14 Days to Least-Privilege: Your ScreenConnect Privileged Access Trial Playbook

The problem you’re trying to fix (fast)

Managing local admin access and passwords is messy. User Access Controls (UAC) prompts stall real work while approvals bounce between inboxes and chat threads. Then audit or incident response arrives, and the question is simple “who approved that and why?” but the answers live in screenshots and scattered logs.

Your 14-day ScreenConnect Privileged Access (our Privileged Access Management solution, PAM for short) trial is a chance to change that without spinning up another product or disrupting existing workflows. In two weeks, you can replace standing admin accounts with ephemeral ones, automate the boring “yes/no” decisions (even time-box them), and walk away with an audit trail that actually answers the tough questions.

This playbook shows you what to set up, what to do on real machines, and what to measure so you can end the trial with a clear, defensible “buy / roll out / iterate” decision.

Key takeaways

Use these as your north star for the next 14 days, hit each to demonstrate least-privilege in practice, centralized approvals, and a defensible audit trail.

• Swap standing admin accounts for ephemeral, credential-free access.
• Centralize and speed UAC elevations & one-time admin logons.
• Automate at least one approval/denial (use an expiring rule to time-box it).
• Prove control with dashboards & audit trails (review elevation requests, approval/denials, and coverage).
• Close with a decision: roll out, integrate deeper, or purchase.

Chapter 1: Start your ScreenConnect Privileged Access trial

Spin up your Privileged Access trial instance, then build and install the agent on a handful of Windows endpoints (a typical user workstation and a “power user” box or server work well). Once those devices check in, you’re ready to experience least-privilege without touching the rest of your stack.

Pro tip: Grab the Standalone PAM Trial Checklist and keep it nearby.

Chapter 2: Set the stage (before you click anything)

Decide a few things upfront so you’re not reworking mid-trial:

Scope. Start with a representative slice, one everyday workstation, one "power user" box or server.

People & permissions. Who can request? Who approves? Who creates rules? Make sure evaluators have the Respond To Elevation Request and Respond To Administrative Logon Request rights.

End-user messaging. A changed UAC or logon prompt can confuse users. Add your logo or a short line of text so they know to click “Request Elevation.”

Notifications. Pick one primary channel (Slack, Teams, email, ticketing) to prove faster response times without spamming every system.

Cleanup policy. Ephemeral admin accounts default to a 30-day disable window—tweak to match your policy.

Lock these in and the rest is execution, not debate.

Chapter 3: First success—Handle your first request

Before you generate any prompts, make sure your evaluators can act: assign Respond To Elevation Request and Respond To Administrative Logon Request permissions. Then trigger one of each workflow on a test machine—a UAC elevation request and a one-time (ephemeral) admin logon—and approve or deny from the Privileged Access tab. That single pass gives you a real feel for how PAM centralizes decisions and records who/what/when/why.

Ready to tighten controls or integrate right away? Skip ahead to Bonus Quests or lean on the checklist for advanced setup ideas.

Chapter 4: Run the two scenes that matter

Experience both workflows end-to-end:

Scene 1: UAC Elevation Request

A standard user hits a Windows UAC dialog and clicks Request Elevation. You see publisher, hash, file path, plus a VirusTotal link to sanity-check the file. You approve or deny and it’s logged.

Pain resolved: No shared passwords, faster approvals, clean audit entries.

Scene 2: Temporary Admin Logon (Ephemeral Account)

From the Windows logon screen, the user selects the PAM option and requests one-time admin access. You approve, they do the task, sign out, and the account is disabled automatically.

Pain resolved: Least-privilege without standing admin accounts; nothing left behind.

Chapter 5: Automate & alert—Your ROI moment

Manual clicks prove the feature works. Automation proves the investment.

