📣 Okta user lifecycle management now available in Automation

[#1]

Hello Community! 👋

We’re excited to announce that we’ve built a new integration with Okta! This integration makes it possible to create a connection between your automation rules and Okta, so now it’s even easier to use Automation to handle your user lifecycle management needs. The connection with Okta can be made from Automation in Jira Service Management via these two new actions:

• Create user in Okta – auto-creates a user in Okta, so you don’t have to do this as a separate, manual task.

• Retrieve user details from Okta – checks if a user already exists in Okta, so you can avoid duplicating users.

Expert tip: to get the most out of this new Okta integration, we recommend combining the two actions into a single rule.

How to access the Okta integration

Premium and Enterprise Jira Service Management customers will be able to connect to Okta via Jira Automation. To access this new integration with Okta, Jira admins need to:

1. configure an API in Okta.

2. create an automation rule with one or more of the actions that create a connection with Okta. Each time you create a rule that includes one of the Okta actions, you will need to create a connection using the details you received when you registered the API client in Okta.

Read more about how to use these actions and connect your automation rule to Okta.

New action: Create user in Okta

This action allows you to create a new user in Okta using details about an employee (e.g. user name, and company and personal email address) from other products or applications to use in your service project. It’s useful for things like automating user provisioning, streamlining the employee onboarding process, or gathering employee details when resolving a query.

New action: Retrieve user details from Okta

This action allows you to retrieve certain employee details from Okta to use in your Jira Service Management project. This can be useful for verifying if the user already exists in Okta to avoid creating duplicates.

Example: Using both actions in a rule

Using both actions in a single rule can simplify new employee onboarding by auto-creating a user in Okta. For example:

1. When the status of your employee onboarding request changes from Pending to In Progress,

2. Verify if that user already exists in Okta by using the Retrieve user details from Okta action and the If or ELSE condition with smart value to check.

3. IF {{okta.user.status}} equals NOT_FOUND, create a new user by using the Create user in Okta action. Supply information from the onboarding issue such as user first name, last name, login, and primary email address. Once created, transition the issue to Done.

4. ELSE, comment on the issue saying the user already exists and change the issue status to Declined.

5. Finish the rule by notifying stakeholders or adding more actions to satisfy your business process.

What’s next?

This is only the beginning! Introducing the Okta integration is a great first step, but we know that comprehensive user lifecycle management goes beyond simple user creation. As our team continues to work fast to add more capabilities relating to the Okta integration, we are keen to hear your thoughts on:

• How you’re using new automation actions – comment below to let us know how they’ve helped to automate your important business processes and tasks, or if you have any questions.

• What new Okta integration capabilities could help you manage your user lifecycle needs – share your use cases and needs to help shape the future of this feature. If you’d like to participate, complete the form below and our team will be in touch to deep dive into your use cases.
  
  Register your interest
  
  

We look forward to working with you!

Kind regards,

Michael Fedulov
Product Manager, Jira Service Management

[Jared Schmitt]

Hi @Michael Fedulov 

Nice addition to automations! While we'll not be using this, I'm curious: What was the reason behind the decision to go with an IdP instead of integrating a HR tool like BambooHR, HiBob or the like, which in many companies serves as single source of truth for employee information? 

[Michael Fedulov]

Hi @Jared Schmitt thank you for your comment and excellent question! The short answer is we are looking at both! We recognise that E2E onboarding requires teams to collaborate across multiple tools including HRIS and IdPs. We want our customers to achieve their JTBD without having to leave JSM and by allowing these tools to talk to each other (via JSM) we hope to reduce manual effort and operational burden. Please check out this announcement about Workday Beta and let us know what you think!

We are really keen to hear your thoughts and any further feedback, please feel free to join our research study or sign up for EAP!