Revamping the CIAM Experience at IDEXX

Photo by Werzk Luuuuuuu on Unsplash

Since 1983, IDEXX Laboratories has provided hardware for in-house diagnostics for veterinarians to conduct tests on samples. The company also provides a reference laboratory service to test samples. It is headquartered in Maine, USA, and has offices in the Netherlands.

In 2009, IDEXX developed an application that allows veterinarians to manage their profiles and access other applications. However, as business needs grew, the homegrown application started becoming less useful. The organization wanted to consolidate the number of identities used to access third-party applications such as Salesforce. Additional business requirements such as language localization, scalable costing per identity, standardized security practices and login experiences, the ability to assign roles (e.g., admin rights), and most importantly, minimal disruption to user experience were critical.

By partnering with WSO2 in 2017, the company was able to deploy WSO2 Identity Server to great effect. For example, the solution was able to seamlessly recognize, update, and transition existing users from the existing platform onto the new solution. Furthermore, it allowed IDEXX to recognize and remove identities that were unusable, freeing up the system to handle more customers. In addition, the company used to have multiple identity and authorization providers, and now WSO2 Identity Server acts as a central identity store with the intent of phasing out legacy systems. The product’s open-source nature gives IDEXX the flexibility to federate with other third-party systems. 

One of the main advantages of having a single identity was to measure results. IDEXX revealed they were able to add over 100,000 new identities in 173 countries in one-and-a-half years. An additional knock-on effect was that standardizing the use of email to manage ‘forgot password’ requests has improved their call center efficiency, as the platform is ‘always on’, with a 99.995% uptime. 

To find out more about their experience with WSO2, please view the video below.