As companies grow, adding hundreds or thousands of employees, it’s no longer secure—or even viable—to manage user accounts and passwords within each individual platform. At this caliber, there’s only one real solution: single sign-on (SSO). Enabling organizations’ IT teams to seamlessly manage all user accounts from a central location, SSO solutions have revolutionized the way that users are managed.

While there’s no doubt that an SSO solution is useful to large organizations, is there value in integrating with your digital asset managment (DAM) solution? In this post, we’ll showcase how a DAM integrates with SSO and the benefits that organizations gain by doing so.

What is Single Sign-On?

Microsoft defines Single Sign-On as “an authentication method that allows users to sign in using one set of credentials to multiple independent software systems.”

Put simply, single sign-on allows users to sign into their various different platforms and solutions using the same username and password. It allows IT teams to configure and manage permission levels for individuals and groups from a single location. The value of an SSO solution is two-fold:

1. It provides users with a faster, better experience as they’re instantly able to access their platforms without needing to use or remember different passwords.
2. It creates a more secure user management process for IT teams, ensuring all employees have the correct permissions for each platform.

Examples of SSO Identity Providers

Why Integrate a DAM with Single Sign-On?

Single sign-on is good at what it does: user management - and a DAM system, like MediaValet, is good at what it does: centralizing and distributing collections of digital assets across organizations. By integrating the two solutions, marketing teams are able to focus on managing assets, while IT teams can focus on managing users.

With an integration, IT teams have the ability to manage user credentials and group policies in a secured way. Specifically, they can quickly reset and delete passwords, update user account information, manage security settings, and enable group permissions for the DAM through their central single sign-on console. Users enjoy an enterprise-scale single sign-on (SSO) environment that allows them to log into their DAM using the same username and password that they use for all corporately approved and supported applications across their organization.

What are the Benefits of an Integration?

While this is a very straightforward integration, the benefits are exponential. When a DAM is integrated with single sign-on, users gain immediate and seamless access to digital assets, while IT teams only need to manage one account per user. It makes a huge difference in workflow for both marketing and IT departments.

When these two systems are integrated together, IT and marketing teams work better, faster, and smarter. The top 3 benefits of integrating SSO with a DAM include:

1. Enhanced Security

The integration provides IT with full control over current and expired user authentication, authorization, and all security policies directly through the single sign-on account. When set up thoughtfully with custom permissions, an integration with a DAM ensures that every department can seamlessly access the brand assets that are relevant to their specific role and seniority. Secondary to this, when an employee moves on from the company, IT is able to seamlessly remove access to the company’s critical brand assets.

2. Increased Productivity

The time spent requesting and waiting for on-brand assets is astronomical for those that don’t have seamless access to a DAM. When users have SSO, they don’t have to sign into every application—they can access all their solutions without wasting time authenticating and using different credentials, ultimately saving time, and increasing productivity. Digital asset management is no exception. Teams are able to work faster when they’re able to access logos, photos, documents and more without needing to worry about managing or using another credential.

3. Improved Scalability

One of the largest hurdles organizations need to overcome when trying to scale their digital asset management solution is user management. As you add more departments and assets, permissions become more complex. Integrating with SSO takes away this roadblock, providing entire organizations, with thousands of employees, with a single, secure brand tool. Not only does SSO also offer a powerful authorization rules engine, it provides administrators with an easy way to create and maintain a custom authorization policy based on their organization’s needs. In short, this makes it simple to manage user groups and group permissions for the DAM in a central location. This ensures every individual can always be confident knowing they’re using the right marketing materials – and the right version.

What Are You Waiting For?

MediaValet offers single sign-on integrations with any identification provider that supports SAML or OIDC/OpenID authentication protocols, including Azure Active Directory, Okta and Google SSO. These integrations can help any organization simplify user management and extend the reach of their DAM. Help improve the workflows of everyone at your organization and get started with your DAM and single sign-on integration today.

MediaValet is a leader in cloud-based digital asset management that helps organizations manage, organize and share their digital assets, improving productivity and increasing ROI.