How To

The Role of SCIM Provisioning in Enterprise Identity & Access Management

Use Cases

The pace at which the enterprise landscape is growing, employee access, and resource allocation should be the last things slowing down business growth. Yet in the 21st century, many global organizations rely on Excel sheets and emails to manage manual provisioning processes. This outdated approach leads to frustrated employees, compromised security, and wasted resources. A Forrester study states that companies lose an average of $500,000 per year due to delays and errors in manual user provisioning.

As the tech space becomes extremely dynamic with frequent new employee hiring, role changes, and terminations, automated SCIM provisioning is no longer a luxury; it is a necessity.

If you are in IT, HR tech, or security tech, you should know what SCIM is and how it is crucial for Identity and Access Management. Let’s break it down. Read more to know what SCIM is. How does it power Access Management solutions like Hire2Retire?

What is SCIM?

System for Cross-domain Identity Management (SCIM) at its core automates and streamlines user and access provisioning between enterprise applications and Identity providers such as Entra ID, Active Directory, or Google Workspace. It is an open standard protocol based on REST APIs and JSON. SCIM is designed to simplify user provisioning and deprovisioning processes without manual tickets, tasks, or custom scripts. Here is what it can do–

Create– Automatically create user profiles when a new hire joins.

Update- In account of role changes or profile updates, it can update group memberships or HR data.

Delete- As soon as an employee terminates, their access can be revoked, and disable profile can be disabled.

SCIM ensures that as soon as a change is made in your source system, like an HR system or IdP, user accounts are automatically updated across all connected systems.

Why Automated SCIM Provisioning is the Need of the Hour?

While IAM (Identity and Access Management) may sound like a big term, at its core, it only means ensuring all employees have secure access to the tools they need. However, despite being so simple, it fails when manual provisioning tasks are involved.

Enterprises that fail to modernize and streamline their provisioning processes often face security breaches, compliance gaps, and operational delays.

The common challenges organizations face without SCIM provisioning in place are:

Manual and error- prone process of creating accounts.

Employees waiting for days or weeks for access causing delays in provisioning.

Audit risks because of untracked accounts.

Former employees retain access causing security breaches.

However, SCIM Provisioning solves the above issues by:

Automated and consistent provisioning.

Changes synced in real time between your source system and connected apps.

Reducing human errors and security risks.

Identity and Access Management with SCIM ensures better audit compliance, faster deprovisioning, as well as onboarding.

How SCIM Works in an Automated Provisioning Workflow?

Suppose a new hire is onboarded into Workday. Here is how SCIM connectors in Workforce identity Management platforms like Hire2Retire can simplify the access provisioning process:

1. The HR team updates the record in Workday.

2. SCIM connectors sync HR data with AD or other identity providers.

3. Assign relevant group memberships based on job role, location, or department.

4. Automatically create or update accounts in connected apps like Salesforce or HubSpot.

5. In the event of termination, automatically disable accounts in Identity Providers and downstream apps.

As compared to manual provisioning, this process will be faster, secure, and scalable.

How Hire2Retire Makes the Difference with SCIM?

Automated Access Provisioning isn’t just about managing access; it is about providing the right access at the right time. Hire2Retire combines RBAC and SCIM to ensure access provisioning is automated and error-free. Where SCIM ensures there is consistent sync between HR and IT, RBAC promotes rule-based provisioning and ensures access is assigned on a need-to-know basis.

For example, a Sales Executive is promoted to the Sales Manager position. In this case, the RBAC framework will be needed to detect the role change and map it to new access privileges. On the other hand, SCIM syncs these changes to connected apps like HubSpot or Salesforce.

Combining RBAC and SCIM capabilities, Hire2Retire ensures a scalable, secure, and compliant approach to identity and access management.

SCIM: The Future of Identity and Access Management

Modern identity and access management has a simple principle: every employee should have access to what they need when they need it and not a minute longer.

For a growing organization, SCIM combined with identity and access solutions like Hire2Retire is essential for provisioning at scale.

Are you looking to modernize the way your organization handles identity and access management?

Hire2Retire is simplifying identity and access governance for 150+ global companies, and it can do the same for you! All you need to do is schedule your free demo!

Somya Shrimal

Somya Shrimal is a Marketing Specialist at RoboMQ. She is a tech enthusiast and a prolific blogger who helps businesses stay up-to-date with the latest trends and best practices in the industry. Her expertise in SaaS, cloud, on-premises apps, and IoT has made her a go-to source for businesses looking to navigate the ever-changing tech landscape.