Most research-driven organizations invest in a range of business tools and technologies to help employees achieve their best work. But this plethora of tools that are intended to help can sometimes create extra work—just to keep track of what's available and how to gain access. One way to get the most value from these investments is to ensure the right people have secure access to the right tools, right when they need them. Thankfully, a single sign-on (SSO) system makes doing so easy.
In this post, we’ll share how an SSO strategy adds value and convenience in multiple ways. But before we dive in, we’d like to share some recent news: Article Galaxy enterprise customers can now enjoy the benefits of Microsoft Azure SSO—out of the box—via pre-integration with Azure Active Directory (AD). Chris Atwood, our director of engineering and implementation, explains why we're so excited about this new development:
“While we've always offered customized solutions to configure and integrate with Azure, the pre-integration makes the process a snap. Our enterprise customers can simply download the Article Galaxy app from the Azure Marketplace and send us the configuration details. It really makes it easy to add secure authentication to a customer’s workflow within a matter of minutes."
Improved user experience: Creating, updating, and trying to remember multiple usernames and passwords for various business applications can get confusing. Entering log in credentials for each application separately takes time—even more so if someone forgets their password and has to locate it or change it altogether. With SSO, users only have to sign on once, with a single set of credentials, to access all the enterprise tools available to them.
Increased user productivity: Many people are turned off by authentication requirements to the point that it diminishes user adoption of useful business tools. For instance, if a user can't remember their credentials for a certain app or has to go through two-factor authentication to access it, many users simply won't use the tool. Not only does SSO remove these barriers to access; it also lets employees see all the enterprise tools that are available to them. As such, it helps increase user adoption, which in turn increases productivity.
Simplified authentication management: Managing user rights for multiple applications from various vendors and platforms puts a strain on IT and administrative teams. An enterprise-class SSO service like Azure AD enables centralized user account management—making it easy to control access and user rights at scale. Administrators, for example, can automatically add or remove user access to specific applications for entire departments. Plus, the single point approach to authentication means fewer calls to a company's support desk requesting help with access.
Enhanced security: With an SSO service, multi-factor authentication measures help mitigate risk across applications—regardless of an employee's workflow or the device they used to sign in. Azure AD, for example, helps protect users from an astounding 99.9 percent of cybersecurity attacks.
Companies that want to enable Azure SSO for Article Galaxy can visit the Microsoft Azure Marketplace or simply contact an Article Galaxy expert.