How Tactic accelerated SSO integrations and reduced churn with Directory Sync

Tactic is a hybrid workspace management solution that provides comprehensive tooling to optimize and manage hybrid work environments. Their software supports various use cases like room reservations, visitor management, and office usage analytics.

To meet the demands of its growing enterprise customer base, Tactic needed to quickly implement enterprise-grade features like single sign-on (SSO) and Directory Sync (SCIM). By integrating WorkOS, Tactic was able to accelerate its sales cycle, reduce engineering overhead, and provide a seamless onboarding experience for its largest customers.

The challenge

Tactic needed to ship quickly to unblock pending enterprise deals, but building these features in-house was expected to take months of engineering time. They needed a solution that could meet the following requirements:

• Out-of-the-box support for a wide variety of identity providers (IdPs) and directories
• Support for custom attributes for SCIM provisioning
• Transparent pricing that could scale with their growth

Even with our largest customers who have outlined SSO and Directory Sync as hard requirements, WorkOS allows us to close enterprise deals in less than a couple of months.

Limitations of building in-house

The team had also considered building SSO and SCIM in-house but quickly abandoned the idea when they realized the extensive resources required. Dallin Hale, software engineer at Tactic, explained, "With a team of about four engineers working on this full-time, we could build a working solution but would quickly run into limitations as usage goes up. Supporting all the common directories and identity providers would be a substantial and ongoing drain on engineering and support resources."

The WorkOS advantages

After evaluating several options, Tactic chose WorkOS for several reasons:

• Faster integration time compared to other vendors.
• Using the Admin Portal, Tactic could onboard new enterprise customers for SSO and SCIM in a fully self-serve manner, saving an estimated 10-20 hours per customer.
• Robust documentation and intuitive developer experience.
• Competitive and transparent pricing model

How does SCIM help reduce customer friction and churn? 

Custom user attributes have been critical for Tactic’s SCIM provisioning use case. It allows them to enrich data syncs with information like departments and office locations to deliver a richer, more personalized in-app experience for its end users. 

"If we didn't have SCIM, it would significantly impact our customer experience. While manually handling CSV updates isn't too difficult, managing this for hundreds of enterprise customers would be time-consuming. Automating this process with a makeshift solution would be possible but inefficient," said Dallin.

SCIM is a game-changer for our customers, saving them a lot of time and reducing friction. It's crucial because, without SCIM, customers would likely get frustrated and might even switch to another provider with a smoother experience.

The Results

• Typical enterprise deals closed within 2 months, with SSO and SCIM live at launch.
• 10-20 hours saved per enterprise customer onboarding using the Admin Portal. 
• Eliminated manual user provisioning and can offer an enhanced product experience with custom user attributes via SCIM.
• Ongoing maintenance with WorkOS is minimal. Dallin estimates spending only about 2 hours per month on the WorkOS Dashboard.

By integrating WorkOS, Tactic is able to close large enterprise deals faster, save engineering time, and deliver a top-tier experience to their most valuable customers. Automated provisioning and richer directory data via SCIM provide ongoing value. With WorkOS, Tactic is well-equipped with enterprise features to sell and scale upmarket.