Fischer Identity--a speedy way to single sign-on
Pros
- Fischer's support team is always very responsive to our needs and understands the vital role they play in our operation; even though we are in different time zones, they make themselves available beyond their normal operational hours to match our needs.
- The import of new user information and the provisioning of their accounts happens very quickly. We are able to have newly registered students accessing their campus accounts in 15 minutes.
- Fischer listens well as we describe our needs and future plans for improvements and possible expansion of identity management on our campus.
Cons
- Reducing the frequency (twice a month) of scheduled outages. But I believe they are making progress toward developing a more robust cloud infrastructure that will eliminate the need for such frequent downtimes.
- There are some less than intuitive administration tools, which could be improved. Fisher is always willing to help us when we don't understand the proper way to configure using the tools.
- I would like a streamlined way to move changes from our test environment into our production (live) environment instead of having to duplicate the effort.
Return on Investment
- Fischer has had a positive impact by providing self-serve identity and password management tools that our constituents can use at their convience, not tied to our operational hours.
- Fisher Identity as a Service has been a significant cost, but it is anticipated that it saves our students significant time and effort that they can better dedicate to their academic pursuits.
- Negative initial reaction--as this was a new way of doing things, there was a period of confusion among our college constituent that required additional communication and instruction
Alternatives Considered
The Okta Identity Cloud, Microsoft Identity Manager and Ellucian Ethos
Other Software Used
Ellucian Banner, Laserfiche, Moodle
