AZ-305 Practice Question: Design identity, governance, and monitoring solutions
A company uses Microsoft Entra ID (Microsoft Entra ID). External partners need temporary access to an internal application. The process must be self-service: partners request access, the request goes through an approval workflow managed by a manager from the partner's organization, and access automatically expires after 30 days. The company also wants to send reminder emails 7 days before expiration. Which Microsoft Entra ID feature should they use?
⚠ Common exam trap
Many candidates confuse Entitlement Management (designed for external user access lifecycle) with Access Reviews (which is for periodic recertification, not self-service provisioning) or PIM (which is for internal privileged roles, not application access for partners).
Answer choices
Why each option matters
Answer the question above first, then reveal the full breakdown to understand why each option is right or wrong.
Correct answer & explanation
✓
Microsoft Entra ID Identity Governance - Entitlement Management
Microsoft Entra ID Identity Governance - Entitlement Management is specifically designed to manage access for external users through self-service access packages. It supports approval workflows with external managers, automatic time-bound access (e.g., 30-day expiration), and lifecycle notifications like reminder emails 7 days before expiry. This aligns perfectly with the requirement for partner-managed, temporary, self-service access.
Answer analysis
Option-by-option breakdown
For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.
- ✗
Microsoft Entra ID Identity Governance - Access Reviews
Why it's wrong here
Microsoft Entra ID Access Reviews are a governance control for recertifying existing access assignments. They create review cycles where owners or delegates periodically confirm whether users still need access, but they neither provide a self-service request catalog nor automatically expire newly granted access. In this scenario, external users need to request access and have it expire after a defined duration, which is handled by entitlement management access packages, not access reviews.
- ✓
Microsoft Entra ID Identity Governance - Entitlement Management
Why this is correct
Entitlement Management provides access packages that external users can request. It includes approval workflows, automatic expiration after a defined duration, and email reminders before expiration. It is designed for managing external identities and time-limited access.
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Microsoft Entra ID Privileged Identity Management (PIM)
Why it's wrong here
PIM is used to manage just-in-time access to Microsoft Entra ID and Azure resource roles, not for granting general application access to external users. It does not provide a self-service request process for non-privileged access.
- ✗
Microsoft Entra ID Conditional Access
Why it's wrong here
Conditional Access is a policy engine that evaluates sign-in context—such as device compliance, location, and risk—and then applies controls like requiring MFA or blocking the session. It does not offer a request/approval workflow or time-limited assignment for external user access. Since the requirement is for external users to self-service request application access with automatic expiration, Conditional Access only complements that process by securing the resulting sign-ins, rather than fulfilling the access lifecycle requirement.
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