Key Takeaways
- Single sign-on (SSO) lets users access many applications with one set of credentials, reducing password fatigue and login-related help desk calls.
- Managing identity from one central control point simplifies onboarding, offboarding, provisioning, and deprovisioning for internal employees and external partners.
- SSO strengthens enterprise security, supports regulatory compliance such as the Sarbanes-Oxley Act (SOX), and pairs naturally with multi-factor authentication (MFA).
- In regulated life sciences, SSO connections to validated cloud apps must be qualified and kept continuously compliant.
How much time and money does your company spend on password resets?
According to Okta, a secure cloud single sign-on (SSO) solution reduces login-related help desk calls by 75% and makes it 50% faster for users to adopt, Login to, and use new applications (apps).
Your company can easily deploy cloud connections to every app with such a solution.
The benefits of Single Sign-On (SSO)
With SSO, managing the identity of users is done in one place, which simplifies this responsibility for your IT team. Access for internal employees and external partners is managed and secured from a central control point.
User management in onboarding, offboarding, provisioning, and deprovisioning makes each experience smooth and efficient.
Staying continuously compliant isn’t an issue with SSO because you know who has access to what, and security issues can be addressed immediately.
Overall, you will significantly improve the user experience with faster login, increased productivity, and built-in security.
Security and compliance
OneLogin observes that when employees are asked to use separate passwords for each app, they usually don’t. They often use the same or similar passwords on multiple accounts. Let’s face it, requiring a different password for each app—and remembering them—is a lot to ask. Single sign-on reduces that cognitive burden.
Single sign-on improves enterprise security and helps your organization maintain regulatory compliance. For example, the Sarbanes-Oxley Act (SOX) addresses IT risks and control at its entity and activity levels. SSO enables you to meet those requirements. As a foundational access control, SSO complements a broader life sciences cybersecurity strategy that protects systems, identities, and sensitive data.
While SSO increases password strength, multi-factor authentication (MFA) verifies a user’s identity before logging in to your network or an application, which helps you maintain tighter controls.
Requiring a unique password for every app—and remembering them—is a lot to ask. Single sign-on removes that cognitive burden while making access stronger, not weaker.
SSO improves usability for employees
While security and compliance are significant benefits of SSO, it also improves your employees’ user experience. It saves them time switching between apps because they don’t have to remember (or look up; they are writing them down!) usernames and passwords.
Additionally, apps in your portal are automatically SSO enabled, contributing to better software adoption rates.
SSO lowers IT costs
Earlier, we said that SSO simplifies your IT team’s responsibilities because they manage the identity of users in one place. It also lowers your IT costs because they don’t have to store and manage login credentials for every user and app in an on-premises system.
Furthermore, employees, partners, and customers can be provisioned and de-provisioned across multiple apps in one action, so your IT teams don’t have to spend hours at a time on this task.
Four Ways SSO Strengthens Your Organization
- Centralized identity — manage who has access to what from a single control point across employees and partners.
- Stronger security and compliance — reduce password reuse, support SOX requirements, and layer in multi-factor authentication.
- Better usability and adoption — faster logins and automatically SSO-enabled apps drive higher software adoption.
- Lower IT cost — one-action provisioning and deprovisioning frees IT from managing credentials per user and per app.
How USDM Can Help
USDM has helped customers qualify their SSO platforms for Box, DocuSign, SharePoint, and other partners. We validate the connections to ensure that it works as intended. Because every connected platform and identity provider extends your attack surface, we recommend anchoring these decisions in a disciplined third-party risk management approach.
Coupled with USDM Cloud Assurance, your SSO solution will remain continuously compliant. Our best practices, accelerators, and automation significantly decrease your implementation, validation, and maintenance effort to simplify your deployment and adoption. The same access discipline underpins data integrity in life sciences, because trustworthy records depend on knowing exactly who accessed and changed them. As teams extend these controls to new technologies, pairing SSO with AI governance and compliance keeps emerging capabilities inside the same security and compliance guardrails.
FAQ: Single Sign-On for Life Sciences
What is single sign-on (SSO)?
Single sign-on is an authentication approach that lets users access multiple applications with one set of credentials managed from a central control point. It simplifies identity management for IT teams and removes the burden of remembering a separate password for every app.
How does SSO improve security?
SSO reduces password reuse and weak-password habits by lowering the cognitive burden on users, and it centralizes access so you always know who can reach which systems. Combined with multi-factor authentication, which verifies a user’s identity before granting access, it helps you maintain tighter controls and address security issues immediately.
Does SSO support regulatory compliance?
Yes. SSO helps organizations maintain regulatory compliance—for example, the Sarbanes-Oxley Act (SOX) addresses IT risks and controls at the entity and activity levels, and SSO enables you to meet those requirements. In regulated life sciences, centralized access control also supports expectations around system access and record integrity.
How does SSO lower IT costs?
Because identity is managed in one place, IT teams don’t have to store and manage login credentials for every user and app in an on-premises system. Employees, partners, and customers can be provisioned and deprovisioned across multiple apps in a single action, saving hours of administrative effort.
How does USDM help with SSO in regulated environments?
USDM has helped customers qualify their SSO platforms for partners such as Box, DocuSign, and SharePoint, validating the connections to confirm they work as intended. Paired with USDM Cloud Assurance, your SSO solution stays continuously compliant while best practices, accelerators, and automation reduce implementation, validation, and maintenance effort.