3. From onboarding to offboarding: automating the employee lifecycle

Employee onboarding and offboarding are some of the most repetitive, time-sensitive processes IT teams manage. Every new hire needs access to the right apps and permissions, with every departure requiring the same precision in reverse. These lifecycle changes are also a major point of scrutiny in SOC2 and other compliance audits, where any gaps or delays in provisioning and deprovisioning quickly become an issue.

To complicate things further, access requirements evolve: employees move between teams, take on new responsibilities, or need additional tools as work changes. Yet in many organizations, these processes still rely on manual checklists, ticket queues, and back-and-forth messages between HR, IT, and managers.

1Password SaaS Manager changes that. It simplifies onboarding and offboarding across the employee lifecycle by automating many of the most tedious tasks, while providing centralized oversight over access permissions and license usage. By connecting to your HR system, identity provider, and communication tools like Slack and Microsoft Teams, 1Password SaaS Manager triggers customizable workflows that help improve security and cost efficiency across your SaaS stack.

1Password SaaS Manager doesn’t just save time – the product pays for itself and saves teams even more money through reclaimed licenses and reduced overhead. New employees hit the ground running with the right access from day one, while departing users are securely offboarded with accounts closed, licenses reclaimed, and shared resources transferred. 

In this chapter, we’ll explore how 1Password SaaS Manager automates onboarding and offboarding, reduces manual effort, and helps IT teams save money while keeping every transition secure and consistent.

Streamline employee onboarding

First impressions count, and onboarding is IT’s chance to make new hires feel supported and productive from day one. 1Password SaaS Manager integrates with your HR platform or identity provider so IT teams can automatically provision access before a start date, add users to the right groups, and assign the correct apps and permissions from day one.

Workflows can trigger from a hire date or ticketing webhook and respect location and time zone, so access arrives when it’s actually needed. You can also send branded welcome emails to a new hire’s personal email with secure, one-time links, allowing them to access their work account without sharing credentials or IT intervention. The result is faster onboarding, fewer tickets, and a smoother, more secure first day for every employee.

Automate employee offboarding

When an employee leaves, the stakes are high. Missed offboarding steps can lead to unrevoked access or forgotten licenses, creating potential security and compliance issues, which increase your SaaS costs. 

1Password SaaS Manager automates deprovisioning to ensure nothing slips through the cracks. Workflows can be configured to reflect your organization’s needs. ​​You can:

• Set up workflows to revoke access, remove licenses, and reassign shared resources like folders, calendars, or projects. 
• Kick off IT asset management workflows for employees to return their devices. 
• Build in buffer periods to ensure actions aren’t performed prematurely. For example, you may want to delay the deletion of an inbox until a manager has had a chance to review its contents.

Frictionless workflows that keep managers in the loop

Automation doesn’t eliminate collaboration – it strengthens it. Line managers are engaged at key points in the offboarding process, allowing them to provide input without creating more work for IT. Managers can approve offboarding steps, confirm data transfers, or repurpose shared resources – all through built-in notifications in collaboration tools they’re already using, like Slack, Microsoft Teams, and email.

Automated workflows and shared visibility reduce the back-and-forth that can slow down your IT team and ensure every department stays aligned. They also give you the time and clarity to focus on higher-value work instead of repetitive, ticket-driven requests.

Controlling costs and going the last mile

Identity providers can help you remove employee access to applications behind SSO. But they don’t always deactivate or remove licenses to individual apps, or provide the option to reassign resources. That means your organization can easily find itself paying for expensive SaaS licenses that are no longer in use. 

1Password SaaS Manager goes further by working with your HRIS and your identity provider, and integrating directly with 350+ SaaS apps to complete deprovisioning. Your IT team can then confidently close accounts, reclaim licenses, and document every action automatically. The cost savings are immediate and ongoing – no more wasted spend on unused software or uncertainty over whether access has truly been revoked.

Ensure business continuity 

1Password SaaS Manager integrates seamlessly with the systems and processes you already use to ensure data and resources aren’t lost in onboarding and offboarding processes.

Workflows can trigger from HR lifecycle events, updates in your identity provider (IdP), or IT service management (ITSM) webhooks, ensuring that automation starts at the right time and in the right context. Each step can be customized to match your policies, whether that means assigning a device, provisioning mobile access, or handling exceptions for contractors.

Everything runs through a single no-code workflow builder, allowing your IT team to define actions, approvals, and notifications with minimal effort. The result is a unified view of every user’s lifecycle, from onboarding to offboarding, without manual coordination across tools.

Automate workflows end-to-end

With 1Password SaaS Manager, HR, IT, and managers work from connected workflows instead of disconnected handoffs. Onboarding and offboarding no longer depend on tickets, emails, or reminders – each step is triggered automatically from the right system, reducing manual effort while keeping processes consistent and auditable across the employee lifecycle.

In Chapter 4, we’ll cover how to improve access requests across your organization by giving employees and managers a secure, automated way to submit and manage access requests.