Anywhere, Anytime: Streamlining IGA with Approvals by Email

We’ve all been there. You receive a time-sensitive access request from a colleague, but you are away from your desk. You now have two choices: drop everything you are doing to get to a computer and log in to your IGA to review and approve the request, OR you can leave your colleague hanging as the request sits in your inbox.  

Or perhaps you've been on the receiving end, waiting endlessly for that vital approval, wondering if you should chase it down or find a risky workaround.

Tedious access approval processes create unnecessary complications that leave everybody, from administrators to new hires, feeling frustrated. But at the end of the day, it’s about much more than just feelings. There are real risks involved. 

The Risks of Delayed Access Reviews & Approvals

It sounds benign, but the truth is that long turnaround times for IGA approvals can have a number of negative impacts, including increased security risks, hindered productivity, and higher operational costs that hurt your bottom line. 

Security Risks

• Privilege Creep: Failure to provision or deprovision access in real time can leave users with inappropriate access after their role changes, or worse, after they leave the company. 
• Temporary Workarounds: Desperate for access, users or IT staff might create "shadow IT" solutions or share credentials.
• Non-Compliance & Audit Failures: Delayed access certifications or reviews can hinder compliance with regulations (like FERPA, HIPAA, GDPR), leaving you at risk of hefty fines and penalties.  

Productivity Risks

• Delayed Access for New Hires: Failure to grant access to new hires keeps them from performing their job. 
• Increased Opportunity Cost: Long turnaround times for access or approvals can delay critical projects, impact deadlines and lead to missed opportunities.
• Poor User Experience: Long waits for approvals frustrate employees, reducing morale, and potentially impacting overall team performance.

Operational Risks

• Help Desk Burden: Tedious access approval workflows generate more help desk tickets for follow-ups, password resets, and troubleshooting, increasing the burden on your IT security teams and keeping them from work that adds tangible value. 
• Wasted Time & Effort: Forced to waste time chasing approvals, IT security teams don’t have the bandwidth to focus on strategic initiatives or core IT functions.

As you can see, while the direct cost of a delayed approval might seem negligible, the cumulative effect on security, productivity, and efficiency can harm your business and hamper growth. 

If only there was a better way. 

How KeyData Cyber’s Solution: Seamless Approval by Email

In an ideal world, a manager wouldn’t have to log into their IGA portal to review and approve access requests. They would receive an access request via email and be able to review and approve the request simply by replying to the email. 

KeyData Cyber’s innovative developers can help you achieve what you may have thought impossible, with a portable solution to streamline approvals via email. Our custom email integration offers significant benefits for any organization bottlenecked by the need for manual approvals. 

It's remarkably simple. When an IGA request requiring your approval is initiated, our integration sends a clear, concise email notification directly to your inbox. This email contains all the necessary details for the request. To approve or deny, simply reply to the email with a pre-defined command like "Approve" or "Deny." The system automatically processes your response and updates the IGA record.

Not sure if this can work for your tech stack? Our solution is vendor agnostic and truly portable. In fact, our experienced developers can seamlessly integrate our Approval by Email tool with any modern IGA solution you're currently using or considering. This time-saving solution allows administrators to approve or deny requests directly through their email, enabling timely review of new access requests, role-based access changes, elevated access needs, exceptions, and certification reviews. 

The benefits of our innovation are clear: approval by email saves time, improves productivity, and accelerates workflows by allowing managers to quickly respond to access requests in real time, wherever they may be. 

Ready to eliminate bottlenecks and embrace a new way to work? To learn more about our innovative technology accelerators and how we can help you simplify access management for your IGA system, contact us today.