Self-Registration and Delegated Administration Are Critical In Maintaining Smooth Operations of Unemployment Benefits
About The Company
The North Carolina Division of Employment Security (DES) is responsible for the administration of the unemployment insurance benefit and tax program. The Division collects tax contributions from employers and pays unemployment benefits to individuals who are determined eligible under the law.
Challenges
DES needed to provide access to their network for three main types of users:
1. DES Staff – Authenticate users locally to the appropriate active directory.
2. Employers – Each employer within the State (around 200,000) would be imported as organizations within the DES system and assigned as a delegated administrator. Del Admins would then invite other users at their organization via self-registration and then manage all of the accounts for that organization, adding, deleting, sending one-time password re-sets, etc.
3. Citizens – North Carolina citizens would be authenticated by the OptimalCloud™ via social media (Google, Facebook, etc).
Solution
DES went with the OptimalCloud solution from Optimal IdM which included self-registration, workflow approval, and multi-level delegated administration with relationship managers and delegated administrators. Other reasons DES chose the OptimalCloud:
Private, Secure and Dedicated Cloud – DES looked at other vendors such as Okta, Ping and OneLogin, but they did not offer the capabilities that DES required. Additionally, they did not want a public shared cloud. Security, auditing and controls are very important to them.
Cost – Optimal IdM’s easy, flat monthly fee was not only cheaper than the public non-dedicated cloud offerings, but also allowed for them to easily obtain budgeting approval as costs were known ahead of time and fixed, not changing month to month.
Complete Identity Management and Workflow – Other vendors provided very little beyond SSO. The OptimalCloud is a complete identity management solution with delegated administration and workflow capabilities. DES recognized that Optimal IdM could meet their requirements with minor configurations of our out of the box capabilities. The Optimal concierge service helped limit the involvement of DES staff who were assigned to other projects.
Complete Auditing and Cloud Reporting – A key requirement for DES was audit and compliance. The built-in cloud reporting system in the OptimalCloud provided DES with real-time and historical audit records of all activity. DES administrators access summary and detailed reports from any web browser to gain not only summary statistics, but also the granular detailed needed about a particular user. As with other customers, all of this is done in a dedicated private database for DES only. The OptimalCloud was selected by the company for these additional reasons:
• Private, Secure and Dedicated Cloud – The company looked at other vendors, but ultimately did not want a publicly shared cloud. Security, auditing and controls were also very important features. • Self registration – Self-registration allows users to create their own login and password. A user who self registers is immediately and automatically granted access and a new user account is created in the client’s directory.
• Complete Delegated Administration and Workflow Capabilities –The OptimalCloud offers complete identity management with delegated administration, workflow capabilities, and delegate administrative abilities to verify users and run identity management reports.
• Proven and Trusted Reliability – After vetting references, it was determined that Optimal IdM was a reliable partner that values customers and stands behind its products and services. With a customizable solution, care and attention to detail, it was an easy decision to move forward with The OptimalCloud.
Results
The OptimalCloud has been customized and deployed and will serves as the framework for all future NC DES applications moving forward. This IDaaS model allows the company IT staff to focus on priority goals and objectives and provides flexibility to grow in new directions. The OptimalCloud has also brought the company the following benefits:
• Affordability – Unlike other vendors who use a pricing model based around a per user, per month charge, The OptimalCloud, uses an affordable flat monthly fee.
• Scalability – The OptimalCloud solution future-proofs the company by adapting to their needs while enabling them to scale quickly. • Productivity – With the Optimal development portal, the client receives sample code, preconfigured to integrate with their environment, which allows developers to test different apps, protocols and languages before rolling them out.
• Compliance – The OptimalCloud provides extensive cloud reporting using a dedicated database, which is essential for compliance regulations. The reporting tool offers granular data including who logged in, what claims they used, number of assertions and even how they authenticated
