How do you measure SSO adoption and usage across your applications?

1 Benefits of SSO

Single Sign-On (SSO) offers numerous advantages for both users and organizations. It can reduce password fatigue and complexity for users, who only need to remember one login and password for multiple applications. SSO also enhances security and compliance by minimizing the risk of password breaches, phishing, and identity theft, while enabling centralized access management and auditing. Moreover, it can improve productivity and efficiency by streamlining the login process and reducing the need for password resets and support requests. Furthermore, it increases user satisfaction and loyalty by providing a seamless and consistent user experience across different applications and devices.

2 SSO adoption rate

One of the most important metrics to measure SSO success is the adoption rate, which indicates how many users are using SSO to access your applications. The adoption rate can be calculated by dividing the number of unique users who logged in via SSO by the total number of unique users who accessed your applications in a given period. A high adoption rate means that most of your users are taking advantage of SSO and enjoying its benefits. A low adoption rate may indicate that your users are not aware of SSO, have trouble using it, or prefer other login methods.

3 SSO usage frequency

Another metric to measure SSO effectiveness is the usage frequency, which indicates how often users are logging in via SSO to your applications. The usage frequency can be calculated by dividing the total number of SSO logins by the total number of unique users who logged in via SSO in a given period. A high usage frequency means that your users are accessing your applications frequently and consistently using SSO. A low usage frequency may indicate that your users are accessing your applications sporadically or switching between SSO and other login methods.

4 SSO performance

To get a complete understanding of your SSO solution, you should measure its performance. Authentication time, availability, error rate, and user feedback are all metrics that can help you evaluate how fast and reliable your SSO is. Authentication time measures how long it takes for a user to log in via SSO, from entering their credentials to accessing the application. Availability measures the percentage of time that your SSO service is up and running without errors or downtime. Error rate looks at the percentage of SSO login attempts that result in errors or failures. User feedback helps you understand how satisfied your users are with their SSO experience, such as ease of use or suggestions for improvement.

5 SSO analytics tools

To measure SSO adoption, usage, and performance, analytics tools can be used to collect, analyze, and report data from your SSO service and applications. For instance, SSO provider dashboards provide basic metrics such as adoption rate, usage frequency, authentication time, availability, and error rate. Additionally, third-party tools integrated with applications offer more detailed insights about users and their behavior. User feedback tools can also be utilized to gather ratings, reviews, comments, or surveys from users to understand their satisfaction and pain points with SSO.

6 SSO best practices

By leveraging the data and insights from your SSO analytics tools, you can identify the strengths and weaknesses of your SSO solution and implement best practices to optimize it. To promote SSO awareness and education, provide clear and consistent instructions, guides, FAQs, or tutorials on your website, app, or email. To simplify the SSO login process, reduce the number of steps, clicks, or redirects, use familiar and recognizable branding and design, and provide helpful feedback and error messages. To secure your SSO service, use strong encryption, authentication, and authorization protocols, implement multi-factor authentication (MFA) or adaptive authentication (AA) options, and follow industry standards and regulations. Additionally, to monitor and improve SSO performance, test and optimize your network, infrastructure, and configuration; resolve issues and errors promptly; and update your service regularly.

7 Here’s what else to consider

This is a space to share examples, stories, or insights that don’t fit into any of the previous sections. What else would you like to add?