# Best User Provisioning and Governance Tools - Page 12 *By [Brandon Summers-Miller](https://research.g2.com/insights/author/brandon-summers-miller)* User provisioning and governance tools gives a single point of maintenance to manage user access to IT applications. Companies need identity governance and administration (IGA) programs to maintain organized records of user information such as personal information, account histories, or application credentials. These confidential records can be used by employees and administrators to retain information and regulations. IT managers and administrators use the information in these systems to automate tasks such as account creation, editing, or deleting, which can help facilitate employee lifecycle changes like onboarding, promotions, or termination. Human resource workers may utilize the databases as well to aggregate information about employees and monitor access requests. There is significant overlap between user provisioning software and cloud identity and access management. Many products function on a hybrid on­-premise and cloud level, but user provisioning and governance software solutions may not be able to provide remote access. These products will also often integrate with or provide SSO/federation or [password management](https://www.g2.com/categories/password-manager) capabilities. To qualify as user provisioning and governance solution, a product must: - Possess infrastructure to store and access identity information - Provide administrator tools to create access requirements - Automate processes related to identity administration - Provide security or authentication features to protect sensitive information ## How Many User Provisioning and Governance Tools Products Does G2 Track? **Total Products under this Category:** 189 ## How Does G2 Rank User Provisioning and Governance Tools Products? **Why You Can Trust G2's Software Rankings:** - 30 Analysts and Data Experts - 14,100+ Authentic Reviews - 189+ Products - Unbiased Rankings G2's software rankings are built on verified user reviews, rigorous moderation, and a consistent research methodology maintained by a team of analysts and data experts. Each product is measured using the same transparent criteria, with no paid placement or vendor influence. While reviews reflect real user experiences, which can be subjective, they offer valuable insight into how software performs in the hands of professionals. Together, these inputs power the G2 Score, a standardized way to compare tools within every category. ## Which User Provisioning and Governance Tools Is Best for Your Use Case? - **Leader:** [Okta](https://www.g2.com/products/okta/reviews) - **Highest Performer:** [tenfold](https://www.g2.com/products/tenfold-tenfold/reviews) - **Easiest to Use:** [Okta](https://www.g2.com/products/okta/reviews) - **Top Trending:** [Rippling IT](https://www.g2.com/products/rippling-it/reviews) - **Best Free Software:** [JumpCloud](https://www.g2.com/products/jumpcloud/reviews) --- **Sponsored** ### Rippling IT Transform your organization’s IT operations with Rippling’s unified platform for identity, device, access, and security management. Centralize every IT workflow, from provisioning apps and laptops to enforcing security policies, in a single dashboard. Seamlessly manage the entire employee lifecycle, automatically granting and revoking app access, configuring devices, and maintaining least-privilege controls. Enforce compliance with real-time monitoring, automated patching, and integrated endpoint protection. Streamline offboarding with instant lockouts and secure device recovery. Gain full visibility across hardware, software, and user risk without the complexity of multiple tools. Rippling helps your business cut costs, eliminate manual work, and strengthen security, so your team can move faster. Experience the power of unified IT management with Rippling today. [Visit website](https://www.g2.com/external_clickthroughs/record?secure%5Bad_program%5D=ppc&secure%5Bad_slot%5D=category_product_list&secure%5Bcategory_id%5D=255&secure%5Bdisplayable_resource_id%5D=255&secure%5Bdisplayable_resource_type%5D=Category&secure%5Bmedium%5D=sponsored&secure%5Bplacement_reason%5D=page_category&secure%5Bplacement_resource_ids%5D%5B%5D=255&secure%5Bprioritized%5D=false&secure%5Bproduct_id%5D=1640029&secure%5Bresource_id%5D=255&secure%5Bresource_type%5D=Category&secure%5Bsource_type%5D=category_page&secure%5Bsource_url%5D=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.g2.com%2Fcategories%2Fuser-provisioning-and-governance-tools%2Fenterprise&secure%5Btoken%5D=dc2f49212a69069573608d40cc5317684e2fd9aac725aecdb676226a5d8ee49a&secure%5Burl%5D=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.rippling.com%2Flp%2Fpaid-identity-access%3Futm_source%3Dg2crowd_cpc%26utm_medium%3Daffiliate%26utm_program%3Devergreen-conversion%26utm_term%3Duser-provisioning%26utm_campaign%3DUS-G2-PPC-IT%26utm_product%3Dit&secure%5Burl_type%5D=custom_url) --- ## What Is User Provisioning and Governance Tools? [Identity Management Software](https://www.g2.com/categories/identity-management) ## What Software Categories Are Similar to User Provisioning and Governance Tools? - [Single