What is Automated Provisioning? Benefits, Types, and Implementation

Automated provisioning, also called automated user provisioning, is an efficient way to provision access according to identity. Organizations use this process to configure and deploy the resources that comprise an IT infrastructure such as servers, virtual machines, storage, network components, and applications, without human intervention.

As modern enterprises add more users, applications, and platforms to their IT infrastructures, executing an efficient automated provisioning process is essential for meeting new identity management demands without the need for additional human administration. In this post, we will define automated provisioning, highlight the key benefits of the process and how to implement it, and explain the role it plays in streamlining identity and access management (IAM).

What is Automated Provisioning?

To automate user provisioning, organizations use automated scripts, orchestration tools, and predefined templates that enable them to enforce rules and policies when they roll out access to resources. Automating this process reduces the exposure of the IT infrastructure to security vulnerabilities, improves the organization’s auditing and reporting capabilities, and helps enforce compliance standards without the need to bog down IT staff on manual tasks. Automated provisioning also enables organizations to scale resource configuration and deployment securely as new entities are introduced to the IT infrastructure. The result is more consistency and security for an organization’s entire IT ecosystem and the flexibility to respond efficiently to dynamic business demands.

What are the Different Types of Automated Provisioning?

Role-Based Provisioning

Role-based provisioning assigns access rights and permissions based on predefined roles within an organization. When a user is assigned a specific role, they automatically receive the necessary access to perform their job functions. This approach simplifies access management and ensures consistency.

Attribute-Based Provisioning

Attribute-based provisioning grants access based on user attributes such as department, job title, or location. This method allows for more granular control and can dynamically adjust access rights as user attributes change.

Just-In-Time (JIT) Provisioning

Just-in-time provisioning creates user accounts and grants access rights only when they are needed. This approach reduces the risk of unused or orphaned accounts and ensures that access is granted only when necessary.

Self-Service Provisioning

Self-service provisioning allows users to request access to resources through a self-service portal. These requests are then automatically processed based on predefined approval workflows, reducing the administrative burden on IT staff.

Lifecycle Management Provisioning

Lifecycle management provisioning automates the entire lifecycle of a user account, from creation to deactivation. This includes onboarding new employees, updating access rights as roles change, and deactivating accounts when employees leave the organization.

Policy-Based Provisioning

Policy-based provisioning uses predefined policies to determine access rights. These policies can be based on compliance requirements, security policies, or business rules, ensuring that access is granted in accordance with organizational standards.

Event-Driven Provisioning

Event-driven provisioning triggers access changes based on specific events, such as a change in employment status or a security incident. This approach ensures that access rights are always up-to-date and aligned with current circumstances.

Key Benefits of Automated Provisioning

Automated provisioning is foundational for securing identity and access management in any modern organization and provides many immediate benefits, such as:

Enhanced Security

Manual provisioning exposes the risk of misconfigured permissions or overlooked security settings. Automated provisioning ensures that systems are set up exactly as intended and consistently enforces organizational rules and policies.

Reduced Human Error

Automated provisioning minimizes the risk of human error. For example, identity governance and administration practitioners use a segregation of duties (SoD) mechanism to ensure that no single individual has control over all aspects of any critical process. Automating SoD as part of the provisioning process enables organizations to automatically evaluate identities and immediately detect any potential toxic resource combinations based on their SoD constraints. This dramatically reduces the potential for user conflicts of interest and reduces the chance of fraud or malicious activity.

Faster Onboarding and Offboarding

Automated provisioning accelerates user onboarding and offboarding processes for new hires and departing employees.

More Effective Compliance and Audit Readiness

Automated provisioning enables organizations to automatically produce detailed logs and audit trails of provisioning activities, making it easier to demonstrate compliance with industry regulations and organizational policies.

Manual Provisioning vs Automated Provisioning

Manual provisioning refers to the process of a human administrator setting up and configuring resources, systems, or services for users of an organization’s IT infrastructure. Manual provisioning typically includes human administrators creating user accounts and assigning permissions and access rights or roles in an identity management system.

