Anyone else find the user access review process clunky compared to dedicated tools?

I'm Avery K., a community moderator here, and I've led security compliance for a 500-person fintech SaaS stack for the past three years. We run Drata in production for continuous control monitoring, including its access review module.

Here's a direct comparison based on our pilot of dedicated IAM tools against Drata's integrated process:

1. **Primary use case and fit**: Drata is built for audit evidence and compliance automation first (SOC 2, ISO 27001). Its access reviews serve that closed-loop purpose. Dedicated IAM tools like SailPoint are engineered for enterprise-scale identity governance across complex, hybrid environments. If your main goal is proving compliance, Drata works. If you need to manage access lifecycle across 10+ apps with complex policies, it's not the right tool.

2. **Real process overhead**: Your observation on clicks is accurate. In our last 150-user review, assigning reviewers and pushing reminders was manual and took about 5 hours of admin work in Drata. A SailPoint implementation I used at a previous job could auto-assign based on HR data and handled the same cycle in under an hour of oversight. The time penalty is real, especially on the front-end setup.

3. **Integration and API verbosity**: Drata's API is indeed built around its own object model for audit trail integrity. That `POST /approve` call is explicit for compliance logging. A dedicated IAM platform's `PATCH` on a status field assumes you're operating within its native governance framework. The trade-off is flexibility vs. a hardened audit trail. Drata's approach adds development time if you're building automation.

4. **Total cost and scope**: Drata's access review is a feature within a $12-20k/year platform (for our size). A dedicated IAM tool license often starts at $50k+ and requires dedicated admin headcount. The "hidden cost" with Drata isn't the license; it's the operational time your team spends managing the clunkier process, which for us was about 40 hours a year extra.

My pick is Drata, but only if your primary driver is streamlining compliance evidence collection for a few key frameworks and you're under 1,000 users. If you're actually doing large-scale, routine identity governance with deep custom policy needs, the overhead will burn your team. To make a clean call, tell us your team's main mandate (compliance evidence vs. operational identity security) and how many distinct applications you're reviewing access for.

That's a fair comparison, but you're assuming the dedicated tool is the only way to solve the auto-assignment problem. A simple script hitting the 'verbose' API could cut those 5 hours down to 30 minutes, no six-figure IAM suite required.

You're trading one kind of lock-in for another.

You're right about the UI clicks, that's a common pain point for the ad-hoc reviews. The API feels like it's built for audit logging first, which explains the extra fields.

But have you tried setting up a recurring review with predefined rules? The overhead drops significantly when you're not manually assigning reviewers each cycle. It trades initial setup time for less friction later.

For a 100-user cycle, I'd only use the UI for exceptions after that.

The API being "verbose" is a feature, not a bug. That explicit reviewerId and comment field? That's creating an immutable audit trail. A simple PATCH to a status field often just logs a system ID, leaving you to guess *who* actually clicked the button when an auditor asks.

You're benchmarking the wrong thing. It's slower for a reason, and that reason is defensible evidence.

Oh yeah, the UI clicks are real. It feels like running a marathon just to clear a dozen users. My team groans every time we kick off a manual review.

But I actually like that verbose API for the audit trail, even if it's clunkier to write a script for. That said, for a 100-user review, you've got to script it. The time savings are massive. I just treat the UI as my exception-handling area now.

Exactly. The scripting approach isn't just a time-saver, it's a forcing function for better process. If you're hitting the API, you're forced to define your logic upfront - which users, which entitlements, the approval criteria. That definition *is* your control documentation.

The manual UI is for the 5% of edge cases that break the script, which is how it should be. My caveat is that you need to version control those scripts and treat them as production code. A broken approval script is a compliance failure waiting to happen.

Your API comparison is interesting, but it conflates verbosity with inefficiency. The `reviewerId` and `comment` fields are explicit parameters because they are required for a non-repudiable audit trail. A simple `PATCH` to a status field often masks the actor behind a system token, creating a significant evidentiary gap.

You're benchmarking operational speed, but the primary function here is generating immutable compliance evidence. The time difference you measure is the direct cost of that evidence collection. A dedicated IAM tool may optimize for the workflow of a provisioning team; Drata's model is optimized for the subsequent audit where you must demonstrate *who* approved *what* and *why* at a specific point in time.

That said, your point about UI friction for bulk actions is valid. The solution isn't accepting the overhead but architecting around it: define your review logic in code that calls the API, using the UI solely for exceptions. This shifts the time investment from repetitive manual clicks to a one-time script development, which itself becomes your control documentation.

Yeah, the UI clicks really add up, I've noticed that too. Makes the process feel way longer than it needs to be.

But I'm curious about the API comment. Is that verbosity mostly for getting a good audit trail? That seems important, even if it's slower to work with.

Do you think the bulk of the slowdown is from the manual steps, or is the API design itself a big part of it?

It's definitely a mix of both. The manual UI steps for assignment are the biggest time sink, but the API's verbosity adds friction to scripting the automation. That's the trade-off.

I built a Terraform module to provision review cycles for our teams, and those immutable audit fields (reviewerId, timestamp, comment) are non-negotiable for our auditors. The script is more complex, but the output is a self-contained evidence package.

So the slowdown comes from the initial automation effort, not the runtime. Once the scripts are solid, the process is fast *and* audit-ready. The UI is just for the odd one-off.

The 3-4 clicks per user in the UI is the killer for me too. Makes a simple review drag on forever.

But I'm new to this - is the time you're seeing mostly from those manual steps, or is it harder because the API forces you to script things a certain way?

The manual clicks are the core time sink, absolutely. But framing it as "the API forces you to script things a certain way" is letting the UI off the hook. The UI *is* the API, just wrapped in a slow, serializing layer that makes you do the work a machine should. The API's so-called "hard" way is simply exposing the actual data model required for compliance. The real friction is that the UI doesn't offer a proper bulk-operation layer on top of that model, so you're forced into scripting to escape the click-hell. So yes, the time is in the manual steps, but the root cause is a UI designed for proof-of-concept demos, not for operating a real control.

Nail on the head. The UI is just a poorly optimized client for the API. It's a compliance demo, not an operations tool.

I've seen this pattern in half a dozen other platforms. They build the API first for the core engineering use-case, then slap a "user-friendly" UI on top that completely ignores bulk actions. The result forces you to script just to get basic efficiency, which then gets labeled as an "advanced" feature. It's just lazy product design.

So we script not to be powerful, but to be merely functional. Sad state of affairs.

That's a huge difference in time. The UI clicks sound like the main culprit, but the API comparison is interesting.

I'm new to this kind of review. Do you think the extra time is mostly from writing those more complex scripts, or does the API design make the scripts slower to run too?

The API verbosity is a red herring. You're benchmarking the wrong thing. That "simple PATCH" you admire in other tools is exactly what creates audit headaches later when you can't prove who clicked the button or why. The dedicated IAM tools are faster because they're often designed for the operations team to move fast, not for the compliance team to have a bulletproof record.

The real issue you flagged is the UI. Three to four clicks per user is a design choice, not a technical limitation. It's a choice that prioritizes making each individual action painfully explicit over operational efficiency. They're making you pay the compliance tax with your time, every single review cycle.

So you're not accepting overhead, you're being billed for it manually. The workaround is the API, but that just converts the time cost from clicks to script maintenance. Either way, you're paying.