Building an internal community through simplicity and security
Nextdoor is a company built around community. Their work is focused on helping real people have hyperlocal, meaningful conversations and fostering connections between neighbors. Ronan Wolfe, lead systems engineer, and his IT team, see a healthy and robust identity and access management (IAM) program as the cornerstone of Nextdoor’s employee community.
For years, “teams were managing identity independently,” says Wolfe. Users could set up identity structures, but they lacked a cohesive, company-wide approach to identity. This led to duplicative data and redundant processes for individual users, managers, and the IT team.
For IT, access information was decentralized which made governance processes especially challenging. Certification campaigns were lengthy and tedious for both their team and more than 40 other employees, many of whom are senior leadership members. The IT team had to sift through decentralized documentation to properly audit access permissions and maintain compliance. They also lacked the bandwidth to implement new systems or strategies
An identity platform for the people, by the people
Nextdoor saw that Okta Workforce Identity — and especially Universal Directory — would help them manage all employee identities, groups, rules, accounts, and more than 200 applications in one place. They could also protect those identities with Single Sign-On and Adaptive Multi-Factor Authentication. “We started from Zero Trust,” Wolfe says. “By using Okta, users prove they’re secure, and after that, we know our people are safe, our customer data is safe, and our product is safe.”
But security was only a part of the equation. The company sought to streamline operations without imposing limitations on its teams’ ability to get things done. “Okta’s flexibility allowed us to build our ‘standardization engine,’ a system that organizes our IT infrastructure in a way that works best for our people,” Wolfe adds. “I don’t have to dot all my I’s and cross my T’s. I can trust that Okta will enforce my team’s rules.”
With a single source of truth for identity, the IT team also realized they could design a more automated identity infrastructure. A combination of Lifecycle Management, Workflows, and Okta’s ability to easily integrate with any application meant the company could gradually connect every piece of their IT infrastructure through Okta. This unified identity also led the team to Okta Identity Governance (OIG), so they could leverage their newfound identity foundation to more quickly and easily maintain compliance.
Empowering Nextdoor with a scalable identity infrastructure
After deploying Okta, the team quickly saw the volume of IT support tickets plummet, seeing an estimated 40% reduction in ticket labor. As the company’s Okta use has grown, the team has had time to design and implement more complex automations and strategic initiatives related to identity. For example, by granting birthright access through Lifecycle Management, employees have access to every application they need to do their jobs as soon as they’re logged into Okta for the first time. This granular access control has also helped reduce the cost of unnecessary licenses and streamlined license management processes.
The time saved by not having to manually grant access or reset passwords has been put towards establishing Nextdoor’s standardization engine. The team has organized everything within Okta into a complex series of Workflows and annotated each object (users, roles, groups, etc.) with standardized naming conventions. Because each element within the engine is clearly documented with responsible parties and their functions, the team can consistently enforce policies across every system at the company.
This degree of consistency, combined with OIG has made Nextdoor’s quarterly access certification campaigns a breeze. Team leads can conduct their reviews 90% faster because of the intuitive interface, and OIG has all but eliminated errors in the audit process because the data is in one reliable place. Since implementing OIG, the company has had zero major issues during these reviews, ensuring they can both retain compliance and save time.
To further empower the internal Nextdoor community, Wolfe’s next goal is to offer a self-service solution that will allow users to manage access to new apps and tools within Okta in a way that is compliant and structured. For instance, project leaders can set up dedicated teams without involving the IT team, helping them kick off new projects faster.
About Nextdoor
Nextdoor is the essential neighborhood network for over 100 million verified neighbors, offering trusted local news, real-time safety alerts, neighbor recommendations, for sale and free listings, and events. Nextdoor connects neighbors to the people, places, and information that matter most in their local communities.
