Hypersocket (formerly Nervepoint) enables organizations to efficiently manage and administer end users and their access to disparate systems by empowering end users to manage their own accounts across multiple systems both on-premise and in the cloud, while allowing IT to gain control over user sprawl, cut support and gain in-depth business insight.
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Microsoft Entra ID
Score 8.9 out of 10
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Microsoft Entra ID (formerly Microsoft Azure Active Directory or Azure AD) is a cloud-based identity and access management (IAM) solution supporting restricted access to applications with Azure Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA) built-in, single sign-on (SSO), B2B collaboration controls, self-service password, and integration with Microsoft productivity and cloud storage (Office 365, OneDrive, etc) as well as 3rd party services.
HyperSocket is very well suited if the resources and budget are made available. There is not much a learning curve for the IT Department or for those users already familiar with two-factor authentication. There will be some education and training requirements for most end-users as the notifications and general verbiage can be confusing for some. It may also show some exploits within some end-users who are unaware of a notification but will use the email to reset an expired password without thinking twice if it may have been a phishing email or the opposite where an end-user deletes or ignores the expiration email notification expecting it to be spam/phishing.
It is especially good for organizations that are otherwise in the Microsoft ecosystem (Microsoft 365 applications). Microsoft Entra ID is really well supported sign-in method in various SaaS-applications and they often have step-by-step guides how to deploy the SSO with Microsoft Entra ID. It's less suitable for organizations that might use other productivity tools than M365 or do not have Windows-based computers.
Single Sign-on helps ease the user experience, allowing users to avoid typing multiple passwords.
The identity and management are straightforward to use and easy to connect to other applications, as well as third-party applications.
The support of remote work. Nowadays, many people work from home and need to access their accounts. Microsoft Enterprise ID gives secure access to the company data.
Help-Desk functionality similar to OneIdentity Self-Service Password Manager, as it provides additional users that do not require administrative access to assist with managing end-users who may have locked themselves out of HyperSocket Access Manager by forgetting their own security questions.
Too many features which become unusable and feel like the payment plans are not flexible since it's an all-in-one product with one price. It is not necessarily a bad thing as most subscription-based pricing forces a buyer to pay more for an integral service that is only available on the highest price-plan. You really do get what you pay for, but we found many of our use-case scenarios limited the product.
This isn't necessarily against the product, just a personal opinion around Multi-Factor authentication which is always primarily driven mobile devices. Not all companies or end-users have access to a multi-factor device, (or in our case, are allowed to have access to a cell phone while servicing members/clients). This creates a shortfall to allow multi-factor functionality to extend to all users unless there are hardware tokens, which can be miss placed or left out more easily as most users don't treat it the same way they would their personal smartphone.
Probably the most primary thing is just the interface itself. It's frequently changing and so oftentimes we kind of have to go back and redocument our processes for our IT staff because the steps that they would take to perform a task one month. Now it's a totally different staff, new dashboard, even a new name for the product or the feature. So it would be nice if that stuff was a little bit more consistent.
MSFT Entra ID has been essential for managing our geographically dispersed team. We're confident that it will scale with us as grow, and we'll be able to take advantage of additional security and ID management features as they become necessary. Being able to centrally manage our user access from anywhere with a small support team is such a relief.
I mean it's pretty good. It is click, click. I mean, oftentimes I can go to the expert or layer two support to get help. Suddenly I go to them. So it has to be pretty useful to be honest. I do a lot of, and there's a lot of, you could do research quickly online to find out how to do certain things. I think that's the only thing we can improve to in terms of kind of a best practice path is setting up it. But because I'm it profess of tons of years in co-management services, I can figure it out. But for others they may not be able to figure it out. You still need an IT person of course to translate all of that. But to me pretty straightforward. I come from the days of directory from 2008, 2000, Microsoft server 2000.
I have not needed to engage support for anything at this time. I have been able to find the answers either online or in a knowledgebase. I tried to skip the question but it would not let me, so I rated a 9 based on other interactions with Microsoft support I have had
Make sure you use a good partner. Our implementation was a bit longer and more problematic than we expected. Our partner got it done, but, in my opinion, some of their inexperience and staffing issues were evident.
Nervepoint Access Manager (NAM) has the ability to deal with multiple domains. While ServiceNow at the time we looked at the solution did not (I do not know if it does now). NAM was a more polished, mature product.
We've used other Microsoft products and we've also used some standalone products, like each application you can have its own identity, so we've looked at some of those too, but we try to use the Entra ID as much as possible because it offers a wider range of reliability.
Microsoft Professional Services' technical knowledge is appreciable as consultants design the solution as per customer requirements. Mapping of features per user specifications and assisting Customer IT engineers to implement so they can manage and administer the services.
As with any IT Service or Solution, the investment will always be seen as a sunk cost. The only ROI would be the time and resources spent elsewhere rather than with Password Management through an IT Department or similar department. I found that the time spent on password management was about the same, as many users who are frequently forgetting a password are also forgetting their security question & answers.
There are some positives, as it was able to help manage the bulk of their non-windows passwords or passwords related to another online service. The centralized password manager doesn't feel like a true single sign-on but for most users, it replaces a hand-written copy they have taped to a monitor.
It can help with automating some of the active directory workflows with its own user provisioning functionality. Took more time to set up than it was to manage on its own.
I think it's had positive. It's enabled us to make authentication easier and more streamlined across the organization from frontline workers to back office workers.
It's allowed us to really adopt authentication policies and methods that suit that user and their work environment.
