SaaS Application Automation

Introduction:

IT Hub is growing the number of SaaS applications which offer automation integration.
As a customer of both the application and Electric, you can now integrate the two applications in order to expedite the creation and deactivation of employee accounts.

Benefits:

Automating the creation and deactivation of employees improves efficiency and security. It eliminates manual processes, reducing human error and ensuring employees have timely access to applications needed to do their jobs.
Automation supports a departing employee’s access being promptly revoked from applications - mitigating security risks.
It streamlines onboarding and offboarding, saving time for employees to get back to more strategic tasks in the day instead of manually managing application access for their coworkers.

Scope of the Current Automations in Each Application:

New account creation via email address
Existing account suspension/deactivation/deletion via email address (exact mechanism of removal will depend on the technology of the application itself)
Automation is enabled for only customers utilizing the Pro plan with IT Hub.

How to Set Up Automation:

Prerequisite: make sure you are an “admin” user within both the Electric IT Hub and the SaaS Application for your company to complete this process in just a few minutes. If you do not have an admin role in both applications, you’ll need to partner with that person at your company to complete the set up.

Step 1: Add Your Applications

Follow the addition modal instructions to add the application(s) to your IT Hub instance via the button on https://my.electric.ai/applications

Step 2: Confirm Automation Integration Availability

After adding your application(s), the application table will communicate the availability of the integration.
The possible statuses are: Inactive, Not Available, Connected.
Inactive label will indicate that an automation is possible, but needs to be connected.

Step 3: Connect Your Applications One by One

Each application will need to be connected within the individual application settings page.
Click in to the application and use the Connect button in the application settings box.
Clicking the button will open a new connection window.
This window will prompt you to allow the connection between the IT Hub and the application. Follow the instructions as given on this window - these will be unique to the application.
Once the application is successfully connected, you’ll be returned to the application settings page and the window will close.
If you’d like to configure the automation further, you can choose at this time to select for the automation to only create or only remove employees as desired.

Optional - Step 4: Ask Electric to Set Up Application Distribution via MDM

After onboarding a new employee, having their accounts successfully created via the automation integration, there is an optional step to streamline the onboarding if designed.
IT Hub contains a select list of applications in which the MDM provided via IT Hub will download the applications to your employee’s devices.
Today that list includes the following applications:
- Adobe Creative Cloud
- Asana
- Google Chrome
- Google Drive
- Notion
- Threatdown (Malwarebytes)
- Microsoft Office Suite
- Perimeter 81
- Slack
- Zoom
This will ease their onboarding process since their devices will be equipped with the applications once the employee installs MDM from the Electric Desktop App.
To figure out the list of applications and to enable this process, reach out to your Customer Success Manager or the Product Support team. Support for this process in the self service product will be added in the future.

If you are looking for information specific to Google Workspace, please utilize this help article for specific Google Workspace information.

How to Trigger an Automation Action:

Automations for creating or removing an employee from an application are only triggered by the onboarding or offboarding forms.
An administrator user must log in to the product and complete the action through the form for the employee in the IT Hub.
Other application requests in the IT Hub - such as one off access requests - do not use automation at this time but will be supported at a future time. Those requests will still require an assigned app champion to be notified and complete the action.

How to Confirm the Automation Succeeded:

Success states can be confirmed within the application itself and the IT Hub.
To confirm within the IT Hub, visit the Tasks page and look for an indication that Electric completed the task as the assignee, with the automation sparkle to indicate success.
To confirm within the application itself, navigate to the section that lists the users and their current state in that application. This will be unique per each case.

FAQs:

What Happens When an Automation Fails?

An automation most typically fails for the following reasons: there are no more licenses in the application available, there was a mismatch in the email address between the two applications, the integration was disconnected, or the integration communication between the two applications timed out.
When an error occurs, the IT Hub will notify the application champion - as configured in the IT Hub - to complete the request for their joining or departing coworker via an email and in the IT Hub via the tasks section.

How Does an Employee Login to the New Application?

Employees will get emails directly from the application itself when the creation succeeds. This email will be sent as soon as an administrator from the IT Hub submits the onboarding.
The employees will need to follow the instructions in the specific email to set up an account for themselves once it is time to access their work email.

What if I want to Set Specific Permission or Rule for Automation?

Customizations to the automation are not supported at this time.
Customizations such as which kind of license to grant at creation time (i.e, free versus paid account) or to add specific configurations on creation (i.e., specific calendars or channels) are not available at this time but will be supported in the future.

What if I want to Send the Account Creation Emails at a Specific Time?

This is not supported at this time in the IT Hub. All events to create or remove an employee from onboarding and offboarding are still considered “asap” or “on submit” and do not take into account any scheduling logic.
IT Hub has logic built in to prioritize the creation of the employee email in Google (and in the future Microsoft) so that the subsequent accounts created - if all applications are automated - utilize the new email.

What if I want a New Application to be Automated that is Currently in the “Not Available” State?

Please email product-support@electric.ai indicating which application you would like to add to automation.

What does it mean to see a BETA tag on an Application?

Applications with the BETA tag have not been tested thoroughly due to restrictions on the application’s plan level that is required to enable user automation. For example: automation is only enabled on the Enterprise+ Level plan.
If any issues are encountered with a BETA application, Electric’s team will be happy to work with you to resolve them as soon as possible. Please email product-support@electric.ai.

How Do I See All Applications with Automation Potential in a Single View?

In the Settings section of the Electric IT Hub, navigate to the Integrations tab.
It can be accessed directly via this link.

Who is Nango?

Electric utilizes Nango’s technology to connect some of the applications to the IT Hub.
It is expected that you might encounter Nango’s name, branding, or other network calls when attempting to connect applications from the IT Hub during “Step 3” listed above.
To learn more about Nango, please visit their site: https://www.nango.dev/