Originally published Oct 8, 2019. Updated Feb 23, 2021.

At Corevist, our clients often request SSO (single sign on) integration with the Corevist Platform, either as part of their initial launch or as a subsequent enhancement. Since “SSO” can cover so many use cases, we wanted to go over the most common SSO use cases we see (and what they look like in a Corevist Platform scenario).

First off: What the Corevist Platform covers without SSO

Since the Corevist Platform covers multiple business functions, it’s worth noting those business processes which don’t require SSO. Depending on your chosen product edition, here’s what the Corevist Platform covers (real-time SAP integration included):

– Order history, order status, line item status, & shipment status checks

– Shopping, browsing, product compare, configurable products, and more

– Online ordering

– Invoice payments and self-service account management

– Compare Corevist Platform Editions for full details.

An SSO integration allows you to unify Corevist access with access to 3rd party apps that cover business processes outside the scope of Corevist. Here are the most common use cases—we cover each of them in detail below:  

1. Allow internal users to authenticate to Corevist via your corporate active directory

2. Allow your customers to authenticate to Corevist using credentials from your corporate website

3. Allow your customers to authenticate to Corevist via their own corporate active directory

4. Allow your customers to authenticate to Corevist using their credentials from Salesforce

5. Allow your customers to authenticate to Corevist using their credentials from G Suite

1. Allow internal users to authenticate to Corevist via your corporate active directory

In this use case, the goal is to make life simpler for your Sales reps, CSRs (customer service reps), or any internal user who has access to an internal application and also needs access to Corevist.

The sky’s the limit here. Your SSO solution can cover as many apps as your employees need to access, and it authenticates against your corporate active directory.

Also note that we can authenticate to Corevist via your existing SSO solution, or build one for you.

2. Allow your customers to authenticate to Corevist using credentials from your corporate website

If you have a corporate website with a unique login that isn’t tied to your corporate active directory, you can use those credentials to authenticate to Corevist, too.

We see this use case for companies that have a disconnected catalog website and haven’t elected to unify their catalog with their Corevist web channel.

In this scenario, your customers can log in to your catalog site and Corevist through one sign-on. Note, however, that they can’t place orders from the catalog. This is why we recommend using the Corevist Platform for your entire web channel, so customers don’t have to type in the SKUs they want to order in Corevist after browsing a separate catalog.

3. Allow your customers to authenticate to Corevist via their own corporate active directory

This is a more specialized use case, and it requires coordination with your customers. The idea is to make it easier for your customers to buy from you by authenticating their Corevist login against their own corporate active directory.

We see this with clients who have only a few major customers (i.e. manufacturers whose customers are a limited number of distributors). Since the number of customers covered in the SSO integration is relatively low, it’s feasible to authenticate each customer against their company’s active directory.

Note that we don’t recommend this solution for manufacturers with hundreds or thousands of customers. It’s simply not feasible at that scale.

4. Allow your customers to authenticate to Corevist using their credentials from Salesforce

If your customers are part of Salesforce Community, and therefore aren’t in your corporate active directory, you can empower them to log on to Corevist with the same credentials they use for Salesforce. This makes their workflow easier–and since both Corevist and Salesforce are cloud apps, this doesn’t add any complexity to your in-house IT architecture.  

5. Allow your customers to authenticate to Corevist using their credentials from G Suite

This use case is straightforward. If you want to simplify login for your customers, and you know some of them use G Suite, you can offer them SSO via their G Suite credentials. 

That way, when they’re already logged in to other G Suite applications which they use for work, logging into Corevist is seamless and easy.