Trick or treat? Seven treats for IT managers implementing Okta
It may be the season for jack ‘o lanterns, mummies and ghouls, but those creatures aren’t the scariest things that an IT manager could confront on a typical day. What’s more frightening are the amount of typical questions technical teams get from their teammates on how to use Okta.
To help with the most common Okta questions, here are some “treats” — a set of tried and true answers from our Okta Community that IT leaders can share with end users and admins: frequently asked questions that all IT managers get when implementing the tool.
From End UsersCan my admin see my login information? Your helpdesk administrator can see your username, but he or she does not have access to your password. Nobody (including your helpdesk) has access or visibility into your password data.
Why do I have to input my password for some apps and not others? With Okta you can access your applications through a single, unified dashboard. Access to these applications is delivered through single sign-on (SSO) technology via either Security Assertion Markup Language (SAML) or Okta’s own Secure Web Authentication (SWA) technology. With SWA, you need to maintain your own password, meaning if an app requires you to make a password change, you should do so within the Okta dashboard. With SAML, Okta automatically passes access through a token and the app itself often requires no additional password at all.
However, SSO functionality isn’t automatic — in order for an app to be SSO enabled, it must be added to the Okta platform. To make sure it does, users can work with IT on getting any apps added to the platform.
Is my information secure? Yes, very much so! Okta offers multi-factor authentication, meaning there are multiple steps someone has to take before accessing your information. That authentication is also flexible — meaning you can use a traditional password and choose your second authentication to be either a push notification, a text message pin number, a 6- digit soft token or a security question. The options for a second factor of authentication are configured by your IT administrator.
I’m locked out! What can I do? If you cannot log into Okta, either call your company's helpdesk or click the 'Forgot Password' link on the Okta login screen to reset your password.
From AdminsHow do I submit a Feature Request or emphasize the urgency of an existing Feature Request? All feature requests are submitted by admins to the Okta community, which your peers can then comment on and upvote. This helps our product team collect, prioritize then assign to product development cycles. You can also subscribe to feature notifications so you’re notified when a feature you’re interested in is accepted, rejected or released in product. Your ideas are a big part of product innovation, so keep ‘em coming!
We assigned an application to an end user and the user reports that the application is not on their Okta dashboard. What went wrong? When assigning a user to an application, there are a variety of scenarios that could result in an unsuccessful assignment or provisioning event. Source directory issues, permissions (user/service account), or attribute mapping issues can create a failure. In all cases, when Okta attempts to assign or provision a user to an app, if we are unsuccessful, we create a task on the Okta Admin Dashboard detailing the cause of the failure.
How can I sign up for Okta training and become a certified admin or professional? At Oktane16 we launched our new certification program for Professionals and Administrators. Certified Professionals go deep on identity management and mobility concepts complete with the hands-on lab experience. Certified Administrators are skilled at managing the Okta service end-to-end. Skip the tricks and go right to the treats by signing up to get certified.