We said yes to each other… Inedee <> Cryptr

Hamid Echarkaoui

CEO & Co-founder @ Cryptr

SSO authentication: Strategic subject for SaaS. Discover how Inedee has made its authentication compatible with all types of SSO used by its customers thanks to Cryptr.

Reinventing digital tools for communication agencies

This is what Inedee does with its 100% cloud management tool for communication agencies. A complete tool that allows its customers to manage all the major subjects of a company: project management, finances, accounting, sales…

Inedee brings together around fifteen talents with unique experiences and with the ambition of becoming the benchmark ERP for major communication agencies.

SSO authentication: a strategic topic for Inedee

One of Inedee's first objectives was to be able to secure its team's access to the internal tools used on a daily basis. The goal is to centralize access to simplify authentication and improve security for Inedee employees. The SSO connection is the perfect tool to meet these challenges.

Inedee is also starting to receive more and more requests to set up SSO connections from its customers, in particular WPP, which is the largest network of advertising and communication agencies in the world. The group employs approximately 107,000 people in 3,000 offices in 112 countries through its various subsidiaries (TNS Sofres, Ogilvy, Wunderman Thompson, Young & Rubicam etc.).

WPP wants to allow its employees to connect to the Inedee software with their WPP credentials (managed by Okta), to simplify the connection process and improve security.

Inedee's objective is also to be able to offer SSO authentication to all its customers therefore providing them an authentication that meets their security requirements and improves the user experience.

Cryptr, an obvious choice

Malo Jamain, Head of Sales at Cryptr, contacted the Inedee team, which was in discussions with the WPP group for the implementation of Single Sign On authentication.

The planets align, and especially when two beautiful system planets like Cryptr and Inedee meet, we roll our eyes 🤩!

Cryptr has developed a universal SSO connector that allows SaaS companies to connect easily and quickly to the SSO authentication (SAML, ADFS, Azure AD, …) and identity providers (Ping Identity, Okta, …) of their business customers.

This will allow company employees to use their own ID to connect to SaaS without having to recreate passwords.

What is SSO authentication?

In recent years, there has been an explosion in the use of SaaS within large companies, as shown in a BetterCloud report from 2021: companies with more than 10,000 employees use an average of 447 different SaaS solutions. It then becomes vital for these companies to have a system that can simplify the authentication of their employees in the SaaS used while being secure. This is where SSO authentication comes into play.

SSO (Single Sign-On) authentication is an authentication method that allows a user to log into multiple applications or services with a single set of credentials. We immediately see the scope of this type of authentication in terms of user experience. Instead of needing a different username and password for each application, the user can simply use their SSO credentials to access all applications connected to their SSO account.

SSO authentication is often used in large companies or organizations where users need to access several different applications or services as part of their job. In this context, SSO greatly simplifies the login process and improves security.

The SSO authentication process is based on standard security protocols such as SAML (Security Assertion Markup Language), OAuth (Open Authorization) and OpenID Connect. These protocols make it possible to authenticate users in a secure way and to share authentication information between different applications and services without the user needing to enter their credentials again.

In summary, SSO authentication has several advantages for businesses, including:

Simplification of the login process: with SSO, only one username and password are needed to access multiple applications and services. This improves user satisfaction and reduces the risk of connection errors.

Improved security: SSO uses robust security protocols to ensure that only authorized users can access applications and services. Users do not need to enter their password each time, which reduces the risk of password hacking.

Increased productivity: SSO allows users to quickly and easily log into applications and services, reducing the time spent logging in and increasing productivity. The ADEO group has gained several thousand days of productivity per year by connecting all of its external and internal applications to its SSO system.

Reduced cost and complexity: SSO helps reduce maintenance and password management costs for system administrators, while providing a seamless user experience.

Offering SSO authentication: a challenge for a SaaS

As we have just seen, when a company uses a SaaS like Inedee, it is important that users can access the application in a secure and easy way, without having to repeatedly enter different usernames and passwords to each app.

