What is SCIM?
SCIM – The System for Cross-domain Identity Management, is an open standard that involves the process of creating, updating, and deleting user accounts in multiple applications and systems. It is an Identity and Access Management (IAM) solution that includes management and maintenance of an end user’s identity and user attributes in relation to accessing resources available in one or more systems. Real-time user syncing can be easily achieved using SCIM.
How does Shopify SCIM Provisioning / Deprovisioning Works?
Shopify SCIM integration enables automating the process of provisioning / de-provisioning of user identities. Shopify SCIM User Provisioning allows you to sync users’ creation, updating, and deletion with other websites of your business. SCIM Provisioning works with existing web model standards like REST and JSON-based protocol that defines a client and server role making it easy to implement. A client is usually an Identity provider (IDP), which contains user identities. A Service Provider (SP) is usually a SaaS app, like Shopify, that needs a subset of information from those identities. When changes to identities are made in the IdP (Identity Provider), including create, update, and delete, they are automatically synced to the SP according to the SCIM protocol. In addition, the IdP can detect identities in the service provider and add them to its database.
Why choose SCIM for Shopify?
Shopify SCIM integration allows to communicate user’s data between Shopify and several other Identity Providers (Okta, Azure), this enables IT departments to automate the provisioning / deprovisioning process while also having a single system to manage permissions and groups. It mitigates the risks associated with employees using the same password across different Shopify stores and applications. It simplifies the user experience by automating the user identity lifecycle management process. Shopify SCIM Provisioning and De-Provisioning application gives you the ability to automate user creation, updating, and disabling tasks in Shopify by directly interacting with the Identity Provider Admin Dashboard (Okta, OneLogin, Azure, etc.)
How will SCIM Protocol help to overcome the challenges faced by non-SCIM users?
Shopify SCIM provisioning creates, updates, disable, handles all identities (user accounts) across different Shopify stores and all other connected IT Infrastructure and applications.
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Suppose an IT department sells their products on their Shopify store. For every new hire suppose the IT department takes approximately 5-10 minutes to set up an employee account in both the department and the Shopify store which is an enormous amount of time when scale to hundreds of new joiners. This time can be reduced by using the SCIM provisioning process. If the IT company application support SCIM protocol then using the Shopify SCIM application, whenever an employee is added to their identity providers, then the same employee is created as a customer in their Shopify store and vice versa.
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Organizations would have to cease trading if they manually manage every employee/user account detail across several business applications and Shopify stores. SCIM Provisioning allows seamless and automated control of all information updates that must be made when a group of users’ data changes – for example, address updates, account disables, new enrollments/creations, permission management, and so on.
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SCIM provisioning also significantly improves new employee onboarding — no one wants to sit and create multiple user accounts on their first day of work.
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SCIM has a number of security advantages. When an employee is fired or leaves a company, the offboarding process is usually inconsistent. Consider a scenario where the administrators forget to de-provision the user’s account on an application that contains sensitive data which can cause data breaches and can affect the company drastically. One of the leading causes of data breaches is due to unprovisioned account access.
Let’s take an example of SCIM Process between Okta and Shopify
Okta SCIM provisioning with Shopify can be achieved by using our miniOrange SCIM Provisioning De-provisioning application. Our SCIM application is compatible with almost all the Identity Providers that support SCIM protocol and can enable secure User Syncing from Okta into multiple Shopify stores and vice versa.
Consider an organization with multiple Shopify stores, that uses Okta as its IDP (Identity Provider), and SCIM Application is configured across both of the platforms. Now suppose, if a new employee joins the organization, an Okta account will be created for him. If you use the miniOrange SCIM User Syncing application, his account will be created automatically in all of the Shopify stores, and they can be assigned a specific group/tag in the store to provide them access to specific areas of Shopify Storefront. This eliminates the need for IT Department to manually update the employee’s access rights. If an employee leaves the organization then his okta account is deleted, then the user sync functionality will restrict the employee from accessing all of the Shopify accounts. As a result, the organization’s applications are more secure, and administrative expenses and time are reduced.
In this way, with SCIM Provisioning Deprovisioning Application you get the benefit of user provisioning and deprovisioning functionality.
Key features of using SCIM with Shopify
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Automate user Deprovisioning / Deactivation: Automatically restrict the customer from accessing the Shopify Store whenever the same user is removed/deleted from your other existing Website or Application.
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Automate real-time provisioning: Real-time user syncing can be achieved using the SCIM protocol. You can connect with your other website / existing Application and auto-create a user in Shopify when the user signup in your other website or Application.
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Assign Tags to Customer: You can assign tags to each user at the time of user creation in Shopify. Attribute Mapping: Map and update Shopify user attributes automatically from your IDP.
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Two-way User Profile in Sync: Two-way User Syncing can be achieved using SCIM protocol. Update user in Shopify whenever a user is updated in your other website and vice versa.
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Connect multiple stores with a single application: manage your multiple Shopify stores users from a single application (like okta, wordpress, etc.)
Additional Benefits of Enabling SCIM in Shopify
- Lower repetitive and manual work
- Get deeper insights on user behavior and data
- Simplify user onboarding experience
- Save time, resources, and costs
- Automate account creation and handling
- Much higher security, much lower human error
- Reduce complexity, increase efficiency
- Automatic real-time User syncing
Further Reading
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