Department of Veterans Affairs
Enabling Agile Development with
Automated Self-Service for IAM Integrations
Early Adoption
10+ partners onboarded
Manual Effort Replaced
Self-service IAM provisioning
Shift-Left Learning
Self-service iterative configuration testing
Runtime Compliance
Policy checks embedded at integration
Context
The traditional process for integrating applications with the VA’s centralized Identity and Access Management (IAM) services was highly manual, requiring significant handholding and translation of paper-based integration instructions into executable configurations. This dependency on manual tasks delayed partner onboarding and required a fully provisioned partner before integration could even begin.
Challenge
The primary challenge was to offload manual tasks from the IAM development team by creating an automated, self-service enablement capability. The goal was to empower partners to initiate and manage integrations early in their discovery cycles, without relying on development resources for guidance or provisioning.
Enabled self-service provisioning of applications, eliminating reliance on manual processes
Solution
greenthreads designed and implemented a fully functional, user-friendly, UI-based self-service platform to enable partners to provision and update their integrated applications directly with VA IAM systems. The solution supports modern authentication patterns (SAML and OIDC) based applications, providing a standards-compliant framework for integrations. This self-service capability not only shifts control to partners but also incorporates automated compliance checks to ensure integrations align with IAM policies during runtime.
Result
- Streamlined and automated the partner onboarding process.
- Enabled self-service provisioning of applications, eliminating reliance on manual processes.
- Integrated automated compliance checks into the runtime, ensuring adherence to IAM policies.
Early Adoption
10+ partners onboarded
Manual Effort Replaced
Self-service IAM provisioning
Shift-Left Learning
Self-service iterative configuration testing
Runtime Compliance
Policy checks embedded at integration
Benefit
The self-service automated provisioning solution significantly enhances VA’s agile development capabilities by:
- Supporting “shift-left” integrations, allowing functionality to be vetted earlier in the development cycle.
- Reducing the need for development team involvement in integration tasks.
- Increasing efficiency and productivity with on-demand provisioning and re-provisioning, enabling iterative testing and learning.
- Minimizing errors by replacing error-prone manual processes with automated workflows.
greenthreads’ solution empowers VA partners with the tools to independently manage their IAM integrations, accelerating development cycles, reducing bottlenecks, and ensuring secure, standards-based integrations at scale.
