Okta Workforce Identity Reviews

Okta has recently built Okta Identity Engine (OIE). It has a lot more capabilities than the classic engines. The certificate-based system is one thing, and third-party tools like Intune and Jamf for iOS devices. There is a trust relationship between these device management tools, and that contributes to control over the end-user devices.

Scalacity was a company acquired by Okta, and its technology was integrated into Okta's Advanced Server Access (ASA) product.

Okta has introduced the Universal Directory. It has custom attribute capability and user permissions to read/write on their profiles or hide them. Profile sources and identity profile sourcing are two different components that I haven't seen in other products.

Okta can import many attributes into the Okta profile and send attributes from the engines. Multiple sources of truths and profile inheritance are done in granular ways. This plays a major role in ABACs going forward.

Okta's MFA features are good. Okta is looking forward with more on the push or less, relying on the Okta Verify factors. It also has extensive capabilities. It's adopting a layer-by-layer upgrade in developing the policies, like MFAs.

Okta has more when it comes to the policy level. It has distinctive features where you can do a mix and combination to have users access applications for various business cases. That's something unique and a selling feature.

Okta has a limitation with directory integrations. If you have multiple Active Directory integrations, the user distinguished name (DN) and the manager DN don't get imported properly into the Okta user profile. It has a property of Get AD user's property, but that has limitations when writing an expression language to import changes or updates to user DNs or manager DNs from AD, especially if you have AD master users.

Also, Okta doesn't have a partial push. It pushes down the full profile schema for lifecycle management or provisioning. Even if only one attribute gets updated, even though it is unmapped, it can override other values in the downstream application by nullifying the query. That's the biggest flaw in my experience.

The product releases a lot of brand-new features within the quarterly releases.

It's definitely the leading Identity Access Management cloud platform. I have experience with Okta for almost six to eight years now.

I've been an Okta-certified consultant since last year. I got an opportunity to work on the workforce as well as the customer side.

I have experience with more than eight Okta tenants parallelly due to various business cases across my career. Ultimately, this product itself is a pioneer in Identity Access Management.

Scalability works very well. I've worked so far with Okta. It's like the heartbeat of that company. If Okta goes down, people are unable to authenticate anywhere. They can't get into applications. So there's a lot of dependency on Okta within the businesses and environments that I've seen so far. It's very critical.

The customer service and support are awesome. They have a CSM assigned for each organization, and they are pretty much responsive to any events that occur. Or if there are any escalations or incidents that impact the business, they're pretty much around in a timely fashion to support the organization.

We have the flexibility with our CSMs to reach them in any manner, email or phone, and they're available most of the time.

Positive

We have long relationships with other vendors for things like Identity Governance and Privileged Access Management. But one thing I've noticed is that Okta has been expanding into wider ranges. 

But, there are limits and restrictions to the existing features, which are not fully developed yet. Okta have added a lot of tech in the last couple of years.

I'm not a hundred percent sure about the return of interest because it is very much dependent on the size of the organization.

I came from smaller organizations working, like, midscale to, like, large scale. So overall, like, the security breach, like, there are, like, two to three security breaches that have happened, but nothing has been damaged so far for the organization.

So, investing more in Identity access management is a critical investment for any operation as applications are moving to like cloud and SaaS-based. So, there is a dire need to protect the digital identities of enterprise tech employees as well as their customers.

There are a lot of features you can automate. Okta Workflows is a key feature that has a separate pricing than adaptive MFA or SSO. It's a combination, but Okta has features and capabilities to reduce the IT burden. Within my experience, it's been helpful so far with a lot of overhead work that comes with onboarding and offboarding.

The pricing itself is a bit more expensive than the other products in the market so far. Since I know the product is in full demand. But, again, the price texture, features, and everything suits well for small to medium.

But, for larger organizations, it's more expensive than the other platforms. But, usually, licensing is a bit expensive.

I definitely recommend Okta. It has all the features you can utilize to protect any organization's digital entities. Considering a lot of other factors, like cost and the overall features the company wants to use. If you want to use Identity Governance, Identity Access Management, or Privileged Access Management, that's a different story. It's also a different story if you're using other products for different needs.

Overall, I would rate the solution an eight out of ten. 

We have been using this tool for access management. Our client has connected their app's security with Okta Workforce Identity. We have used LinkedIn's libraries to integrate it with various apps, including Oracle and others.

Workforce Identity offers a comprehensive access management solution with multi-factor authentication, total control, and features like app access management, identity governance, and administration tools such as certification and access request management. These are typically found in identity management solutions, but Okta integrates them seamlessly into its user interface.      

They should focus on providing top-notch team access management to companies.

