Okta Super Admins - Part 1: ARE You Eligible for Okta Super Admin?
What is Super Org Admin?
Super Org Administrator is the highest admin permission available in Okta. If Okta is your main IdP, it’s the keys to the kingdom and you absolutely need a philosophy for who has this level of access.
ARE Eligibility
When you’re considering who should be a Super in your Okta tenant, Oktually recommends choosing users that meet these three requirements.
Alignment
It’s essential to make sure all of your Supers have alignment with a common architecture and approach to operating your Okta tenant.
Without alignment you’re very likely to find admins working at cross purposes and possibly extra Super Admins your unaligned team member(s) have added.
Alignment doesn’t rule out having Supers across different teams, as long as the right level of alignment exists. Practically speaking, you’re most likely to find alignment in your own team.
You’ll still be able to accommodate other teams using Okta, but it’s important to distinguish between Supers as owners and other admins as internal customers.
Responsibility
Too many high level managers expect Super by default, but unless they’re answering the pager at 3am to fix another admin’s mess, don’t make them Super.
Responsibility in this case is about whose job you expect to be on the line if Okta goes down for you and who you want to be there to help recover that situation.
In reality, this is rarely a manager and it’s rarely an intern. It’s most likely Senior+ individual contributors who operate Okta everyday, know the platform and know the company specific context.
Experience
Similar to responsibility, when it comes to experience too many high-level Engineers think they should have Super by default. But unless their experience is with Okta and it’s specific use in this business, don’t make them Super.
Who would you normally go to, if you found some configuration in your Okta tenant that looked unsual? This is someone who meets the experience requirement.
This might mean your new Staff or Principal Engineer doesn’t immediately get Super Admin, this is 100% OK and should change once their experience of how you’re running Okta has become established.
Conclusion
Combining alignment, responsibility and experience is likely to leave you with a very small pool of people who are eligible to be Supers.
This could be concerning but read part two in this series to find out why You Don’t Need So Many Okta Super Admins