With the identity solution Okta in place, all the companies in Data Respons can collaborate on Workplace from Meta
Data Respons Group wanted the entire organization to use Workplace from Meta after their positive experience with the tool in Norway. With twelve different companies sharing one Workplace instance and many different solutions for user administration, it was necessary to facilitate a simple and secure login, as well as a powerful solution for identity management. The identity solution Okta was therefore chosen.
Andreas Faltin
24. November 2020
21 locations in 7 countries
Data Respons Group is an innovative company with over 1500 specialists offering R&D engineering services, software and hardware development. The head office is situated at Høvik, Norway, and their 20 other offices and companies are in Norway, Denmark, Sweden, France, UK, Germany and Taiwan. Read more about Data Respons here.
Collaboration across companies and countries
The Norwegian part of Data Respons was among the first to implement the collaboration and communication tool Workplace from Meta in Norway. Although each company in Data Respons is individually present in its markets, they share expertise and work together on joint projects. Workplace is especially suitable for such collaborations beyond organizational and national borders.
Necessary with a powerful solution for identity management
As with the implementation of other IT tools, the IT department must also decide on the solution for user administration for Workplace. It is essential for the user adoption to link the tool to the company's existing login solution. If not, it can create frustration and give a bad user experience which in turn can negatively affect user adoption.
With twelve different companies using one shared Workplace instance and with many different solutions for user administration, a powerful solution for identity management was needed. The sources include local Microsoft Active Directory, Microsoft Office 365, Google GSuite and others.
The solution had to provide the following features:
Whenever a user account is created or added to a certain group in the source, the user account must be provisioned to Workplace without any additional administrative efforts. The same applies for removing access from Workplace when an employee leaves the organization.
When employees log on to their daily work area, they must also gain access to Workplace without further authentication.
The authentication should be both user friendly and secure, as well as include additional security through multi-factor authentication.
The identity platform Okta handles all requirements related to identities, and is easy to implement and maintain for the administration of several sources. It was the perfect solution for Data Respons.
Workplace ♥ Okta
Each company in Data Respons with its respective user and authentication source was connected to Okta. Cloudworks handled the coordination with each IT department, clarified privacy and security issues, and configured the technical integration for each company for both Okta and Workplace.
The process of onboarding a new company was tailored to the size and needs of each company. It usually included a kick-off with the company's own IT and communication department. Each IT department manages its own users without access to the other companies in the group. Cloudworks continues to assist with the management of the solution.
You can read more here about our bundle that combines Workplace and Okta.
Strengthening the company's position with Workplace from Meta
Each company in Data Respons has now its own area in Workplace to collaborate internally within its company. In addition, they have joint groups for cooperation between all the companies. All employees are given a voice, and can develop new connections across countries and companies. With this, Data Respons Group also has a tool for building a common culture and identity that helps to strengthen the company's position in the market.
With a decentralized company structure, it is important for us to have a common communication platform that works across all possible IT systems.
At the same time, we have unavoidable requirements for both high security and a low user threshold. In this context, Workplace is a good and usable platform, but it still requires expertise from an environment like Cloudworks to make everything work seamlessly and be as secure as the bank.
Sebastian Eidem, Chief Communication Officer i Data Respons Group