I have been working with Okta Workforce Identity for the past 10 months.

It has proven to be stable in the time I've used it. If there are any challenges, their support team has been responsive and helpful. Overall, my experience with them has been positive.

It's scalable, but we need to coordinate with Okta's support team or our account manager if we want to increase our workload. Since it's a complete SaaS solution, they can make the necessary adjustments accordingly.

As premium customers, we have the opportunity to schedule calls directly with Okta's expert team members for discussions and support. It's a valuable perk of being a premium user.

Positive

I haven't personally handled the deployment, but I've worked on configuring the printer, which wasn't too complex. As for deployment time and manpower, it's a bit different since Okta Workforce Identity is a cloud-based platform. We don't need dedicated servers as Okta manages integration. We work on our own tenants, and Okta provides preview environments for testing new features. As for maintenance, it's not too difficult, especially for premium customers who can raise support tickets if needed.

I received good support for addressing some bugs, although there were delays in fixing them due to the product backlog and prioritization process at Okta. The resolution time depended on how they prioritized issues, which sometimes caused delays. Overall, I would rate it 7 out of 10.  

Workforce is used to both manage our identities with multi-factor authentication for the users and it's also used to handle workflow, so onboarding and offboarding, et cetera.

They work well if they're set up properly.

The initial setup is easy. It's also easy to use.

We find the solution to be stable.

The pricing is okay.

There is very little maintenance required. 

We've not come across anything missing. It's under continual improvement. It is actually very good. We've not had any problems with Okta. I'd have to think hard to find anything that was badly implemented.

The stability is good. There are no bugs or glitches. It doesn't crash or freeze. It's reliable. The performance is good.

The initial setup is pretty easy. It is very simple to set up initially and it takes a couple of hours. The multi-factor authentication is simple too and can be turned on as required. The one that takes the most effort is SAML, which is the integration with the service providers. That's full-service integration and that's because a lot of service providers do it all their own way. You have to work with each of them as they come up.

In terms of how many people you need to maintain the product, it depends on how you do it. We're managing it for a couple of customers, and it's just me. However, what I've done is, I've put an API, used the API, and put a front end on that to make it easy to do the onboarding and offboarding. I don't deal with the day-to-day issues, that's done by the HR department.

The client actually installed it. We helped as well, however, as I said, the client handled most of it.

The pricing seems very reasonable. None of the customers have complained about it.

We're using the most up-to-date version of the solution.

As far as Okta is concerned, it's deployed in the cloud.

They're a complex software provider. They're a software as a service, software provider. They have a training service, they have a university, they have a community, and they also use it for outbound marketing.

We've implemented it for the clients and they're quite happy with it.

We're a reseller and integrator. We sell the service and do the implementation, and we're also a user ourselves.

I'd rate the solution a nine out of ten.

I'd advise new users to make sure that you implement it properly. If you buy the service and don't implement it properly, you'll never get the benefits from it. They need to make sure that you are monitoring the logs as well as that tells you if someone's doing anything they shouldn't be doing.

The journey for us is towards Zero Trust. We start with multi-factor authentication, and good password policies, and think about moving to fully integrated, where you can. That's SAML, their integration protocol, or Open ID. The next step is to think about how to make sure that all services, internal and external, are authenticated. Zero Trust implementation is where the world has to go

Okta Workforce Identity is used for MFA and SSO and it satisfies application authentication.

Okta Workforce Identity has helped our organization by allowing us to work remotely in a secure environment.

The most valuable features of Okta Workforce Identity are SSO, MFA, and beneficial feature sets.

Okta Workforce Identity could improve the way passwords are reset and how it interfaces with Microsoft.

Okta Workforce Identity acquired Auth0 and they should have a solution with integration between the two.

I have been using Okta Workforce Identity for approximately five years.

Okta Workforce Identity has been stable in our usage.

The scalability of Okta Workforce Identity is good, it scales up well. We do not have any issues with slowness, outages, or when we need to increase users.

We have approximately 2,500 users using this solution and their roles vary from administrators, end-users, and highly-trained individuals.

We plan to increase usage, and it will be global.

The technical support is good, we have always had an effective response.

The initial setup was straightforward. The deployment took approximately two months.

I would rate the initial implementation of Okta Workforce Identity a four out of five.

We used Okta to do the implementation. Our experience with them was good, everything went well.

We have two people who do the maintenance and support of the solution.

The price of Okta Workforce Identity is competitively priced. We pay annually for the use of the solution.

We evaluated Microsoft Azure before choosing Okta Workforce Identity.

Microsoft Azure was not closely compatible with their features and support.

