In today’s digital landscape, Organizations often use multiple business applications like Salesforce, Office 365, including HRMS tools like Zoho People Plus and Zoho Recruit, CRM platforms to manage their operations. Employees are required to log in separately to each application, resulting in inefficiencies, wasted time, and a fragmented user experience.
To address the challenges of managing multiple applications within the Zoho portfolio, such as Zoho People Plus, Zoho CRM, and Zoho Recruit, we use a simple and effective solution by integrating Zoho Directory with Okta through SAML 2.0.
Usecase Overview:
Check out the presentation video to have an understanding about the use case around integrating Zoho with Okta.
Usecase Demonstration:
Here’s the technical walkthrough on the integration and provisioning between Zoho & Okta.
Conclusion:
In conclusion, integrating Okta with Zoho portfolio has significantly streamlined the users access to the platform. With Okta’s Single Sign-On (SSO) capabilities, users can now seamlessly log in to multiple Zoho applications without remembering multiple passwords, reducing login times and increasing productivity. The integration backed up with Okta’s Sign-On policies, enhances organization security posture by providing an additional layer of authentication, ensuring that only authorized personnel can access sensitive customer data. By streamlining Zoho access with Okta, we have improved user experience, increased efficiency and strengthened security.
As Organizations continue to adopt cloud-based identity and access management solutions like Okta, securing administrative access to these platforms has become a top priority. Okta administrators possess elevated privilege allowing them to manage user identities, configure security policies, and access sensitive data. However, this also makes them a prime target for attackers seeking to exploit these privileges.
To mitigate this risk, it is essential to implement a robust password management solution that can securely store, manage, and rotate administrative credentials. Okta manages password in cloud and the organization desires to manage passwords on-premises using CyberArk Password Vault.
To address the integration challenge, we will implement a comprehensive solution that integrates Okta with CyberArk PVWA using SAML 2.0. This integration will enable secure and automated management of Okta admin account passwords, reducing the risk of password-related security incidents and ensuring compliance with regulatory requirements. As part of this solution, two admin accounts will be created in Okta: one non-privileged account to access Okta user dashboard, and a second one Privileged account which will be linked to CyberArk PVWA. The Privileged account will receive a password generated by CyberArk, which will be used for authentication. Using SAML 2.0, the admin will log in to Okta using the privileged account credentials, with the password provided by CyberArk. This will ensure secure and compliant access management and password management processes, streamlining administrative tasks and reducing the risk of security breaches.
Pre-requisites:
Okta tenant, CyberArk PVWA tenant and Active Directory with a Domain.
Active Directory must be integrated with CyberArk and Okta.
Use case Overview:
Please refer to the below video to have an understanding about Okta & the use case around integrating CyberArk Password Vault with Okta.
Technical Demonstration:
Here’s the technical walkthrough on the integration between CyberArk Password Vault & Okta.
Conclusion:
The integration of Okta with CyberArk PVWA provides a comprehensive solution for managing Okta administrator passwords, enhancing security, and improving compliance. By automating password rotation, expiration, and compliance, organizations can reduce administrative burdens and minimize the risk of password-related security incidents. With real-time visibility and control over password management, organizations can respond swiftly on security incidents and ensure the integrity of their identity and access management systems. Overall, this integration provides a robust and scalable solution for securing Okta administrator passwords and protecting sensitive resources and applications.
In today’s digital landscape, many organizations face significant challenges in securely managing access to their sensitive data. These unchecked identity challenges often result in vulnerabilities, data breaches, and difficulties in ensuring that only the right individuals have the appropriate access. This solution offers a robust answer to these issues by simplifying and strengthening access control with a governance view. By integrating Okta with product like SailPoint IdentityIQ (IIQ), organizations can strengthen their identity governance and automate the provisioning and de-provisioning processes. This integration ensures that users are granted access solely to the resources they need, thereby minimizing security risks and ensuring compliance.
To get started, organizations need to configure SSO and Okta connectors within Sailpoint IIQ, which link their systems and data sources to enable seamless and secure access management across the enterprise.
Required to have admin-level access to both SailPoint and Okta environments.
Usecase Overview
Please watch the video to understand why we are integrating SailPoint IIQ with Okta and the specific use case for this integration.
Technical Demonstration
In this video, we’ll show you how to integrate SailPoint IIQ with Okta. We’ll cover setting up SSO, configuring the Okta Connector, and mapping Okta attributes to SailPoint. We’ll also demonstrate how admins manage access reviews and how users can access SailPoint IIQ from Okta.