Manual provisioning differs significantly from automated provisioning. When using manual provisioning to onboard new users, an administrator configures permissions and access rights based on what they are told are required for specific roles. In automated provisioning, administrators use predefined resource configurations using templates or blueprints that automatically specify which resources are needed.

Unlike with manual provisioning, automated provisioning tools can enable users to request permissions and access through self-service portals (some even feature easy-to-use chat-based natural language interfaces) to grant or reject them based on predefined policies and workflows. Automated provisioning tools can also include workflows that require approval from designated stakeholders before resources are provisioned.

There are instances in which an organization may choose manual provisioning over automated provisioning, such as a lack of confidence or competency in planning a successful transition to automation tools.

When an organization does not properly configure automated provisioning tools, the process can inadvertently create security vulnerabilities and unwanted consequences in other environments. Incorrect templates or scripts can cause user over-provisioning or under-provisioning and if problems arise as a result, it can be difficult to trace back to the root cause due to the complexity of automation. This can directly impact an organization’s ability to demonstrate compliance with standards.

Organizations that commit the necessary time and expertise to configure automated provisioning properly can rely on it not only to bring efficiency to permission and access request processes but also to scale up or down to respond to dynamic workloads and reduce costs by allocating and deallocating resources based on current needs.

How to Implement Automated Provisioning

Assess Current IAM Infrastructure

To effectively evaluate your current IAM infrastructure’s ability to address your specific provisioning needs, consider the following questions:

1. What are the biggest pain points in the current provisioning process, and should they be addressed with manual provisioning?
2. What are the biggest challenges you currently face in provisioning?
3. Are you looking to solve immediate tactical challenges or planning for long-term provisioning needs?
4. Do you have a plan to gain the insight and expertise required to deploy an automated provisioning tool that helps achieve your business objectives?

Define Implementation Goals

Set clear and achievable goals for automated provisioning and make sure these goals align with business objectives. These can include quantifying time saved for IT teams in provisioning, setting a KPI for time required to onboard new users, and shortening the lead time needed to generate reports and audit trails that demonstrate compliance. Negotiate stakeholder management for the project and assign responsibility to ensure these goals may be realistically achieved in a given timeframe.

Choose the Right IAM Solution

Establish criteria for selecting a modern IAM solution and compare different IAM solutions in the market. Issues to consider include:

1. Determining how long will it take to implement the solution.
2. Evaluate the benefit of choosing individual IAM tools that you can seamlessly integrate into a complete solution vs. a “one size fits all” that provides the necessary tools on a single platform.
3. The flexibility to integrate generative AI functionality that makes automated provisioning more intuitive and easier for users.

Planning and Execution of an IAM Implementation

Develop a detailed implementation plan that ensures the project moves from a project-oriented, pre-production environment to a live production operation according to agreed upon business priorities, requirements, and other project fundamentals.

Training and Change Management

Make sure employees, managers, and other stakeholders get the necessary training to use the new IAM solution, including the automated provisioning tool.

Continuous Monitoring and Improvement

Provide a structure for ongoing monitoring of the solution and develop a sustainable approach to implementing continuous improvement and updates.

Conclusion

Automated provisioning tools are among the most critical solution features for organizations that need to reduce the amount of time IT administrators spend on permissioning and access request-related tasks. For organizations that need to get employees, contractors, partners, and vendors productive as soon as possible, automated provisioning tools are central to achieving that goal. Some modern solutions integrate generative AI-powered interfaces into IAM tools and feature automated provisioning capabilties that use chat-based natural language interfaces like Microsoft Teams or Slack to make the process more intuitive and less error-prone to execute. Modern IAM solution implementation must be carefully planned and executed for organizations to get the maximum benefit from automated provisioning tools.

Omada Brings Efficiency to Automated Provisioning

Omada Identity Cloud is a SaaS-based modern identity governance solution offering identity lifecycle management, automatic provisioning, seamless workflows, and optimized helpdesk capacity.

The key to efficiency is automation and empowerment. Omada’s solution provides automated identity governance best practice processes out-of-the-box. Each process and workflow – as well as governing policies – can be easily configured to meet specific business needs without the need for code development.

Get a demo today.