My advice to others is to look for an independent tool that goes across applications because you have to look at Apple and Microsoft toolsets. A good independent solution that is hardware agnostic is Okta Workforce Identity.

I rate Okta Workforce Identity nine out of ten.

This solution has a lot of capabilities and features. 

The cost per user for this solution is really high and could be reduced. 

We have experienced some challenges in integrating this solution with Scope and Cognito. 

This is a stable solution. 

This is a scalable solution. 

We have been satisfied with their customer support.

Neutral

I would rate this solution a nine out of ten. 

We implemented this solution for all employees within our environment. So, the entire single sign-on is through Okta for all of our employees through all applications.

Okta enables us to authenticate my users on cloud and SaaS applications such as Workday through Okta workflows.

I would like for the onboarding process for new solutions to be simplified because, right now, it is a very lengthy process.

We experienced some technical glitches that need to be resolved. 

I go into further detail below in the 'stability' section.

We implemented the solution one year ago.

The solution is pretty stable but we have experienced some glitches. We use Zscaler for our security encryption protection. Whenever Zscaler expired, Okta would stop working. We were able to fix this by storing the credentials and local mission that that we would be able to authenticate without Zscaler.

The solution is scalable both on-premise and on cloud. We currently have 36,000 users.

We have not had any major challenges over the past two years; however, they do offer quality customer service to all tickets.

The initial setup was straightforward.

We had a partner help us which made the implementation even easier. We have also outsourced a support party, Data Consultancy Services, to manage the solution for us - they have about three to four engineers manage the solution for us.

We are able to look at our ROI from this solution as an intangible benefit. The solution requires a lot of human capital but offers us security so in our opinion we have received a high ROI as this is something that we have planned for and invested in.

This is an expensive solution but the security makes it worthwhile.

I would rate this solution an eight out of ten.

I did about six months' worth of work on it. It was more towards getting our lab set up, getting the certification done, etc.

It makes it very easy to onboard and offboard accounts. When someone quits, one of the hardest things for an admin to do nowadays is figuring out the 37 accounts that this person had and getting rid of all of them. With Okta, it is not that difficult. You can eliminate a lot of that admin time in one shot, which is important on the security aspect of things. If you miss one or two accounts, they can backdoor you.

Its integration components are most valuable. It integrates with everything in some way. There are some products, such as O365 or AD, with which it completely and 100% integrates. So, you can seamlessly create accounts across the board with some of these products. For some of the products with which it doesn't completely integrate, you can do some kind of interfacing. 

The only aspect in which it can be improved is that the interface could be cleaner. I found this even when I was trying to do my certification exam because the certification is hands-on. You find yourself fumbling around a little bit to find simple things. This happens even when you start to get familiar with the product.

Stability-wise, it is pretty rock solid. Its stability also depends on your access to the internet. We didn't see one instance where we felt that we were going to lose access. It is completely or 100% cloud-based.

We've seen Okta scaled to thousands and thousands of endpoints. You would have a couple hundred thousand before you go, "I wonder if that would work". Even then, you can run different instances based on geography, and they would tie in together. So, its scalability should be one of the least important concerns for a company.

My advice would be to look at the entire spectrum of your web apps as well as your on-prem integrations as you start to plan. If you don't plan it out initially, it gets really hard to fix some of these things at the backend. You should get a good, firm list of all the applications that you would like to integrate with and see which ones integrate seamlessly. From everything that we've read up on, they do a lot in terms of API support. So, for what they don't provide readily or out of the box, they could probably customize an API.

I would rate it a strong eight out of 10. It was the best product that we saw in its space. I didn't do a lot of comparisons on it.

We use this product to control access to applications.

The most valuable features are identity management and OpenID.

At this time, Okta is doing really well and covering every aspect. Everybody in the company knows Okta and how to work with it.

The support for YubiKey is really good because you don't actually have to type in your username and password. Everything is taken care of, automatically.

There are some issues with the interface that can be improved.

I have been working with Okta Workforce Identity for more than three years.

The stability is good.

This is a scalable solution and we have more than 10,000 users.

They provide a lot of support but there are still places where we get stuck.

Prior to Okta, we were working with Active Directory.

We are using Azure for authentication and I really like Okta compared to that. Okta is more extensive than the product from Microsoft Azure.

The initial setup is really easy.

We have three people for maintenance.

The price of this product could be lower. It's just like Box, where when it first came on the market the price was lower. Once people started using it, the price increased.

I am looking forward to seeing what Azure Active Directory has to offer. Microsoft is giving Okta competition in terms of pricing and other features.

In summary, this is a good product but it is not perfect. There are some areas that need improvement.

I would rate this solution a nine out of ten.