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OneID overview

Zuora

OneID overview

This article provides an overview of Zuora OneID, including the key features and concepts, such as organization, tenant, user, user role, and user group.

Overview

Zuora OneID is a robust identity and access management (IAM) platform designed to enhance security and streamline user access across various Zuora applications and services. Zuora OneID is a specialized solution for Zuora applications, offering a comprehensive approach to managing employee identities and overseeing their activities within Zuora environments, ensuring compliance with regulatory standards. To know more, take a look at the Overview of Zuora OneID video.

For more information about how to get started, see Get started with OneID.

Key Attributes for Onboarding with Zuora OneID

The importance of onboarding with Zuora OneID is emphasized by the following essential features and use cases.

Seamless Single Sign-On (SSO) Integration

Zuora OneID features Single Sign-On functionality, enabling users to access multiple applications with a single set of credentials. By reducing the need for multiple usernames and passwords, this not only enhances security but also improves user experience. With Zuora OneID, you can enjoy IdP-initiated SSO using the SAML 2.0 protocol and effortlessly connect with leading Identity Providers (IdP) such as Okta, Azure AD, Google, Redhat, OneLogin, and more.

Universal Identity

Zuora OneID acts as a centralized repository for user profiles and identity information across various Zuora applications and services. With a single set of credentials, you can effortlessly access multiple Zuora tenants, eliminating the need to remember and manage multiple passwords.

User Lifecycle Management

From start to finish, Zuora OneID oversees the entire lifecycle of user identities, including onboarding and offboarding. This involves managing user provisioning, de-provisioning, and profiles across multiple Zuora applications to ensure effective and secure user identity management.

Authorization and Access Policies

Organizations can use Zuora OneID to establish and enforce access policies through security or user groups, guaranteeing appropriate access levels for users according to their roles. Security groups enable users to simultaneously hold different roles across multiple Zuora applications.

Automated User Provisioning

Zuora OneID facilitates secure automation of user identity data exchange between service providers and Zuora through SCIM APIs. The cost and complexity of user management operations are reduced through this integration.

Security and Compliance

Zuora OneID ensures compliance with industry security standards and certifications. With aggregated data across all Zuora applications, organizations can effortlessly monitor user and role creations, assignments, and access details for auditing purposes.

Organization and tenants

An organization refers to a company contracted with Zuora. A tenant refers to a Zuora tenant in any environment or type. Typically, an organization owns multiple tenants for different purposes, such as development, testing, and production.

Users in OneID

A OneID user refers to a user account in OneID. A user represents a person with a specific identity (for example, administrator, developer, operator, and so on) in your organization.

There are two user types in OneID: Organization Admin and Standard User.

Organization admins

Organization admins have access to the OneID Admin Console, where they can create or edit users, user roles, and user groups for your organization. In addition, organization admins can perform any actions that standard users can do, such as link tenant users, and access Zuora tenants with OneID.

The capabilities of an organization admin are as follows:

Standard users

Standard users use OneID as a single entry point to access Zuora tenants.

The capabilities of a standard user are as follows:

Distinguish OneID users from tenant users

Tenant users refer to users created in Zuora tenants. Similar to OneID users, a tenant user represents a specific identity in your Zuora tenant.

To access a Zuora tenant with OneID, you need to link a tenant user in that tenant to your OneID user. Then, you can access the tenant on your OneID portal.

The following table shows examples of common identities in OneID and your Zuora tenants, and the relationships between these identities.

Employee Responsibility Identity (user type) in OneID Identity in Zuora tenants
Employee A Running your organization Organization admin Administrator
Employee B Managing user accounts in OneID Organization admin N/A
Employee C Managing user accounts in your Zuora tenants Standard user Administrator
Employee D Managing transaction data in your Zuora tenants Standard user Operator
Employee E Developing transaction system for your organization Standard user Developer

In this example, the only task for employee B is managing user accounts in OneID; this employee does not need to log in to your Zuora tenants. So the identity of this employee in OneID is organization admin, and there is no corresponding tenant user in your Zuora tenants.

However, employee C, who manages tenant user accounts, is a standard user in OneID, and an administrator in your Zuorate tenants.

For more information, see Access Zuora tenants with OneID and Link tenant users to OneID.

User roles in OneID

A OneID user role represents a user identity with permissions for Zuora products in a specific Zuora tenant.

