How Elastic automates SaaS license optimization and access compliance

Whether you are searching for a product on an e-commerce site, hailing a car to the airport via a car share app, or looking for a job online, there’s a good chance that Elastic^® provides the underlying technology used to make this possible.

Elastic’s enterprise search, observability and security tools are used by thousands of top brands, supporting the next generation of digital business models.

Elastic’s SaaS management challenges

Elastic's "distributed by design" workforce structure, with over 3,000 employees working remotely across the globe, presents challenges in providing new hires with the right SaaS tools at the right time. 

“Without automated processes to help with security management, it’s really tough to set up new people just a few hours before their first day across multiple time zones,” says Bernard Isibor, Global Manager, IT Operations & Infrastructure at Elastic. “We were often working after hours and on weekends to make it all happen on time,” he adds.

Without automated processes to help with security management, it’s really tough to set up new people just a few hours before their first day across multiple time zones.

Bernard Isibor, Global Manager, IT Ops & Infrastructure

Ensuring security compliance during employee offboarding is just as crucial, with Bernard citing both timing and completeness as key factors in the company’s success. Whilst a direct sync between Elastic’s HR platform (Workday) and Okta automates the first step of removing access to a subset of SaaS apps, the IT team still had to ensure that all access and licenses were removed, that information was archived correctly, and that critical resources were transferred to the right people. 

Getting onboarding and offboarding right with Trelica

Elastic deployed Trelica’s SaaS management platform to replace a large part of manual onboarding and offboarding work with automated workflows that manage SaaS access across the employee lifecycle. 

Integrations with key systems such as Okta and Google Workspace maintain detailed Trelica user profiles for all ‘Elasticians’ - complete with basic HR information such as the employee’s line manager, department and hire/leaving dates.  Trelica then uses this information and works side-by-side with Elastic’s Identity Provider, Okta, to ensure new joiners are automatically provisioned into the applications they need, just in time for their first day of work.

As an employee leaves Elastic, offboarding workflows automatically remove access and licenses - via Okta and directly through app connectors. Leavers’ Google Drive folders are transferred to line managers to ensure business continuity and to prevent loss of important information. Likewise, emails are redirected to line managers so that work can continue uninterrupted when a team member leaves. 

“From onboarding to offboarding, Trelica automates the user lifecycle, which makes my life so much easier,” says Bernard. “Timely reports of any process exceptions ensure that we can take action and stay ahead of security compliance concerns.”

From onboarding to offboarding, Trelica automates the user lifecycle, which makes my life so much easier.

Bernard Isibor, Global Manager, IT Ops & Infrastructure

With automated processes for onboarding and offboarding, the Elastic team is saving time on manual work that can be better spent on strategic initiatives. Rusty Searle, Senior Director, Business Engagement at Elastic, says, “We’re savings hours each month with Trelica’s automated workflows, which means we can focus on what really matters: Giving our people the tools they need to maximize their productivity while ensuring our license footprint is constantly and automatically right-sized.” 

Elastic keeps SaaS apps right sized with Trelica

Trelica also helps the IT team to ensure that the company’s distributed workforce has access to all the best technology tools to drive their productivity and success - while keeping efficiency top of mind. 

“I can pull reports that show user engagement with our key SaaS apps,” says Rusty, “enabling us to make informed decisions about how many licenses to renew and how many can be ‘retired’ without impacting productivity.”

In addition to tactical reviews of license utilization prior to renewals, Trelica underpins a broader strategy of SaaS licensing efficiency by continuously identifying and addressing wasted spend. 

“If it seems like licenses aren’t being utilized, Trelica workflows will send Slack messages to ask colleagues if they still need that specific license,” adds Rusty. “Trelica creates a partnership between IT and the rest of the business that ensures we are meeting everyone’s tooling needs while making sure the related spend is optimized and delivering demonstrable ROI.”

In this way, Elastic has been able to reduce licensing costs for multiple applications, including Zoom, GitHub, Monday.com and Lucidchart. “We continually repurpose licenses from our portfolio in an automated manner which represents a significant ROI with Trelica” says Rusty.

The bottom line: security and peace of mind

While reducing SaaS spend is always going to be a win for the business, security compliance is the biggest overall benefit of Trelica at Elastic. Replacing largely manual employee onboarding and offboarding processes with automations has significantly improved efficiency and helped ensure security compliance management.

We’ve made significant savings by right-sizing our SaaS licenses, but you can’t put a price on security compliance and peace of mind, and that’s what Trelica’s automations give us.

Rusty Searle, Senior Director, Business Engagement

“Trelica also gives us full confidence that leavers can no longer access business apps or data, mitigating the material risk of a potential security breach, and taking a huge amount of pressure off of the team,” Rusty concludes.

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