Automated Organization Resources (AORs)

At Built, we faced a significant challenge common to many IT organizations: lifecycle management of resources across multiple applications in our core productivity stack, which includes Google Workspace, Slack, Atlassian, and 1Password. Frequent requests to create Google Groups, Shared Drives, Slack channels, and other resources led to a cumbersome manual process. Memberships quickly became outdated as employees changed roles, departments, or left the company. Existing solutions, like linking “Push Groups” from Okta to applications such as Slack or Google, didn’t fully address the core issue of provisioning and deprovisioning resources in a dynamic organizational structure.

To solve this, we developed a fully custom in-house solution called Automated Organizational Resources (AORs). AORs not only manage membership of resources across our core applications but are also extensible enough to provision, update, and delete the resources themselves—such as Shared Drives, Shared Calendars, Slack Groups, 1Password Vaults, and Jira Teams—as structural changes occur within the organization. This solution has virtually eliminated all manual work associated with maintaining resources tied to divisions, departments, subdepartments, teams, people groups, or the entire organization. Team members now receive real-time access to necessary resources as they join or change roles within the company.

• Streamline Resource Provisioning: Automate the creation, updating, and deletion of resources across core applications in response to organizational changes.
• Automate Membership Management: Ensure real-time, accurate membership across all resources as employees join, move within, or leave the company.
• Enhance Onboarding Experience: Provide new team members immediate access to all relevant resources, enabling them to contribute from day one.
• Reduce Manual Workload: Eliminate the need for manual intervention in resource lifecycle management, freeing up IT resources for other critical tasks.
• Improve Data and Process Architecture: Develop an impressive and scalable data and process architecture to support the automation.

• Project Leadership: Spearheaded the initiative from concept to implementation, identifying the core issues and defining the project scope.
• Solution Design: Architected the overall solution, leveraging REST APIs of our core applications and utilizing Okta Workflows as the automation platform.
• Automation Development:
  • Built automations to handle provisioning, updating, and deletion of resources across Google Workspace, Slack, Atlassian, and 1Password.
  • Developed logic to manage memberships in real-time, aligned with organizational changes.
• Integration of BuiltBot:
  • Enhanced our in-house user-facing Slack bot, BuiltBot, to communicate resource access changes to team members in real time.
  • Enabled BuiltBot to provide direct links to resources, improving user experience and engagement.
• Data and Process Architecture:
  • Designed an extensible data model to support various organizational structures (Division, Department, Subdepartment, Team, People Group).
  • Ensured scalability and adaptability of the architecture to accommodate future growth and changes.
• Cross-Functional Collaboration: Worked closely with HR, IT, and department heads to align the solution with company policies and workflows.

Challenges

• Complex Lifecycle Management: Needed to account for dynamic organizational structures and frequent changes in team compositions.
• Integration Across Multiple Platforms: Had to seamlessly integrate with various applications, each with its own API limitations and requirements.
• Real-Time Synchronization: Ensuring that changes in organizational structure reflected immediately across all resources and applications.
• User Communication: Developing an effective method to notify users of resource changes without causing information overload.
• Low-Code Limitations: Pushed the boundaries of what could be achieved with a low-code platform like Okta Workflows.

Solutions and Achievements

• Custom Automation Framework:
  • Built a robust automation framework using Okta Workflows, despite its low-code nature, achieving impressive data and process architecture.
  • Leveraged REST APIs to interact with each application, enabling full control over resource lifecycle.
• Dynamic Membership Management:
  • Implemented automations that adjust resource memberships in real time as employees change roles, ensuring they have appropriate access at all times.
• Resource Provisioning and Deprovisioning:
  • Automated the creation and deletion of resources (e.g., Shared Drives, Slack Channels) as organizational units are formed or disbanded.
• Enhanced Onboarding Process:
  • Streamlined onboarding by providing new hires immediate access to all necessary resources, reducing ramp-up time.
• BuiltBot Integration:
  • Utilized BuiltBot to communicate changes to users effectively, providing direct links and reducing confusion.
• Reduced Manual Effort:
  • Eliminated the need for manual updates to resource memberships and provisioning, significantly reducing the IT team’s workload.
• Scalability:
  • Designed the solution to be extensible, allowing for easy addition of new applications or organizational units in the future.

The implementation of Automated Organizational Resources (AORs) has transformed our resource management processes. We have eliminated virtually all manual tasks associated with maintaining resource memberships and provisioning across our core applications. Team members now receive immediate access to necessary resources when they join or change roles, enhancing productivity and collaboration from day one. The solution has also significantly reduced the workload on our IT team, allowing them to focus on more strategic initiatives.

By developing a custom, scalable automation solution, we effectively addressed the complex challenge of lifecycle management for resources across multiple applications. This project showcases the power of innovative thinking and leveraging existing technologies to create impactful solutions. It highlights my ability to lead complex projects, design robust architectures, and improve organizational efficiency through automation.