Conclusion
On a closure note, with all the steps carried out in this use case, it is fair enough to say that we have successfully integrated SailPoint IIQ with Okta, which enhances access management by governing the right identities have access to the right resources. Along with that achieving identity lifecycle management by ensuring synchronized access and governance policies are harmonized between the products. This integration reduces manual processes, increases compliance, and streamlines access control across the organization. Regular monitoring and fine-tuning of policies ensure the integration remains effective as the organizational needs evolve.
In today’s enterprise environment, providing a seamless and branded login experience is essential for user engagement, security, and brand identity. Companies using Okta for identity management often seek to customize their login portals to cater to different user such as employees, contractors, and partners. A custom login page not only enhances the user experience but also reinforces the company’s branding and can improve security by providing distinct, role-specific access points.
This blog describes how to set up personalized login URLs and pages for employees and contractors/partners, enabling each user to enjoy a customized login experience while utilizing Okta’s identity management features.
Problem Statement
Organizations typically have a diverse set of users, including employees, contractors, and business partners. These users may need to access different resources, apps, and tools, but they may also have different access control policies and security requirements. The need for custom login experiences arises from the following challenges:
Brand Consistency: The login experience should reflect the company’s branding and visual identity.
Role-based Customization: Different users (employees, contractors, partners) may have different access levels and login requirements.
User Segmentation: Having a single login page can be confusing for users from different groups who may have different authentication mechanisms or access privileges.
Security and Compliance: Separate login pages can help implement role-based security policies more effectively.
Solution
To address the problem, we propose the following solution using Okta’s customization features:
Custom Logon URLs and Pages for Different Users
Employee Login Page: A custom URL like https://employeelogin.company.com will serve employees, presenting the company’s branding and specific employee-related apps.
Okta Customization: Okta provides options to customize the login page through its “Okta Sign-In Widget” and “Custom Sign-In Pages.” These tools allow for integrating branding elements (e.g., logos, colors), different authentication methods (e.g., MFA), and a dynamic user flow tailored to each user group.
Usecase Overview:
Check out the presentation below to explore how to configure a Custom Domain in Okta, including the benefits of custom branding and DNS configurations for a seamless user experience.
Technical Demonstration:
Check out the demo below to see how to configure a Custom Domain in Okta, customize the sign-in page, and apply DNS configurations for a fully branded and secure Okta experience.
Conclusion
Customizing the Okta login experience for different users like employees, contractors, and partners helps enhance security, improve user experience, and maintain consistent branding. By using Okta’s flexibility in customizing login URLs and pages, along with role-based access control, organizations can ensure that each group has the appropriate level of access while maintaining a branded, user-friendly login process.
In today’s digital landscape, organizations rely on various applications to enhance productivity, necessitating secure access for diverse workforces, including remote employees and contractors. To ensure secure access for remote workers using new devices, implementing Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA) is essential. When accessing sensitive applications from unrecognized devices, Okta prompts for MFA, requiring additional authentication steps such as a one-time password or biometric verification. Administrators can set contextual-behavior based sign-on policies to determine when MFA is necessary, enhancing security and reducing unauthorized access risks, while logging all attempts for monitoring and auditing.
Usecase Overview:
Please refer to the below video to have an understanding about Okta Sign-On Policies focusing on their structure, functionality, and how they enhance security using contextual behavior detection methods.
Usecase Demonstration:
This demonstration offers a comprehensive overview of the Sign-on Policies in Okta, highlighting the practical application with a common scenario around WFH / remote employees.
Challenges:
In general, many organizations encounter various challenges when it comes to user access management:
Securing access for remote employees, contractors, and full-time staff who require varying levels of access to applications.
Ensuring consistent user attributes and access permissions across all applications.
Demonstrating compliance with security standards by implementing strong access controls and monitoring user activity.
Minimizing administrative overhead associated with managing user identities and access.
Conclusion:
Implementing Okta for centralized security management enables organizations to leverage the platform’s robust features and benefits. By setting up user groups, integrating applications, configuring session policies, and enabling MFA, companies can create a secure and efficient identity management system that meets their specific requirements.
Active Directory (AD), a directory service developed by Microsoft for Windows domain networks, is primarily used for authentication and authorization, helping organizations manage user access to resources. However, as organizations increasingly adopt cloud-based applications, managing user access across disparate directories has become a challenge for traditional Active Directory (AD)/LDAP systems. Each cloud service often introduces its own user store, leading to a proliferation of login credentials and making it difficult to maintain consistent, secure access control.
This complexity can result in administrative headaches, such as trouble deactivating user accounts when employees leave and a lack of visibility into resource access. To address these issues, many companies turn to Okta, an identity management platform that integrates seamlessly with Active Directory, bridging the gap between on-premises and cloud environments. By using Okta, organizations can continue to leverage their existing AD or LDAP services for user authentication while centralizing User Lifecycle Management, providing a unified dashboard for administrators to ensure consistent, secure access control across all systems.
