End-User Welcome

Okta uses a variety of cues to help end users be sure they are logging in to the right system. After I entered my user name, Okta popped up a picture of the Golden Gate Bridge (a picture I selected during my initial log-in) to visually cue me that this was the right SSOÂ portal.

I was able to customize the user portal with an eWEEK logo. Along the bottom of the screen are the applications that a specific user can access.

Okta is preintegrated with the log-in procedures of more than 1,200 SaaS systems. Here you see the beginning of a log-in to the Salesforce.com Chatter client.

Once logged in, the end user has no further knowledge of Okta. Thus, the Chatter screen seen here is the normal interface to which the user is accustomed.

The administrator dashboard takes a rather fanciful approach, as seen in the playful icons in the center ribbon to ensuring that the product is fully utilized. The center activity ribbon shows that I’ve walked through all the setup steps. Other information, such as users and user activity, is shown in summary on the rest of the screen.

Users are provisioned and deprovisioned in the people module. Administrators can create groups and run user reports from this module.

Applications are first activated by administrators, which makes them available to be accessed by users or groups of users.

My suggestion is to make a list of SaaS applications that are used in your organization, sign up for the no-cost trial and then see how many of your apps are already supported. At this time, Okta seems very open to adding applications quickly, so check with the company if your app isn’t on the list.

Policies, authentication methods and administrators are all controlled from the security module.