About us
Founded in 2005 with a belief that automation and frictionless self-service are the smartest ways to free up human capital and drive business efficiency.
Our story
Backed by 20 years of expertise and trusted by many leading organisations across Australasia and beyond, Activate specialises in identity and access management (IAM) automation that eliminates manual workflows and reduces the burden on IT and Service Desk teams.
Our smart automation works quietly in the background so you can focus on the big picture items. From onboarding to offboarding and everything in between, Activate strengthens your security posture, keeps access aligned with role and policy changes, and ensures you're always audit-ready.
Experience seamless IAM automation with Activate’s ready-made workflows and expert in-house team. The platform’s built-in automation features minimise the need for custom coding, allowing your organisation to realise value quickly.
Designed for hybrid environments, Activate seamlessly connects cloud and on-premise systems. Backed by a skilled team, we are continuously enhancing our capabilities to provide reliable and scalable service.
Today
Our Customers collectively continue to process over 2.7M+ automated jobs each year and some of our customers have processed more than 2 million lifetime jobs, resulting in a combined annual time savings of over 530,000+ hours.
Activate purchased by Software Combined
In April 2024, Activate was purchased by Software Combined.
Software Combined buy, manage and grow software businesses, giving them a forever home. Dedicated to supporting a portfolio of established software businesses to maximise their full growth potential. In addition to providing strategic guidance, Software Combined offer best practice support, whilst respecting current operations and culture. To find out more please visit: www.softwarecombined.com
Activate V8 Released
Activate V8 is a foundational release designed to future-proof the platform for the next decade.
The primary goals included:
Modern Architecture: Complete rewrite of the website using React and .NET Core, ensuring scalability and maintainability
Security First: Enforced SSL for all communications and adoption of a Zero Trust Design
Real-Time Communication: Integration of Signal-R for seamless component interaction
Flexible Deployment: Support for multiple Activate instances on a single machine
Unified Administration: Introduction of Activate Studio, replacing Activate Admin, with automatic version alignment to the server
Technology Advancement: Migration to the latest .NET for improved performance and security
Improved User Experience: Continued enhancements to the end-user interface and administrative workflows
Cloud Readiness: Enhanced support for Azure and Office 365 as cloud adoption grows
Integration Focus: Expanded and improved REST API for better third-party integration.
Key Features:
Modern Web Platform: Fully rebuilt UI with React and .NET Core
SVG Icons & Theming: Customisable and scalable visual elements
Activate Agents: New component for distributed tasks and automation
Chatbot with NLP/AI: Intelligent user interaction and support
Activate Studio: Graphical form editor and centralised admin interface with auto-update and SQL proxy support
Advanced Reporting: New reporting engine that operates independently of Microsoft SQL Reporting Services
Real-Time Communication: Signal-R enables dynamic updates across components.
Activate V7 Released
Driven by extensive customer feedback and research, Activate introduced enhancements to the end-user interface, including home page and child page tiles that offer a more familiar Office 365-like experience. Additionally,improvements were made to the search functionality to further streamline user navigation.
New features included:
Launching the Privileged Access Management product to help customers strengthen compliance and control over sensitive accounts
Deeper integration with Azure
Expanded web-based Service Catalogue Management
Enhanced workflow summaries for a more user-friendly experience
Introduced of our first graphical form editor for Activate Administrators.
Activate V6 Released
V6 introduced Microsoft Fluent styling as customers started moving to Office 365.
We also introduced the following key features:
Web based editing of Service Catalogue forms for catalogue administrators
Suggest Access AI to automatically determine what anew team member would need as part of their onboarding
Dashboards for simplified reporting, A shopping cart helping end users process requests
Dynamic Distribution Lists to provide additional flexibility for customers to manage their Distribution Lists.
Activate V5 Released
In 2013, Activate underwent a major overhaul to enhance the user experience, making it easier for end users to locate what they need and view their current access. This update introduced the first version of Activate Search and launched a new product that enabled customers to manage common asset assignments more efficiently.
The simplified interface provided a clearer view of what assets were assigned to each user. We introduced our first mobile user interface, access suggestions to streamline team member onboarding, knowledge base tools, and simplified email approvals, bringing automation even closer to every user.
Activate V4 Released
V4 was a major leap in usability with a redesigned interface, graphical workflows, and easier administration.
This version introduced additional products to assist customers with common non-IT requests, along with a new solution designed to simplify access to SharePoint.
Activate Founded
Established in New Zealand with a clear mission: to make IT automation more seamless, efficient, and secure, while changing the perception that IT automation is expensive and hard to do.
Activate was initially launched to assist Boeing to onboard users onto their new Active Directory and provide access to a small number of systems.