Understanding Okta Universal Directory
Okta Universal Directory is a centralized platform designed for managing user identities from various sources. As a core component of the Okta Identity Cloud, Universal Directory provides a centralized view of all users and their respective attributes, making it easier for IT teams to oversee and manage user data. This product enables organizations to maintain a unified profile for a user, no matter where their data comes from. This capability is especially advantageous for enterprises with multiple user directories, as it simplifies user management and bolsters security.
Key Features of Okta Universal Directory
Centralized User Management: Universal Directory allows you to manage all your user identities in one place. This means that whether your users are employees, partners, or customers, you can easily create, modify, or deactivate their accounts without jumping between different platforms.
Integration with Multiple Sources: It allows integration with various identity sources, including Active Directory (AD), LDAP, and HR systems like Workday. This flexibility ensures that organizations can consolidate user information from different platforms seamlessly.
Customizable User Profiles: Universal Directory supports both Okta user profiles and app-specific user profiles. This capability allows organizations to define and manage user attributes tailored to their applications, ensuring that each app only accesses the data it needs.
Customizable User Attributes: With Universal Directory, you can customize user attributes to fit your organization’s unique needs. This flexibility enables you to collect and store specific information relevant to your users, such as job titles, department details, or location data.
Real-Time Synchronization: Changes made in AD, such as user updates or account deactivations, are synchronized in real-time with Okta. This ensures that terminated employees lose access immediately, enhancing security and compliance.
Delegated Authentication: The integration allows for delegated authentication, meaning that users can authenticate against AD without needing direct access to the AD environment. This feature simplifies the authentication process while maintaining security.
Prerequisites
Okta Tenant:
You must possess an account with Super Admin role privileges.
On-Premises Active Directory:
The host server should have at least two CPUs and a minimum of 8 GB RAM.
Host server running Windows server 2016 & above.
.NET framework 4.6.2 and above.
The host server should be a member server part of the same domain.
Okta agent installation wizard should be executed from the host server.
An account with Domain administrator privileges for domain discovery & AD agent application installation in the host server.
Delegated Authentication – Enables the users to use their AD credentials to access Okta & downstream applications. This feature is enabled by default.
Usecase Overview:
Check out the video below to explore Okta’s Universal Directory and how it works with Active Directory integration. Along with that, benefits of Universal Directory & the integration flow.
Technical Demonstration – Integration flow:
Here’s a technical demonstration, a step-by-step approach explaining the integration between Active Directory and Okta.
Conclusion
Integrating Active Directory with Okta not only streamlines identity management but also enhances security and user experience. With Okta’s Universal Directory, organizations can manage user identities more effectively, ensuring that they are well-equipped to handle the demands of a cloud-first world. This integration empowers IT teams to focus on strategic initiatives rather than being bogged down by the complexities of traditional identity management systems.
Many organizations face difficulties in securely managing access to their servers. This often results in compromised static credentials, delay in accessing the servers and increase in security risks. Okta’s approach to address this problem is unique, comes with Advanced Server Access (ASA) to provide simple & secure way to access the servers through ephemeral certificates. These certificates are short-lived & tightly scoped which ensures strong security for the connection. And also, JIT Passwordless authentication for server access which will create & revoke access for the user through time-bound constraints. It streamlines the login process and enhances security, ensuring that only the right people can access right resources.
To get started, we need to create and configure an ASA team, which is a designated group of users that can authenticate with Okta. Each team acts as an Advanced Server Access tenant, with all configurations and resources scoped to that team.
Prerequisites:
An Okta Org account with the necessary permissions to configure applications and integrations.
Supported OS for ASA Server Agent – Linux & Windows
Supported OS for ASA Client Agent – Linux, Windows & MacOS
Administrative permission to install ASA Server Agent & Client Agent on servers & end devices.
Please refer to the below video to have an understanding about Okta Advanced Server Access & the usecase around integrating servers with Okta ASA.
Technical Demonstration:
Here’s the technical demonstration on the integration of Windows and Linux servers with Okta ASA. We will cover the process of creating an ASA team in ScaleFT, followed by integrating and configuring the ASA application in Okta. Next, we will explain how to enroll servers and clients, and finally, we will test the process by accessing the server from client machines to showcase a seamless user experience.
Conclusion:
On a closure note, with all the steps carried out in this blog it is fair enough to say integrating Servers with Okta Advanced Server Access not only enhances security through ephemeral credentials but also simplifies management processes while ensuring compliance. Its scalable architecture supports modern cloud environments, making it a comprehensive solution for organizations looking to secure their server access effectively.
