Previously, SSO has only been available to organisations with Enterprise (organisation-wide) subscriptions, but thanks to recent development work, FT Professional Subscriptions of any size can now benefit from the added convenience and security of logging in through SSO. As part of this update, we’ve also made the process of setting up SSO far more convenient for subscription admins.

The requirement to remember various logins for different websites and digital subscriptions can be an overwhelming and often frustrating experience.

With this in mind, several years ago the FT went about building an SSO solution for corporate, education and government customers, that would enable subscribers to access FT.com and FT apps through a centralised system using their work or university network credentials.

While this first version of FT SSO solved issues with login friction for Enterprise customers (those where the entire organisation or university were licensed to access FT.com), FT Professional Subscriptions that covered specific people or teams were unable to provide FT.com access to their subscribers in this way.

We also heard from FT subscription administrators, who manage access to their organisation’s FT.com subscription, that they would value any attempt to streamline the setup process for SSO, and reduce their dependence on help from internal IT and tech functions.

The latest iteration of FT SSO addresses these previous limitations and has been improved in the following ways:

• Subscription admins have access to a new SSO setup wizard on Subscription Manager. This makes setting up SSO for your subscription an easy, guided 4-step process.
• The SSO wizard provides a simple way of adding an internal IT contact to help in the process, without needing to make them an FT admin or subscriber.
• Easily add test users to check everything is working well before SSO is switched on for your subscription.
• SSO can now be implemented for any size subscription, and restricted to just the individuals who are part of your subscription.

We can integrate with Okta, OneLogin, ADFS, or any other provider that uses SAML, to allow readers to log in to FT.com through SSO.

Setting up SSO now follows a simple 4-stage process that enables it to be implemented by the subscription admin(s) for an FT Professional Subscription with minimal technical input. The new FT SSO wizard guides you through each step:

Visit the online support portal for answers to common SSO questions we hear from customers, including;

• What is the user journey for subscribers once FT SSO is rolled out?
  
• Does SSO work on mobile?
  
• What platforms and devices should FT SSO be tested on before ‘go live’?

For additional support and more information, get in touch with your FT Customer Success Manager or email customer.success@ft.com. They can answer any questions through each stage of the process, and help you to develop a “go live” plan to communicate the service update to your end users.

Help your team make better business decisions with the FT’s trusted commentary and analysis. For more information about how FT Professional can help your organisation, please get in touch.