A Product Guide Created By People Who Run Projects
 

Tired of Passwords? These Project Management Solutions support Single Sign-On (SSO)

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If you are looking for a PM tool to be used by a team of people, consider the authentication topic.

Having to memorize or reset passwords will not make the user’s work easier, and you’ll need an admin to help people with their password issues.

A good project management tool should therefore integrate with existing authentication databases like Active Directory (via single sign-on).

Here’s a current overview of project management software with single sign-on (SSO) capability:

What is single sign-on (SSO)?

Single sign-on is a technical process which makes it unnecessary to have separate user accounts for each application. Instead, you log into your corporate network once, and from there, you can get into every application without having to log in using separate credentials.

That’s a very simple explanation, but it conveys the main point. For a more thorough coverage of SSO, check out ForgeRock’s article.

Project management software with single sign-on capability

The following solutions come with single sign-on built in (Note: it still requires effort to set up SSO in your organization).

Wrike

Wrike is a widely used, web-based project management solution that comes in different versions. The Enterprise version supports single sign-on using SAML 2.0, the industry standard protocol for federated authentication.

Implementing single sign-on for Wrike:

Smartsheet

Just like Wrike, Smartsheet can be considered the industry standard for project planning solutions. Smartsheet currently offers three single sign-on options, including Google Integration, Microsoft Azure Directory and the SAML 2.0 protocol which can be used with identity providers like Okta or ADFS.

Smartsheet’s Enterprise and Premier plans also offer the possibility to disable other login capabilities, which might be a good idea to avoid confusion on the side of end users.

Implementing single sign-on with Smartsheet:

Workzone

Workzone is a comprehensive project planning solution for the web. In terms of features, it’s on the same level as Wrike and Smartsheet. While the entry-level plans only support regular authentication, Workzone Enterprise version includes single sign-on (SSO).

Implementing single sign-on with Workzone:

Jira

Most probably, you’ve already heard of Jira or are already using it for issue tracking and software development. Atlassian’s solutions can all be SSO integrated with SAML (Security Assertion Markup Language), the standard authentication protocol.

If you don’t have an own IAM application which manages user identities centrally, you can SSO-enable Jira using the 3rd-party tool MiniOrange IDP.

Implementing single sign-on for Jira:

Clarizen

Clarizen is an enterprise-level project management solution widely used all across industries. Naturally, it supports single sign-on (SSO) through existing identity management solutions. The protocol used for integrating a Clarizen installation with your your identity provider is SAML. If you don’t have a central IAM application which manages user credentials, you can use MiniOrange, a 3rd-party app that will enable Clarizen for SSO.

Implementing single sign-on for Clarizen:

Workfront

Designed to meet the needs of large enterprises, Workzone offers a wide range of software integrations out of the box. This is great because it spares you the cost and effort to implement an additional middleware that handles user authentication for single sign-on.

Implementing single sign-on for Workfront:

Apart from the solutions listed above, there are project management tools that can be SSO-enabled using extra add-on software.

Projectmanager.com

According to its website, Projectmanager — a popular web-based project solution — has partnered with OneLogin to offer single sign-on authentication for its users. They also offer single sign-on through Google Apps for Work. We couldn’t find any further details about SSO integration on their website though.

Implementing single sign-on for Projectmanager:

Before you pick a PM solution, make sure you check the technical capabilities with respect to user authentication. You want to be absolutely on the safe side that the tool fully integrates with your existing software and system landscape.