In today’s fast-paced business environment, manually logging into multiple App’s can be a tedious and time-consuming process, especially when dealing with multiple accounts or complex password policies. Moreover, security risks associated with password-based authentication can put your organization’s sensitive data at risk.
That’s where Okta Single Sign-On (SSO) comes in, a solution that streamlines App access, boosts productivity, and fortifies security. By integrating Okta SSO with multiple App’s like Salesforce, Slack, LinkedIn, etc.., organizations can provide teams with seamless, one-click access to the platform, while maintaining the highest levels of security.
In this blog, we’ll explore the benefits of using Okta SSO with Salesforce and provide a step-by-step guide on how to set up and configure this powerful integration.
Pre-requisites:
Okta Tenant:
An account with Super Admin role privileges
Salesforce Tenant:
Salesforce Org with system administrator privileges
Custom Domain: acme
Usecase Overview – Integration flow:
Please refer to the below video to have an understanding about Okta & the use case around integrating Salesforce with Okta.
Technical Demonstration:
Here’s the technical walkthrough on the integration and provisioning between Salesforce & Okta.
Conclusion:
In conclusion, integrating Okta with Salesforce has significantly streamlined the users access to the platform. With Okta’s Single Sign-On (SSO) capabilities, users can now seamlessly log in to salesforce without remembering multiple passwords, reducing login times and increasing productivity. The integration backed up with Okta’s Sign-On policies, enhances organization security posture by providing an additional layer of authentication, ensuring that only authorized personnel can access sensitive customer data. By streamlining Salesforce access with Okta, we have improved user experience, increased efficiency and strengthened security, ultimately driving business growth and success.
Most of the organizations, rely on Microsoft Active Directory Services or LDAP for a centralized store for identities & access permissions. Majority of the on-prem applications rely on these services to authenticate and authorize the actions. But with the cloud-based application, where the applications would have their own identity profiles to manage the application it is challenging for the administrator to manage the user accounts & it would be challenging for the end user too to use multiple identities for multiple applications.
Okta provides a solution to utilize the existing Microsoft Active Directory Services / LDAP services to access the SaaS applications through Active Directory / LDAP integration. This allows a single dashboard for the users to access the applications using their existing credentials and for administrators a centralized service to handle the lifecycle management.
In this section, we will integrate an existing on-premises Active Directory to Okta and let Okta provision the user accounts for us in Microsoft 365 tenant.
For simulating this in our lab environment, we’ll need to have access to 3 entities & few prerequisites.
Okta Tenant.
Member Server for Okta Active Directory Agent Installation.
Microsoft 365 tenant.
Pre-requisites:
Okta Tenant:
An account with Super Admin role privileges.
Member Server for Okta Active Directory Agent Installation:
The host server should have at least two CPUs and a minimum of 8 GB RAM.
Host server running Windows server 2016 & above is supported.
.NET framework 4.6.2 and above is supported.
Host server should be a member server part of the same domain.
Okta agent installation wizard should be executed from host server.
Microsoft 365 Tenant:
Microsoft 365 tenant name – This is the default tenant name registered as “comanyname.onmicrosoft.com”
Microsoft 365 domain – This is the custom domain which is chosen for federation.
Microsoft 365 global administrator user account.
Usecase Overview – Integration flow:
Please refer to the below video to have an understanding about Okta & the use case around integrating Office365 with Okta.
Technical Walkthrough:
Here’s the technical demonstration on the integration between Office 365 & Okta.
Conclusion:
On a closure note, with all the steps carried out in this blog it is fair enough to say integrating Okta with Active Directory & Office 365 eases the overhead of IT administrators for access management and provisioning happening through Single Sign-on. With this integration in place, IT administrators can manage the user assignments & modifying the attributes from Okta and the replication will happen to AD & Office 365 tenant.
Okta is the leading solution for user authentication and single sign-on (SSO) for workforce as well as customer identities. Okta is capable of managing SSO to wide range of applications along with multi-factor authentication, directory integrations and lifecycle management from the cloud.
SailPoint IdentityNow is a cloud based identity and access management solution which aims to provide identity-as-a-service. IdentityNow enables a complete set of IAM capabilities delivered from the cloud to manage hybrid IT environments that include on-premises and cloud resources. IdentityNow supports SAML based Single Sign On. SAML is an open standard which allows an identity provider (like Okta) to pass on authentication information to a service provider (like IdentityNow).
In the following demonstration, we take a look at the SAML integration of IdentityNow with Okta for Single Sign-on. We will also go over the Active Directory integration in Okta and how this can be backed by IdentityNow’s lifecycle management.