FAQs

Have questions about Conformity and our platform? Here are answers to some frequently asked questions:

• What does Conformity do?
• Why should I care about centralizing the management of users across all of my cloud-based applications?
• What critical business issue does Conformity address?
• What cloud applications does Conformity support?
• What are the benefits of Conformity management?
• How does Conformity help with auditing and regulatory compliance?
• How does Conformity work?
• How does Conformity integrate with my existing Active Directory systems?
• How long does it take to implement Conformity?
• How will Conformity save me time in managing users?
• How does Conformity give me centralized visibility into my cloud deployments?
• How secure is Conformity’s on-demand solution?

What does Conformity do?

Conformity offers the first enterprise-class management and governance platform for cloud applications. Conformity’s breakthrough solution enables companies to gain visibility and control over access to and usage of Cloud applications such as Salesforce.com, NetSuite, Google Apps, SuccessFactors, and Xactly.  The Conformity platform does this by providing centralized management and reporting for cloud applications and their users, which eliminates costly, time-intensive, manual processes and reduces the risk of failed audits and corporate data loss.  The Conformity solution itself is provided as an on-demand service, with on-premise connectors for customers seeking to integrate cloud applications with existing directory services and on-premise identity management tools.

Why should I care about centralizing the management of users across all of my cloud-based applications?

Without centralized visibility and control of cloud application users, access rights, permissions and usage activity, enterprises are exposed to significant data security and compliance risks.  Redundant ‘silos’ of cloud application and administration along with manual, spreadsheet-based management processes result in unnecessary cost and operational risk to the company.

What critical business issue does Conformity address?

Conformity provides the visibility enterprise IT executives need to ensure that access and usage of cloud applications is consistent with corporate policies and controls.  By providing an equal or superior level of management and control that currently exists for on-premise applications, Conformity enables organizations to reduce the cost and risk of cloud adoption while preserving all the benefits of an on-demand consumption model.

What cloud applications does Conformity support?

The Conformity platform provides comprehensive templates, tools and workflow needed to manage all SaaS or cloud-based applications in a customer’s environment. Conformity also provides additional deeper analytics, more robust reporting, and more extensive provisioning automation through our proprietary integrations with the following cloud applications:

• Salesforce.com
• NetSuite
• Google Apps
• Xactly
• ADP
• OpenAir
• QuickArrow

As we are continuously expanding our support, please check the Partner section of our website for the most current list of automated integrations.

What are the benefits of Conformity management?

Conformity provides the following benefits to midsize and large enterprise customers:

• Enhanced data security and reduced compliance risk – reduces risk of failed audits, fraud and corporate data loss or theft due to unauthorized access to sensitive financial, customer and employee data
• Optimized subscription allocation – provides visibility needed to eliminate spend on unused or underutilized seats and to optimize usage and allocation
• Automated administration – enables IT efficiency through streamlining of redundant, manual administrative activities including provisioning and de-provisioning users to applications

How does Conformity help with auditing and regulatory compliance?

The Conformity solution helps ensure that controls are in place that provide reasonable assurance that access to sensitive financial, customer and HR data in cloud applications is restricted to authorized users only, and that roles and responsibilities are appropriately segregated.  The Conformity platform provides centralized, cross-application reporting that dramatically reduces the time and cost associated with audit preparation and response for SOX, PCI, HIPAA and other major regulatory mandates and industry standards.

How does Conformity work?

The Conformity solution itself is provided as an on-demand service, with optional on-premise connectors for customers seeking to integrate cloud applications with their existing directory services and identity management tools.

How does Conformity integrate with my existing Active Directory systems?

Conformity integrates with customers’ Active Directory systems through a small, on-premise software service that monitors Active Directory events and communicates those events related to employee provisioning, de-provisioning and change events to Conformity’s on-demand management platform. This allows Conformity’s management platform to be kept current with business decisions that have been captured in Active Directory.

How long does it take to implement Conformity?

The deployment and implementation time for the Conformity solution depends on the number of employees and cloud applications at a given customer site.  Conformity’s methodologies and automated configuration tools enable most midsize enterprise customers to be operational in a week or less.

How will Conformity save me time in managing users?

Conformity provides a centralized point of management for all of a customer’s cloud applications and users. Administrators can create, define and manage normalized role, profile and permission models and apply them across their cloud applications.  These models, combined with Conformity’s approval workflow capabilities and cloud vendor integrations, enable customers to streamline and automate user provisioning, de-provisioning and change events across the employee lifecycle.  This enables customers to dramatically reduce the time and effort associated with managing their various cloud applications and users.

How does Conformity give me centralized visibility into my cloud deployments?

Conformity aggregates and normalizes access and usage data through direct integrations with cloud applications, and through administrative tools and workflow within the Conformity platform.

How secure is Conformity’s on-demand solution?

Conformity leverages several advanced cloud platform technologies including those of Amazon’s Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2) service. These cloud platform technologies have been further enhanced by Conformity’s own security, fail-over, and data backup controls and deployment architecture consistent with industry best practices. For a deeper discussion on security inherent with the Amazon EC2 portion of Conformity’s cloud infrastructure, see:

http://awsmedia.s3.amazonaws.com/pdf/AWS_Security_Whitepaper.pdf