Consider the manual onboarding of a lot of new hires at once. That’s frequently the case if your company doesn’t have an Identity and Access Management (IAM). How can hundreds of new users be efficiently provisioned to their respective systems and applications? Automated provisioning holds the answer to this question.
However, before we begin, let’s have a look first into the meaning of some terminologies you may come across in this article:
- Identity and Access Management (IAM). Identity and access management (IAM) is a set of procedures, guidelines, and instruments. They are used for establishing and controlling the functions and privileges of particular network entities (users and devices) about several cloud and on-premises applications. One digital identity per person or thing is the main goal of IAM systems. Once the digital identity has been created, it needs to be updated, maintained, and tracked throughout the access lifecycle of every user and device.
- Onboarding. Onboarding, also referred to as organizational socialization, is a mechanism that was first used in the 1970s. Onboarding describes the process by which new hires acquire the knowledge, abilities, and behaviors required to be productive members of the organization and insiders.
What is Automated Provisioning?
The first essential component of identity and access management (IAM) is automated user provisioning.
Automated provisioning is also known as user provisioning. It is the process of granting and managing access to applications, systems, and data within a company through automated procedures.
Automated provisioning, also can disable user access to systems, applications, and data. In the same way, it can deploy and activate services for users. This is called deprovisioning, also known as automated de-provisioning.
As changes happen throughout an organization, user provisioning software has been far more effective than manual onboarding and offboarding processes for employees.
Organizations are increasingly in need of solutions to make managing their communications and collaboration applications simpler. This is primarily why automated user provisioning software is essential.
Automated provisioning, in the context of identity governance and IAM, automates the distribution of applications and other resources to employees within an organization.
This can be compared to conventional processes which involve manually distributing user access requests to various stakeholders until they are approved, processed, and activated. Automated provisioning is significantly more effective.
Let’s consider how Automated User Provisioning works:
- Your company’s identity management platform will give new employees a role through their system when they begin working there.
- Depending on their role, the employee is granted access to certain applications.
- Their access will be automatically modified or terminated if they change roles or leave the company.
Advantages of Automated Provisioning
Your company must safeguard customers’ sensitive data against internal and external cyberattacks. You must also keep up-to-date records of employees’ information. However, this can be tasking and time-demanding for the IT staff. Hence, you need automated provisioning.
Some of the advantages of automated user provisioning are:
- It Enhances Productivity
You must assign credentials based on permission levels when hiring new workers, contractors, vendors, partners, or anyone else who will require access to the company’s applications, resources, and data.
Manual onboarding and provisioning practices require spending a lot of time on account creation, approval, and moving access requests to different stakeholders to be processed, activated, and approved.
When provisioning a large number of users as your business continues to grow, manual onboarding and provisioning practices place a significant burden on your HR and IT resources.
Tools for automated user provisioning, streamline the labor-intensive process of setting up new user accounts and managing permissions. And you can achieve more using these tools for onboarding and provisioning than traditional means(manual means).
IAM process automation reduces staff workload, avoids delays for new hires, and thereby increases productivity.
- It Saves Costs
A provisioning system’s implementation and deployment can indeed be expensive. But you’ll end up saving more money, in the long run, using user provisioning software. Automation cuts the cost of onboarding and operation.
Manual provisioning is costly and time-consuming. This is because IAM processes demand significant time and financial investment from IT teams. At scale, manual provisioning is particularly problematic.
Automated provisioning replaces manual processes and enables IT, teams, to manage the IAM process from a single point of control. Thereby making it possible to reduce operational expenses and the amount of time required for each task. Additionally, time and money can be saved and reassessed in other crucial areas for businesses.
- It Enhances User-Wide Transparency
Based on their roles and permission levels inside the Identity and Access Management (IAM) platform, automated provisioning gives users access to tools and applications. This provides administrators with a comprehensive view of who has access and how they are using it. Furthermore, this enables them to modify permission levels as necessary. In this manner, resource access is controlled.
On the other hand, manual processes can lead to inefficiencies. This is because they don’t track access nor provide transparency into the tools that employees are using. An integrated, centralized view of user access and identities is provided by auto-provisioning. And this is very essential.
- Reduces Security Threats
If an employee leaves a company and the IT staff does not block their access to the company systems, they might still have access to the resources, posing a serious threat to the business.
Automated provisioning eliminates wasteful workflows, and streamlines onboarding and offboarding for identity management. It keeps track of who has access to what data, platforms, and applications. IT staff can quickly create, modify, and remove accounts from the system. They can make sure the correct person has the appropriate permissions by using automated provisioning.
IT departments benefit from automated provisioning because it stops deactivated employee accounts from using corporate resources. Security risks are reduced as inactive accounts are deleted.
- It Decreases Error
Instantaneous suspension of user access to networks, systems, apps, and files is a powerful security feature and a crucial prerequisite for achieving regulatory compliance across industries.
It can be difficult for IT teams to enter a lot of onboarding data when an enterprise is scaling. Human error can occur during the manual data entry process, which can result in lost time and money.
Automated provisioning is a better provisioning system. It reduces the need for manual tasks like data entry, thereby lowering the possibility of human error.
Conclusion
By using automated provisioning, you can relieve your IT or HR department of the burden of onboarding new employees. Also, user access is provisioned more quickly and securely. This helps to optimize the onboarding and lifecycle management process.