What is Atlassian Access?

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As much as Atlassian Access enables you to use SSO(Single sign on), Atlassian Access is not an SSO neither is it an Active Directory. Atlassian Access basically gives your Atlassian Cloud sites the ability to:

1. Group Applications into an organization (done by default as every Instance must belong to an Organization)

2. Configure SAML (used for SSO)

3. Claim domain

4. Manage Password Policy and enforce 2FA (MFA)

5. Advanced Audit log / Insight

6. IP whitelisting (Premium feature)

Having the above in mind will let you decide on whether you should acquire Atlassian Access or you should not. However note that it is not free and comes with a 30 days free trial period and paid subscription afterward.

Why should Organizations get Atlassian Access?

In today’s technological era, there are many facets that comes with managing a growing or large organization and you cannot properly manage users when your Organization size is either growing or has grown. The challenges that comes with control who has access to what application, the cost of leaving licenses open to employees who has left the organization can make administration a nightmare.

Hence, when users can have easy access to the applications required for them to work and the security team knows or can audit activities done by each users which they can use to upgrade the organization’s security policy across system, it makes administration easier and less cumbersome.

Configuration

In order to configure Atlassian Access, you can follow the below step to get started.

1. Claim a domain → As an organization, you are recognized by the domain that each of your user uses. So for each user to be able to gain access to the Application from your domain, you will need to ensure that it has been verified. There are two methods used for verifications

   1. DNS

   2. HTTPS

2. Setup SAML → In order to configure SAML, you need to have registered with an SSO provider. A list is shown here on SSO providers which highlights the popular and common SSO providers available with using Atlassian Access.

3. Manage Users → Once a domain is claimed, you can easily manage your users and see what application access each user has by navigating to your Directory > Manage accounts from your organization Admin console.

4. Enforce Organization Policy → Once you’ve configured your users, you can then enforce policies such as 2FA and password policy which will apply to your users in your Organization.

Use Cases

1. One of the most prominent uses of Atlassian Access is the SSO, you can ensure that any users using any Atlassian Product under your domain should login through your SSO. Making user management federated across the entire Cloud Platform

2. You can secure your user’s login by enforcing MFA which ensures that a second authentication factor is applied by the user before accessing the Application. This increases the security on your Application and ensures that only authorized users can actually access it.

3. You can control the session duration of when a user can remain logged in the Application when they are idle. more details here

4. You can enforce change of password among users and set a policy for using strong password with their login. You can choose when to even apply the changes either immediately or during the user’s next password change.

5. You can whitelist which IP can login to the Application. This is actually a premium feature  available to products with a premium plan.

6. You can easily manage users by changing their email address if your organization transitions to a new domain

7. You have Advanced Audit log which can view activities across Products.

[Monika Rani]

@Prince Nyeche  Useful Information!