Texas A&M University-Corpus Christi Case Study
The Challenges
Texas A&M University-Corpus Christi (TAMU-CC) was reliant upon a homegrown identity management solution that was handling 143,000 identities. The solution began as a task for a student worker who was later hired and managed the solution for over 20 years. There were some common challenges that were being experienced from similar in house developed solutions:
- There was minimal documentation describing the functionality
- Difficult to get changes introduced which took executive authority approvals
- Still required some level of manual paper processes for workflows
- Needed automation to address disabling identities to avoid orphaned accounts
The Solutions
Texas A&M University-Corpus Christi chose Fischer Identity based on extensive experience in higher education that offered a full suite of identity management products. The first priority was to implement Fischer Identity for user lifecycle management and self-service capabilities. These two areas were critical as student success equated to the institution’s success.
This Included:
- Automation of employees/student identities for provision/deprovision from Sources of Authority (SOA )
- Self-Service portal for requesting affiliate/guest/Active Directory Service Accounts/Privileged AD Account/ MySQL Database/departmental web/individual web identities automated with approvals where appropriate
- Student identities deleted 365 days after a status date from Banner view and employee identities deleted 180 days after termination from Workday view
The Results
The focus was on simplifying workflows to reduce complexity
and improve the user experience, this was accomplished in
areas such as:
- Identity claiming, profile updates, MFA enrollment, etc.
- Reducing the overall number of accounts which reduces password and inherently provides less risk exposure
- Improve self-service experience, increase functionality
- Ensuring users are provided the right access at the right time via automation
- Reduce calls to the service desk for provisioning requests and password resets for tangible time and cost savings
- Improved research and collaboration via SSO and Federation
- Automate manual processes and reduce human error
- Added automated audit and reporting ability translating into perfect scores in the identity audit
- Reduced admin overhead enabling the focus on more strategic initiatives
- Introduced adaptability for new connected systems to be introduced quickly
Summary
Introducing extensive automation to reduce human error
and to control costs from a fully supported identity management solution was achieved. Other critical objectives
included additional levels of security to minimize risk for
data breaches, increase overall efficiency – and not only automation – but improving processes during implementation.
Users now have secure and easy access to applications and
the university can now ensure onboarding or de-provisioning
of students and managing faculty/staff based on their roles
is done securely per university policies and regulations.
Overall, the Fischer Identity engagement was deemed a
great success by management.
About Texas A&M University-Corpus Christi
Texas A&M University-Corpus Christi is a vibrant Doctoral Research Institution recognized for its academic programs
and renowned faculty. Undergraduate, master’s, and doctoral students choose from more than 85 academic programs,
and students benefit from individualized and immersive learning experiences. The university is one of 135 institutions
listed as an R2-High Research Activity campus by the Carnegie Commission on Higher Education. It is the premier, urban doctoral-granting institution in South Texas, supporting a UAS test site, two institutes, and more than 40 research
centers and labs that proudly continues its heritage of teaching excellence, innovation, and community engagement as
part of the Texas A&M University System.
