The Cloud User Portal provides the strong management and flexibility that a cloud broker will need to successfully deploy SaaS Applications. The Portal allows customer project managers and budget holders to choose what services they need to do their job, and only pay for what they use. At the same time, the portal gives management the information
they need to monitor and control usage.
The major capabilities of the Cloud User Portal are as follows:
| Business Functions | |
| SaaS Procurement | The Portal provides a catalogue through which customers can specify, order and pay for SaaS applications from 3rd party suppliers |
| SaaS Subscription tracking | The Portal tracks usage of SaaS applications and maximises usage of the license subscription purchased; you only need to buy what you actually use |
| SaaS Metered Billing | The Portal manages the entire billing and payments cycle its usage tracking system enables it to calculate customer bills and suppliers fees across the entire product supply chain |
| SaaS Management Information | The Portal maintains management information about SaaS application usage, such as – who is registered for what app, what apps are being used and how often, how much storage is being actually used, which apps are being paid for but are dormant |
| SaaS Application Management | The Portal controls who can sign up to what SaaS applications, and with what authority, using configurable authorisation. This includes workflow to manage dependencies and dialog between application owners and budget holders |
| User Management | The Portal is fully integrated into a User Directory that tracks every user’s access to the SaaS applications |
| User Portal | The Portal tracks users and the SaaS applications they have access to. It provides each user with their own portal showing what they can access |
| User Workflow | The Portal includes workflow to manage business dependencies between application owners and budget holders |
| Service Catalogue | There is a full searchable listing of all services, enabling staff and management to see what is being used |
| Multi-Agency / Multi-Network | |
| Partnership Working | The Cloud User Portal allows users from different partners agencies and different networks to be authorised users of the same services, providing a fully integrated service for the partner group |
| Federated Authentication | The Portal provides a federated identity management system for seamlessly authenticating users who come from different organisations. |
| Simplified User Management | Federation means user authentication is passed through to the host organisations network removing the need for separate user management (adding &removing users, etc.) on the SaaS application |