By integrating SSO logins, SaaS companies allow customers to use their own authentication systems to access the application, instead of having to create new accounts and passwords for each user within an external application to the company. They thus put themselves at the level of security expected by their customers who have strong requirements in terms of cybersecurity, particularly in terms of authentication.

Integrating SSO connections has several advantages for SaaS and their customers:

Simplified authentication: users no longer need to remember multiple logins and passwords to access different applications, simplifying the user experience.

Better security: SSOs help increase security by centralizing authentication and access authorization, reducing the risk of identity theft and hacking.

Save time and efficiency: Users can quickly access the applications they need without having to enter new logins and passwords each time, reducing waiting times and downtime.

In sum, the integration of SSO connections is an important feature for SaaS companies looking to provide a simpler and more secure user experience for their customers.

Do it yourself or outsource

Integrating SSO authentication into your application can be done in several ways.

First, you can take the optics of doing it yourself with your technical team.

However, there are several disadvantages to developing an SSO (Single Sign-On) login system yourself for your SaaS software rather than outsourcing this functionality:

Development time and costs: the development of an SSO connection system requires specific skills and is complex to set up. This can lead to high costs in terms of development (indeed, the learning curve is steep, and it will take developers some time to properly handle all the topics related to SSO authentication) and time (without Cryptr's self-service onboarding, technical teams will have to be mobilized to support customers in setting up the SSO connection as well as to take care of maintenance).

Security: if you develop your own SSO login system, you are responsible for the security of this system. Security issues can arise if vulnerabilities are not identified and patched quickly.

Scalability: If you are developing your own SSO login system, it can be difficult to scale it over time. Updates and modifications may require additional development and additional costs.

Technical support: if you are developing your own SSO login system, you will need to provide technical support to your users. This can be a difficult task, especially if you are not an expert in authentication and security.

By outsourcing your SSO login system with Cryptr, you can benefit from the expertise of a supplier specialized in this field, while benefiting from development costs, strengthening security, facilitating integration with other systems, by ensuring the scalability of the solution, and by demanding the technical support charge.

A support team always available

In addition to a simple and fast implementation thanks to complete technical documentation and a wide choice of SDKs (React, Angular, VueJS, PHP, Ruby, etc.), Cryptr offers its customers technical assistance on demand via Slack or through video conferencing.

Thus, the Inedee team was able to test Cryptr very quickly in a SandBox environment before being able to deploy to its WPP client.

Thanks to Cryptr's onboarding self-service, the only task for the Inedee team was to send the onboarding link to the WPP IT Admin in order to set up the SSO connection with Inedee:

This onboarding allowed WPP's IT Admin to be totally autonomous in setting up the SSO connection to Inedee thanks to an interactive step-by-step indicating various information needed and where to retrieve it within Okta thanks to screenshots.

Once WPP's SSO connection request was honored, the Inedee team shared an additional request with the Cryptr teams: the possibility for their users to connect using Microsoft 365 credentials.

As a true partner of its customers in terms of authentication, Cryptr was able to prioritize this need on the roadmap, and developed this connector in two weeks, at no additional cost for Inedee.

The Cryptr teams also participated in various discussions with the Inedee team and its customers in order to provide details on the technical operation of the SSO connection and provide all the necessary security guarantees.

Thanks to the responsiveness of Cryptr's developer success teams and in particular Thibaud, the Inedee team can now count on a reliable partner to offer secure and customizable authentication methods according to its customers.

By choosing Cryptr, Inedee was able with a few lines of code to make its authentication compatible with all types of SSO and identity providers encountered by its prospects or customers.

As a true partner of its customers in terms of authentication, Cryptr was able to prioritize this need on the roadmap, and developed this connector in two weeks, at no additional cost for Inedee.

Here is a short video illustrating the product: Cryptr Enterprise Connection!

To learn more about our authentication solutions for SaaS, you can schedule a discussion with our team by clicking here: Meet Cryptr.