Sign-On (SSO) Solutions](https://www.g2.com/categories/single-sign-on-sso) - [Identity and Access Management (IAM) Software](https://www.g2.com/categories/identity-and-access-management-iam) - [Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA) Software](https://www.g2.com/categories/multi-factor-authentication-mfa) - [Risk-Based Authentication Software](https://www.g2.com/categories/risk-based-authentication-rba) - [Customer Identity and Access Management (CIAM) Software](https://www.g2.com/categories/customer-identity-and-access-management-ciam) - [Privileged Access Management (PAM) Software](https://www.g2.com/categories/privileged-access-management-pam) - [Passwordless Authentication Software](https://www.g2.com/categories/passwordless-authentication) --- ## How Do You Choose the Right User Provisioning and Governance Tools? ### What You Should Know About User Provisioning and Governance Tools ### What are user provisioning and governance tools and software? User provisioning and governance tools help companies automate the process of creating, permissioning, managing, and deactivating user accounts on corporate systems and applications across the enterprise. Typical use cases include user lifecycle stages such as setting up accounts for newly hired employees during onboarding and providing them access to the tools they need, changing user groups and permissions when employees are promoted or move within departments, and removing user accounts after an employee leaves the company. User provisioning and governance tools software automate user account creation by connecting information in user identity stores such as HR systems and/or user directories like Active Directory or G Suite to enterprise applications to systems that employees use such as email systems, databases, CRM systems, communication systems, employee productivity software, file storage systems, ERP applications, subscriptions, custom company applications, and more. There is considerable overlap between user provisioning and governance tools and [identity and access management (IAM) software](https://www.g2.com/categories/identity-and-access-management-iam) functionality, as both offer user provisioning and govern user access. User provisioning and governance solutions focus more specifically on user lifecycle and group management. At the same time, IAM software includes additional benefits, such as centralized identity functions for both on-premises and cloud accounts and providing user authentication before granting user access to corporate systems. ### **Key benefits of user provisioning and governance software solutions** - Automate user account lifecycle from provisioning during onboarding through de-provisioning after leaving the company - Grant access to applications and systems based on user type through role or group management functions - Reduce the time helpdesk team members need to spend manually creating users - Improve end-user experience by offering self-service tools and integrations with [single sign-on solutions](https://www.g2.com/categories/single-sign-on-sso) and [password management tools](https://www.g2.com/categories/password-managers) ### Why use user provisioning and governance systems? Using automated tools to manage user lifecycles, companies can eliminate manual user provisioning and de-provisioning tasks, which can ultimately reduce the burden on IT help desk teams and free up staff time for more high-level work. Deploying user provisioning and governance solutions reduces human error when creating accounts while reducing the threat of “permission creep" when accounts are not properly changed after promotions, demotions, or terminations. Using this software enables companies to manage large numbers of users at once by applying role or group policies across users in a standard fashion. **Setting up new hires —** Companies use user provisioning and governance tools to ensure new hires receive access to the accounts they need as quickly as possible during onboarding. If IT staff manually created user accounts, the process could take days, weeks, or even months and be prone to human error. **Removing access for terminated employees—** It is important to remove access for terminated employees as quickly as possible to prevent security risks, either from the terminated employees themselves or from hackers accessing abandoned user accounts. Using user provisioning and governance tools, companies can automatically de-provision user accounts when an employee is removed from an HR system or other identity store. **Enforcing role or group-based policies —** When managing hundreds (if not thousands) of user accounts, taking actions, such as providing access to new applications based on the users’ role or group types, can save a lot of time and get these users up and running quickly. For example, suppose all sales representatives should have access to a particular sales-related application. In that case, those user accounts can automatically be provisioned with access if they belong to the sales group. On the other hand, employees in the legal department may not need access to that sales application, so they would not be provisioned