City Utilities of Springfield Strengthen Peoplesoft User Authentication and Remote Access Security

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

The Web Operations Team at City Utilities of Springfield (CU) wanted to establish a Single Sign-On (SSO) solution for seamless access to all enterprise applications. After hitting a roadblock with PeopleSoft’s lack of SAML support, CU chose Appsian’s SSO Connector to integrate their identity provider, Microsoft ADFS, with PeopleSoft. The agency also wanted to secure sensitive data and transactions when accessed outside the secure corporate network. With the Appsian Security Platform (ASP), CU was able to scale employee self-service transactions for mobile access in a secure fashion.

CHALLENGES

Like most modern identity providers, CU’s ID provider, Microsoft ADFS, uses SAML – the widely accepted identity federation standard. Unfortunately, PeopleSoft applications do not offer native SAML compatibility. Due to the lack of SAML support, CU risked isolating PeopleSoft applications from the rest of the enterprise applications. Following an executive mandate, CU’s Web Operations Team set out to customize an SSO solution for PeopleSoft. However, they found the custom approach to be time-intensive and cumbersome.

Additionally, CU wanted to strengthen data security when accessing PeopleSoft Employee Self-Service outside the company network, especially for transactions and menus containing payroll and financial information. The challenge was that PeopleSoft’s static access controls did not allow granular control over what users could and could not access remotely.

SOLUTION

With Appsian’s configurable PeopleSoft SSO Connector, the CU Web Operations Team was able to integrate PeopleSoft with its enterprise-wide SSO and simulate communication between PeopleSoft and ADFS successfully. Thus, centralizing identity management for all enterprise applications. Using ASP’s context aware rules engine, CU restricted remote access for specific high-risk menus and limited access to low-risk self-service transactions.

RESULTS

Appsian’s turnkey solution for native SAML compatibility in PeopleSoft allowed the CU Web Operations Team to deploy SSO for PeopleSoft without any customizations or additional infrastructure. The agency unified the organization with the Single-Sign-On solution, facilitating seamless access for users while improving security. With ASP’s dynamic access controls, high-risk payroll transactions and data were protected against unnecessary exposure that comes with remote access. CU ensured security without compromising the convenience and flexibility for executing self-service transactions such as – benefits enrollment, time-entry, and more remotely.