A OneID user role consists of a group of tenant user roles in a Zuora tenant. This group of tenant user roles defines permissions for Zuora products such as Zuora Platform, Billing, Payments, Finance, Commerce, Reporting, and Insight. You can customize user roles in OneID to meet your business needs.

The following table shows three examples of OneID user roles and subordinate tenant user roles in a specific Zuora tenant:

  • User Role A: an administrator user role of this Zuora tenant
  • User Role B: a standard user role of this Zuora tenant
  • User Role C: a customized user role of this Zuora tenant
Zuora product User Role A User Role B User Role C
Zuora Platform Administrator Standard User Customized Platform User
Billing Zuora Billing Standard User Zuora Billing Standard User Zuora Billing Standard User
Payments Zuora Payments Standard User Zuora Payments Standard User Zuora Payments Standard User
Finance Zuora Finance Administrator Zuora Finance Standard User Zuora Finance Administrator
Commerce Zuora Commerce Admin User Zuora Commerce Standard User Zuora Commerce Standard User
Reporting Zuora Reporting Administrator Zuora Reporting Standard User Zuora Reporting Standard User
Insight Zuora Insights Administrator Zuora Insights Standard User Zuora Insights Standard User

For more information, see Manage user roles in OneID.

Distinguish OneID user roles from tenant user roles

Tenant user roles are user roles created in a Zuora tenant. A tenant user role defines permission for a specific Zuora product. In contrast, a OneID user role contains a set of tenant user roles, which includes permissions for all Zuora products in that tenant.

In the above example, User Roles A, B, and C are of OneID. Zuora Billing Standard User, Zuora Payments Standard User, and Zuora Commerce Admin User are tenant user roles.

For more information about tenant user roles and permissions in Zuora tenants, see User roles.

User groups in OneID

A OneID user group contains a group of Zuora tenants and the corresponding OneID user roles. You can add a user to one or multiple user groups. The first group a user is added to has the highest priority by default. The administrator can adjust the priority manually.

If a specific tenant is defined in multiple groups which contain the same user, the user inherits user roles and permissions from the highest-priority group. If a specific tenant is not defined in the highest-priority group, but defined in a user group with a lower priority, the user inherits user roles and permissions from the lower-priority group.

Zuora OneID provides an efficient way to manage access permissions, enhance security, and streamline administrative tasks through user groups.

Access Control

Permissions are assigned to groups rather than individual users, allowing dynamic updates to access permissions by adding or removing users from a group.

Efficient Resource Management

Dynamic updates to access permissions occur when users are added or removed from a security group, ensuring consistency and reducing the risk of human error.

Security and Compliance

Uniform security policies are enforced across user groups, facilitating compliance audits and ensuring adherence to organizational security policies.

Streamlined Administration

User groups simplify the management of user accounts throughout their lifecycle, allowing administrators to globally apply changes and ensure consistent security policies across the organization.

Examples of User Groups in Zuora
  • Billing Manager / Billing Operations Specialist - Oversees the billing processes, ensuring accuracy, timeliness, and efficiency in invoicing customers. 
  • Subscription Manager - Manages the subscription lifecycle, including customer acquisition, retention, and upgrades. 
  • Revenue Operations Manager - Focuses on optimizing revenue-related processes, aligning sales and marketing efforts, and ensuring accurate financial reporting. 
  • Billing Analyst - Analyzes billing data, identifies trends, and provides insights to improve billing processes.
  • Subscription Analyst - Analyzes subscription data, monitors customer behavior, and recommends strategies for improving subscription metrics.
  • Revenue Analyst - Examines revenue streams, analyzes financial data, and provides insights to optimize revenue generation.
  • Billing Specialist - Handles day-to-day billing tasks, resolves customer billing inquiries, and ensures billing accuracy.

The following table shows two examples of user groups and subordinate user roles:

OneID user group OneID user role User group priority
Group 1: Billing Manager
  • Billing Manager Role for Prod Tenant
1
Group 2: Billing User
  • Billing User Role for Prod Tenant
  • Billing User Role for SBX Tenant
2

In this example, if a user is added to both Group 1 and Group 2 (Group 1 has a higher priority), this user gets the following user roles:

  • Billing Manager Role for Prod Tenant
    Because both groups contain a user role for Prod Tenant, the user inherits this user role from a higher-priority group (Group 1).
  • Billing User Role for SBX Tenant
    Because only Group 2 contains a user role for SBX Tenant, the user inherits this user role from a lower-priority user group (Group 2).

For more information, see Manage user groups in OneID.