with an account for that specific sales software. **Security — ** Insider threats can occur when user accounts are given too much access for their job type, and employees use the information they shouldn’t have access to. For example, an intern-employee likely shouldn’t be given the same access to the company’s accounts, like an accounting system, as the chief operating officer has. Using role- and group-based policies, IT administrators can easily remove permissions no longer needed by a type or group of employees and prevent permission creep. **Reducing costs—** Labor ** ** is typically one of the highest expenses companies have. Using user provisioning and governance tools frees up time for IT help desk team members to do other higher-value work. Many user provisioning and governance tools solutions allow end-user self-service to make changes like name changes directly. ### Who uses user provisioning and governance software tools? Most companies would benefit from using identity governance software solutions to manage employee user account provisioning, management, and de-provisioning. In particular, companies with many employees and user accounts to manage, such as enterprise-level companies, would benefit from using identity governance platforms, as manual account creation is difficult, laborious, and prone to error. IT administrators and help desk teams typically manage user provisioning and governance tools within a company’s corporate structure. With automated lifecycle management, however, multiple stakeholders across the enterprise can work in tandem to ensure users are set up correctly and have the proper access. For example, HR representatives can change new hires or people who have left the company in the HR system. This information can be pulled by the user provisioning and governance tools system to automatically take actions on a user’s associated accounts. End users can use self-service tools to make changes to their user profile, like name or title changes. ### Features of user provisioning and governance tools At their core, user provisioning/governance software must, at minimum, provide tools to automatically provision and de-provision user accounts based on user identities and grant permissions based on governance rules for users to access specific enterprise applications. Many user provisioning/governance software offers additional features to further automate user account lifecycles and provide a better end-user experience. These features may include: **Automatic user provisioning and de-provisioning —** User provisioning/governance software pulls data from identity stores like [HR systems](https://www.g2.com/categories/core-hr) to provision new accounts. Specific access to accounts can be automated based on roles or group membership. When an employee leaves or is terminated or when a contractor’s contract date expires, the software can automatically terminate accounts to prevent abandoned accounts from living on in systems. **Lifecycle management —** The software takes user account actions throughout employee lifecycle changes from onboarding and promotions to termination. **Integrations —** A main tenet of user provisioning/governance software is integrating with other software applications such as HR systems, user directories, [ERP applications](https://www.g2.com/categories/erp-systems), [email systems](https://www.g2.com/categories/email), [databases](https://www.g2.com/categories/database-software), [CRM systems](https://www.g2.com/categories/crm), communication systems, employee productivity software, and [file storage systems](https://www.g2.com/categories/cloud-file-storage). **Identity synchronization —** User provisioning/governance software can synchronize identity information changes across multiple applications. For example, if a user changes their personal information, such as a phone number or title, in one system, those changes are pushed to their other applications in corporate systems. **Access governance, role/group management, and policy enforcement —** Governing who has access to what applications or systems is determined by a user’s role and group membership. Using role-based or group membership factors to determine what access a user should be granted ensures that access to a company application is granted uniformly and adheres to company policies. **Delegated access authorization—** When business managers need to give their subordinates access to company accounts or change their permissions, they can approve access using delegation workflows. **Access verification workflow —** User provisioning/governance software can regularly query managers to confirm their subordinates' access and whether changes need to be made. **Reports and audits—** User provisioning/governance software can conduct audits and provide reports on account usage, including account creation and deactivation. This may be a necessary feature for companies in highly regulated industries that need to periodically audit users. **User self-service and improved user experience —** Providing users with self-service functionality, such as allowing employees to change their names and titles directly in the system or being