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Realizing a New Vision for Identity Governance: One Identity for Life

Simplifying IGA in a Complex Higher Education Environment

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Saviynt helped the University of Canterbury build a centralized, streamlined Identity Governance and Administration (IGA) hub to facilitate automation, self-service account provisioning, and role-based access controls across an inherently complex higher-ed environment.

How Saviynt IGA Made It Possible for the University of Canterbury to Achieve “One Identity for Life”

An internationally recognized research university known for its excellence in law, engineering, and a diverse array of degree programs, the University of Canterbury is New Zealand’s second-oldest institution of higher learning. Like many higher ed institutions, the university provides IT resource access to a large and particularly dynamic user population. It’s not uncommon for students to also serve as research assistants or temporary staff or for employees to enroll in courses.

The university’s identity and security teams must manage joiner/mover/leaver identities throughout these complex and ever-changing life cycles while ensuring that they can maintain granular control and visibility.

The University of Canterbury’s Challenge

Digital transformation, including the popularization of online learning and degree programs as well as growing interest in massive open online courses (MOOCS), was the reality in higher education even before the onset of the global COVID-19 pandemic. As a result, the University of Canterbury had recruited a digital leadership team, which had recently crafted a new vision for digital transformation to enable the university to stay current with technological trends.

The university’s identity and security teams were impeded by a bespoke legacy IGA solution that created visibility challenges – and required extensive coding and other manual steps before accounts could be provisioned and de-provisioned. In today’s increasingly cloud-centric and digital-first world, these time-consuming, labor-intensive processes were inefficient and burdensome.

Saviynt’s Solution

Saviynt’s cloud-native Identity Governance and Administration (IGA) solution has become the single source of truth for identity information across the University of Canterbury’s entire IT ecosystem. With this solution, the university has:

  • Accelerated new user onboarding and new account provisioning so that a process that used to take place overnight can now be completed in 20 minutes
  • Achieved enhanced visibility across all roles, identity types, and resources in the environment
  • Seamlessly integrated cloud and on-premises resources, including the University’s Oracle PeopleSoft ERP implementation and a student management system (Jade)
  • Saved time, streamlined processes, and reduced administrative overhead
  • Prepare to implement role-based access controls, new workflow approval automation, and enterprise service management integrations

The Results

With Saviynt’s IGA solution now implemented, the University of Canterbury has set a firm foundation for its digital future. The university now benefits from:

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Accelerated account provisioning to ensure that users can access the resources they need when they need them most
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Centralized identity governance to support future digital transformation, privilege management, and access control initiatives
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Enhanced access visibility to keep assets and resources secure while streamlining administration
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Time and labor cost savings from efficiencies introduced by automation
"In universities, the concept of one identity for life is fundamental. This is because a single person can have so many different roles and identities over the course of their relationship with the institution. They can be a student at the same time that they’re a staff member, and then become an alumnus. Saviynt essentially makes it possible for us to assign each of these people – with multiple, complex, changing personas – a single identity for life.”

Clive Keylard

IAM and Middleware ManagerTHE UNIVERSITY OF CANTERBURY

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