2024 StrongDM User Interface Changes

A new StrongDM user interface was introduced in September 2024. This page is an overview of those changes.

Admin UI Updates #

StrongDM’s Admin UI has been given a fresh, modern look:

The visual elements have been updated, and content has been arranged to create a more intuitive interface:

• The navigation menu has been updated with new terminology and groupings.
• There is new navigation bar submenu item behavior. Now, when opening a new submenu, other submenus close, allowing the user to easily see what section of the app they are in, as well as what other top-level sections are available to them.
• The icons in the navigation menu provide visual clues on what to expect within that section.
• The header has been improved to increase readability and overall look.
• The color scheme has been updated.
• General style has been refreshed, with changes that include rounded corners, buttons, headers, tabs, tables, alerts, forms, and dropdowns.
• Adjusted depth, opacity, size, spacing, and text styles give a modern feel.
• The Geist Sans font is now the primary font across the Admin UI (rather than Montserrat) for improved readability.

Navigation Menu #

Here is an overview of the Admin UI navigation menu and what each top-level section contains:

• Reports: Offers rich dashboards providing in-depth analysis of access grants to resources and user activity in your organization
• Principals: Provides the ability to create and manage users, roles, admin tokens, and Identity Sets
• Resources: Provides the ability to create and manage resources such as databases, servers, clusters, and clouds
• Access: Houses the policy editor and configuration tools for access workflows and approval workflows
• Requests: Contains access requests that you can approve as well as a catalog from which users can request access to resources
• Logs: Provides views into logs of administrative activities in the StrongDM organization, records of queries against resources, and replays of activity on SSH, RDP, or Kubernetes resources
• Networking: Where nodes (gateways and relays) can be created and managed
• Integrations: Provides a directory of the services that integrate with StrongDM
• Settings: Holds configuration settings for various parts of your StrongDM organization, including security, credentials management, user management, networking, logs, software version support, workflows, and device trust

Quick Tips #

• Items formerly found in Infrastructure are now found in Resources.
• Configuration of users, roles, API keys, and admin tokens that were formerly found in Access are now found in Principals.
• Port overrides has moved from a top-level page in the Settings section to a tab under Settings > Networking.
• Settings for secret stores and certificate authorities are now under Settings > Secrets Management.
• Log encryption and storage settings have moved from a top-level Settings page to a tab under Settings > Security.

Desktop App Updates #

The appearance of the desktop app has been updated, as well:

The sleek, modern UI of the refreshed desktop app (macOS and Windows) provides several improvements to the user experience:

• The general layout has been updated, with new headers and tabs.
• The app’s alert styling has been improved.
• The color scheme of the app has been updated.
• Across the application, styling has been refreshed to more modern standards, including rounded buttons, new icons, a better use of space, and added depth.
• The fonts used in the desktop app are now based on system fonts, giving a more native app experience (San Francisco on macOS, Segoe UI on Windows Vista and higher).
• Standard keyboard shortcuts are now supported within the app (such as Cmd+C to copy, Cmd+Q to quit, and Cmd+W to close on macOS; and Ctrl+C to copy, Alt+F4 to quit on Windows).