able to request access to specific applications for manager approval, can further remove manual processes off IT helpdesk staff and improve employee productivity. **Password management and single sign-on—** Many user provisioning and governance tools offer additional end-user benefits, such as password management and single sign-on functionality. Other Features of User Provisioning and Governance Tools: [Bi-directional identity synchronization](https://www.g2.com/categories/user-provisioning-and-governance-tools/f/bi-directional-identity-synchronization), [Identifies and alerts for threats](https://www.g2.com/categories/user-provisioning-and-governance-tools/f/identifies-and-alerts-for-threats), [Mobile app](https://www.g2.com/categories/user-provisioning-and-governance-tools/f/mobile-app) ### Emerging trends in user provisioning and governance Historically speaking, Microsoft’s product, Active Directory (AD), has been one of the most widely used directory services since its introduction in 1999. Because of AD’s large market share, it is worth mentioning that many other user provisioning and governance tools vendors generally offer both identity and user governance tools that integrate with AD or, conversely, offer entirely separate solutions that utilize their own directory service. Active Directory manages IT resources, stores information about users, groups, applications, and networks, and provides access to computers, applications, and servers. AD was initially designed for on-premises use cases. Still, given the shift to cloud computing and storage in the digital transformation, Microsoft introduced Azure AD, which extends an on-premises instance of AD to the cloud and synchronizes identities with cloud-based applications. Other user provisioning and governance tools offer cloud solutions tying into on-site AD instances. Many providers provide cloud-native solutions and robust [identity and access management (IAM)](https://www.g2.com/categories/identity-and-access-management-iam) tools. ### Software and services related to user provisioning and governance solutions User provisioning and governance tools are part of a complete identity management solution. Many user provisioning and governance tools providers natively have or integrate with other providers to offer: [**Single sign-on (SSO) software**](https://www.g2.com/categories/single-sign-on-sso) **—** Single sign-on (SSO) software allows users to access multiple corporate applications with one set of credentials. This gives users more access to their applications without logging in multiple times. Single sign-on (SSO) is achieved through federation by linking IT systems, applications, and identities to create a seamless user experience. [**Password manager software**](https://www.g2.com/categories/password-manager) **—** Password manager software helps end users manage their passwords by allowing them to create one master password to access the passwords associated with their accounts. This is different from single sign-on, which federates the identity to other applications, while password manager software merely provides a secure storage vault to house user passwords. [**Identity and access management (IAM) software**](https://www.g2.com/categories/identity-and-access-management-iam) **—** User provisioning and governance tools are a part of identity and access management (IAM) functionality, which allows IT administrators to quickly provision, de-provision, and change user identities. IAM software also authenticates users to ensure they are who they say they are before providing access to corporate assets. IAM software is a modern solution, especially for companies utilizing numerous cloud-based applications. [**Customer identity and access management (CIAM) software**](https://www.g2.com/categories/customer-identity-and-access-management-ciam) **—** Customer identity and access management (CIAM) software manages a company’s customer identities and accounts. CIAM is different from identity and access management (IAM) software. IAM is used for internal corporate use—such as managing the identities of internal employees or contractors—while CIAM is for customer-focused identity management. [**Privileged access management (PAM) software**](https://www.g2.com/categories/privileged-access-management-pam) **—** Privileged access management (PAM) software is a tool used to protect a company’s privileged account credentials. It is generally used by IT administrators and other super users with high-level access to applications, not everyday users. [**Multi-factor authentication (MFA) software**](https://www.g2.com/categories/multi-factor-authentication-mfa) **—** Before granting a user access to company assets, it is essential to authenticate that they are indeed who they say they are. This can be achieved using multi-factor authentication (MFA) software solutions such as SMS codes, mobile push, biometric verification, or email one-time-pass (OTP) pushes. For example, if an employee loses their laptop, the laptop and the accounts the employee has access to are generally rendered useless to someone else unless that person could spoof the employee’s other authentication factors.