refine the search. 
- Once the correct account appears, select it and click Continue. 
On the Duration step of the wizard, choose how long the policy should apply.
- Permanent → The rules have no time limit. 
- Temporary → The rules apply for a specific time period. For more details about managing temporary policies and conflicts, see Temporary policies (Reference). 
🧪️ For our quick test, select Permanent.

You must now select the policy type.
🧪️ For our quick test, select Machine restrictions.

This step will be automatically bypassed if you started the policy wizard from a specific policy page.
Note
This step varies depending on the selected policy type. For more details, see the Access policies references.
🧪️ For our quick test, we will configure a simple machine restriction.
- Set the machine list to Denied. 
- Under the machine list, click the Add button. 
- Select by Name. 
- Enter the name of a machine you can access and where the Desktop agent is installed. 
- If you don't know the exact name, click on Find to search a machine from your Active Directory. 
- Select the Workstation and Terminal session types. 
- Click on Continue then Save the rules. 
- After saving the rules, the wizard automatically returns on the policy type step. The Machine restriction policy is checked to indicate a configuration has been set. 
- Exit the wizard by clicking the Close icon in the upper right corner. 

Once your first policy is created, continue with the next step: Verify your setup.