Using the example of one of the most common scenarios of the identity lifecycle in organizations, let me show you how a new employee can start working in a company where IdM is already implemented and how it can be in a company where it is not yet implemented.
For simplicity, both companies will use similar IT systems and will have approximately the same number of employees.
Now let’s talk about the process of onboarding a new employee. For our case, Ms. Nova will be joining the marketing department in both companies.
What will Ms. Nova need for her job?
She will need to set up access to the building. This means she will need to set up a user in the attendance and access system. Once access rights have been established and set up, she is then issued with a card that she can use to get into the building.
She will need access to her “computer”. IT administrators must therefore set up the user in the MS active directory domain and also create an email account for the new user. The company has several other systems that integrate authentication and authorization against the domain, so Ms. New’s domain account will also give her access to the help desk, the company employee portal, and the lunch system.
She also needs to set up access to shared network drives to relevant folders and documents in the organization. She gets these by having the MS AD administrator assign her to the correct groups within the AD domain.
She needs to gain access to the ERP system and Information Systems for her work in the marketing department.
Finally, the company project management system administrator must invite her to the projects she will be working on.
1. We start in a company where IdStory IdM does not have
Ms. Jana Nová is joining the sales department next month as an online marketing specialist. As in many similar companies, a printed form is used when hiring an employee. On this form, her supervisor indicates which systems and with which permissions Ms. Nováková should access. This form is then delivered to the IT department, which is responsible for ensuring that at the right time the new colleague has access to the IT systems wherever she is supposed to have it.
How did the new employee actually start?
Ms Nova started and began her first day of work in the HR department. She had already signed her contract, now she came in to fill out her employee card and the HR staff added her information into the HR system. She was given the aforementioned form on which her HR colleagues, in conjunction with her supervisor, marked which systems she would need access to. HR or Ms. Novak’s supervisor will now contact the IT department and send the completed form with the accesses. At the same time, Ms. Nova will provide HR with a profile photo, which will be used to create her building access card.
Mrs New stopped by HR the day after she started to ask if the card was ready yet, but was told she had to wait until the end of the week and use the visitor card in the meantime and be accompanied by her manager or colleagues. After Ms. New was introduced to the MS AD domain, her supervisor received her password and gave it to Ms. New. On Wednesday, Ms. Nova logged on to her work computer for the first time, which IT had prepared for her in the meantime, and picked up her first company e-mail. She gradually accessed other systems, although she had to call the IT department twice because her access was not working and she needed to reset her password.
As you can guess, Ms. Nova was not able to secure access to all the systems mentioned right away and the process ended up taking her a full week. In addition, she was given access to each system, perhaps even indirectly, through her supervisor or a colleague, who gave her a paper login and password for each system. This is often the case in other companies, but it is unacceptable from a security perspective. Ms Nová did not change the original passwords to all systems, even though she did not know them.
2. How does a new employee start in a company with IdStory IdM ?
In this case, the IdM system is the one that manages identities and their permissions in other IT systems in the company. This system is connected to the company’s important systems and can automate and manage processes such as onboarding a new employee, saving time and money. In addition, the company has a detailed overview of who has access to the system and what permissions they have set.
But I’ll come back to Ms Nova. Ms. Nova has signed an employment contract and is due to start work in a week. The HR staff will fill in the HR system with her basic details such as name, surname, address, job title, contract expiry date and more. Based on this completed information, the IdM system automatically enters Ms. Nova in all important company systems. Accounts can be set up in advance but are not active. The activation of the accounts and the transfer of access data occurs on the day the new employee starts.
When Ms Nova goes to work on her first day, she goes to the HR department, as in the first case. However, now she no longer needs to deal with any access issues because she already received the password to the company systems from IdStory in a text message on the way to work. HR only instructs her to change her initial password, but thanks to IdStory, she does this in one place when she logs into the domain. IdM will then take care of the change on all systems.
Even the access card is issued faster. The relevant department where the cards are issued already knew about it automatically thanks to IdM and therefore arranged with Mrs. Nova to send the profile photo a week in advance by email.
A new employee starts without a “wheel”
Thus, when joining the company, Ms. Nová does not have to go through a complicated and lengthy round of administrators and ask for access to individual systems. Accesses are created as soon as she is established in the HR system. This is usually well in advance. She is activated on the day she starts and can start working independently a few dozen minutes after arriving at work.
The first thing she reads in her email is a notification from the IdStory system that she can go to the facilities management department to get her created access card. Ms. Nova also already has access to shared drives, information systems, and ERP modules for her work in marketing, as the IdStory system did this automatically based on her job title from HR, placement in teams.
If Ms. Nova still lacks any access, she can request it herself or through her supervisor or colleagues in IdStory’s self-service. Once the accesses are approved, they are automatically created for her without the need to contact the IT department.
Conclusion
So, in this simple comparison of the process that occurs when a new employee joins, we have shown how beneficial the deployment of an IdM system can be. The system automates common processes in our company, thus saving work not only for regular employees, but also for IT administrators, helpdesk, HR and management. In addition, we get an overview of established users and accounts in all managed systems. The information and outputs from the IdM system are also important for management or, for example, for access auditing.