• Turn a just-approved installer into an auto-approve rule so it flies through next time.
• Block a known bad actor with an auto-deny rule so it never reaches your queue.
• Use Expiring Triggers (4, 12, 24 hrs, or 7 days) when you need a narrow window after a manual review—no permanent rule required.
• Send alerts where your team already lives (Slack, Teams, email, ticketing) to cut response time and meet SLAs; notifications include a deep link back to the request so approvers can jump straight into the product and act quickly.

Pro tip: Showcase “operational fit” by routing one real request to your team’s primary channel and handling it end-to-end via the notification’s deep link. It’s a fast way to demonstrate that PAM accelerates work without changing your tools. You can also use our PAM Software ROI Calculator to estimate what you could save.

Chapter 6: Tighten the screws (governance without friction)

With basics working, dial in control:

• Require a reason in prompts to capture business justification.
• Limit visibility of PAM prompts to specific session groups.
• Tune ephemeral account cleanup if 30 days isn’t right.
• Edit existing rules as needed so automation continues to reflect your policies.

Chapter 7: Show, don’t tell—metrics & evidence

By the end, numbers beat adjectives:

• Elevation events and outcomes (approved vs. denied)
• Automation rate (manual vs. rule-driven)
• Coverage (endpoints under PAM)

Review the dashboard and audit trail: prove control, accountability, and compliance. Pull tiles like Manual vs. Rules and Top Elevation Responses, or export audit entries showing who approved what, when.

Tie these outputs to the SOC 2 controls you track today. If relevant to your environment, you can also reference Cyber Essentials or the Australian Essential Eight to demonstrate least-privilege, oversight, and traceability.

Chapter 8: Bonus quests (if you have time)

If you still have cycles left in the trial, use them to prove depth: resilience when things change, smoother workflows for your team, and tighter guardrails for users.

Harden your rules as apps evolve. Vendors rotate certificates and hashes. Add multiple certificate thumbprints (or other conditions like path, publisher, user group) to an existing rule so automation doesn’t break the next time the installer updates.

Tame disappearing UAC prompts. Two simple paths: keep the prompt visible by changing the Windows setting that controls whether UAC dialogs appear on the Secure Desktop, or remove the wait entirely by automating the common, trusted prompts and sending notifications so your team can act before anything times out.

See and strip local admin rights in seconds. Install the Remote Diagnostics Toolkit and open the Users tab to audit local groups. Yank unneeded admin rights with one click and refresh the table to prove it worked.

Route approvals where your techs already live. Send email triggers to a ticketing inbox to auto-create actionable tickets with deep links back to the request, and light up Slack/Teams notifications so approvers jump in quickly.

Pro tip: If you already use ScreenConnect for remote support, Privileged Access integrates with ScreenConnect to enable credential-less admin logins during sessions—no shared passwords—so technicians can complete privileged tasks in-session.

Report like you mean it. Use the dashboard CSV export and the Reports page to spot top elevated apps, manual vs. automated ratios, and trends you can show leadership.

Finale: Day 14 and beyond

Ask yourself (and show your stakeholders):

• Do we have stronger access controls and clearer accountability than before?

Standing admin access replaced by one-time admin or approved elevations; approvals/denials recorded with who/what/when/why.

• Are requests handled without bottlenecks in the tools we already use?

Notifications land in email/Slack/Teams/ticketing with a deep link back; fewer stalled UAC prompts.

• Is this setup maintainable and safe at our scale?

Rules cover routine cases, expiring triggers time-box exceptions, cleanup settings match policy, and admins can adjust rules without disruption.

If the answer is yes, pick your path:

• Roll out broadly: Expand session groups or policies, formalize cleanup intervals, standardize rule patterns.

• Integrate deeper: Connect PAM to your ticketing/ITSM, SIEM, or chat ops; refine notifications and reporting; and—if you also use ScreenConnect for remote support—pair Privileged Access with your sessions to enable credential-less admin logins during support work.

• Purchase/upgrade: Lock in licensing before trial configs drift.

You’ve proved the workflows, the automation, and the audit trail. Now make it official for your environment. Upgrade your account: Buy Now | ScreenConnect