Your employees work with many different cloud services, Apps, or on-premise software every day. Switching between apps and devices and logging in to each one can frustrate your employees – not to mention the security risks associated with this method. How can you successfully meet these challenges? You need Single Sign-On (SSO) for your app dev and test teams in order to improve security and your employees’ productivity and motivation. Sounds good? Then let’s find out more and talk about the importance of SSO for businesses.

What Is SSO?

Due to the increasing popularity of SaaS, more and more apps are being added to the existing repertoire to simplify and automate tasks. In particular, your development team depends on multiple services to build and test mobile applications to ensure top-notch quality and the use of the latest technologies. While working with these applications can increase productivity, they require authentication. And SSO facilitates authentication.

Put simply, Single Sign-On in the enterprise allows your employees to log in once with a single set of credentials to access all the applications, websites, and data they need. Combine SSO with unified access management (UAM) system, and you can save time and money by centrally managing user identities. To integrate SSO and UAM into your company, you need an IdP (Identity Provider, also called SSO provider) such as Google, Microsoft, or Okta.

One of the biggest and best-known benefits of SSO is that employees don’t need to create a new username and password for every service they need. Besides, it doesn’t matter where they are or on which device they work – SSO provides secure access to applications in the cloud or on-premise.

Improves Security by Eliminating Password Fatigue

Having to face a data breach is one of the biggest concerns of any business owner. So it is of utmost importance to ensure that employees use unique and secure passwords. In reality, however, creating and remembering complex passwords for all apps and services used is almost impossible. Thus, users tend to use the same or similar credentials for multiple services, which is a significant security issue.

To lift the burden, of posing a potential security threat, from your employees’ shoulders and ensure the security of your data, SSO might be the optimal choice for your business. Your team members need only one set of credentials to access their required apps. Consequently, it is also more straightforward to remember the right password. Also, the fewer credentials your company uses, the smaller the attack surface on your data. A win-win situation for all involved.

Gain Transparency by Centrally Managing User Identities

By utilizing a UAM system, your administrators can manage user identities, define services that are accessible via SSO, and determine who can use which apps. When a new employee joins the company, the IT department can provision a new account for multiple services and apps through a single, centralized interface. More importantly, when an employee leaves, it’s only a matter of minutes to de-provision a user account. In this way, you can ensure that only authorized persons can access specific records and sensitive data, keep track of permissions, and improve transparency.

Boost Your Developers’ User Experience and Productivity

Your programmers work with various cloud services to develop high-quality mobile applications that leverage cloud services, such as databases, CI/CD solutions, and APIs. As a result, their productivity may decrease if they have to manually log in to required apps as it interferes with the workflow.

Often, users spend too much time recovering forgotten passwords because the involved processes can be complicated. If new credentials have to be assigned by the IT department, longer waiting times may occur during which the applicant can’t continue working on their project.

On top of that, developers need to operate a wide variety of different services and accounts. For example, they may need separate service accounts to use different environments for developing and testing mobile applications.

To ensure a smooth workflow in which your technical teams can stay motivated and focused, they need to be able to switch between the services and accounts they use seamlessly. Single Sign-On enables your developers to work more productively by reducing the required credentials to one set. Consequently, they don’t have to cope with login forms anymore, can work uninterrupted and deliver quality products your customers will love.

Most Developers Already Use SSO

Are you wondering how your developers may react to the introduction of SSO into your company? What do they think about the importance of SSO as technical experts? There’s no need to worry: Your development and DevOps teams will adapt very well to Single Sign-On, as they are already familiar with the concept from their daily work. Most likely, they use other services that let them log in via an SSO provider, like Google or GitHub. Additionally, they may have integrated an SSO connector into one of your mobile applications to present your customers with a comfortable way to register and log in.

Take Part in Shaping Modern Workspaces

By providing one single point of login, it’s straightforward to give your employees multiplatform access while limiting security risks. With SSO, employees can securely log in from their laptop, smartphone, or tablet whether they are in the office, traveling, or working from home. This improved flexibility enhances employee satisfaction, lets you collaborate with freelancers and other external service providers more comfortable, and helps you establish a modern workplace.

Connect to New Apps and Services with a Few Clicks

The importance of SSO in the enterprise is undeniable: Increasing security while improving job satisfaction and employee productivity can save you time, money, and sleepless nights. However, do all apps provide authentication via SSO?

Fortunately, most modern cloud services and apps offer Single Sign-on as it became an unofficial standard for applications that provide services to businesses. So you can rest assured that employees can access most of the needed apps with this technology. With an SSO provider such as Google, Microsoft, or Okta, you can effortlessly connect to new applications, set permissions, and define access rules for your teams.

We at Bitbar provide you with the latest industry standards to enable advanced and secure mobile testing workflows for your app development and DevOps teams. Connect your SSO provider to Bitbar’s private device cloud and get access to devices and network infrastructure hosted by the Bitbar team. Using your unified access management system, new developers can access our services in minutes and start contributing to your projects in the shortest amount of time.

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