1.1 What Is Group Policy Administrator?

Group Policy Administrator (GPA) is an enterprise‑class Group Policy change control solution that provides:

  • A secure offline repository to reduce the risk of changing GPOs in live Active Directory

  • A robust workflow and delegation model to safely involve all Group Policy stakeholders

  • Built‑in tools that help you analyze, compare, troubleshoot, and test GPOs

  • Comprehensive reporting to help you document regulatory compliance

GPA lets you manage changes to GPOs in a safe offline environment, without risking potentially catastrophic changes that can impact network or service availability.

Using the GPA offline repository (GP Repository), change management workflow, and powerful productivity features gives you many advantages over using other tools:

  • Buffers you from making errors in a live Active Directory environment

  • Lets you compare and view differences between GPOs

  • Performs health checks to ensure GPOs are not corrupted

  • Lets you quickly roll back to a last‑known good version of a GPO

  • Stores backup copies of GPOs including WMI filters and links

  • Lets you centrally manage GPOs in untrusted domains

  • Lets you migrate GPOs from one domain to another

  • Lets you delegate GPO changes to appropriate people while limiting Active Directory permissions

The GP Repository is a safe offline environment where you can test changes to Group Policy before rolling GPOs into the live environment.

GPA has many features designed specifically for large enterprises to help automate the following types of tasks:

  • Enforcing consistent use of GPOs across your enterprise

  • Managing and maintaining GPOs across trust barriers

  • Automatically deploying GPOs during non‑peak hours

  • Diagnosing problems and differences between GPOs

If your enterprise needs a solution to help efficiently manage GPOs and streamline your auditing and reporting process, GPA can help you.