Single Sign-On, or SSO, is a popular term used by many organizations these days - but what does it mean? SSO is a way to securely login or authenticate with multiple applications using a single set of credentials. As construction companies continue to move more of their day-to-day business processes to cloud technologies like Office 365, Salesforce CRM, Google G Suite, Slack, and ProjectTeam, data security becomes even more crucial.
According to a 2019 report by Blissfully, the average business runs between 50-200 different applications. Even if a single employee is only logging into a handful of those applications each day, that's a ton of usernames and passwords! A common (and extremely risky) way of managing all of that is reusing the same credentials across multiple sites. Since passwords can be hard to remember, people oftentimes use something simple, like "qwerty", "12345", or even worse - "password". In this article by Okta, 91% of people know it's dangerous to use the same password across multiple platforms, but over 60% of people do it anyways.
Using the same password for all of your accounts is like having one key unlock every door you use. If a malicious person gets ahold of that key, you could be in big trouble. And even if you find out that someone else figured out your password, it's almost impossible to remember all of the different sites you now need to update.
That's where SSO comes in. SSO provides a holistic, single-point approach to authentication and access with an emphasis on security and simplicity. SSO still utilizes a single password for your applications but one that is more complex utilizes multi-factor authentication, provides alerts on unrecognized activity and can be frozen at any point. Below are five reasons your construction business should take advantage of Single Sign-On.
Increased Productivity
SSO has an impact on overall productivity for almost everyone within your organization.
- Managers and field employees - Arguably the most obvious benefit of SSO is the time saved from switching between different applications. Products such as OneLogIn or Okta provide a single screen for all appropriate business applications that can act as a hub for access. This reduces the time it takes to navigate to different solutions and redundantly enter usernames and passwords.
- IT members - SSO reduces the number of support calls to your IT department due to forgotten passwords or missing usernames. Users have more control over their passwords and the ability to reset their passwords on their own, eliminating many of the usual IT tickets.
Organizational Data Security
As enterprise computing grows, so do security and compliance risks. Users that use a weak password for personal sites and the same password for business sites pose a major risk to everyone in your organization. If your business is hosting and managing user identity data, you are a big target for hackers. SSO reduces those security risks because users no longer have to keep track of dozens of passwords and you can offload sensitive data to their third-party SSO platform.
Some might argue that SSO weakens security because if the master password is stolen then all related accounts would be compromised. However, because the user only needs to remember one password for their single access point, they are more likely (or forced) to create a complex password and it is recommended to combine your SSO strategy with multi-factor authentication for extra security. Wondering how to make a complex password? Try creating this password generator by Norton Security.
Improved Software Adoption
The point of software applications is to make your life easier, yet many implementations fail before they even get started because access or the sign-up process is too difficult. Making the signup or login process easier with SSO increases the chance that your employees will adopt new technology, use new apps, and ultimately enforce your desired processes.
What does ProjectTeam support?
ProjectTeam offers Single Sign-On through both Security Assertion Markup Language (SAML) and Active Directory (AD). Popular SSO solutions that we have integrated with include Okta, OneLogin, and Microsoft ADFS.
