Shared Account is an account type developed by Monosign that enables organizations to manage social media accounts, or accounts used for the management of a certain application, in a way that they can be shared with other users. Controlling who can use such accounts, when and under which conditions, is the core of shared account management.
By using a Shared Account, it is possible not only to share an account, but also to tie this account to certain conditions. For example, a time interval can be set for the sharing, and an approval mechanism can be established for the information to be shared. In addition, it is possible to log every login transaction.
For example, by creating an institution's Twitter account as a shared account, it can be shared with the contracted media company or agency for the duration of the agreement. If desired, the security of the account can be protected by updating the password after sharing, so that the shared password can be used only once.
How does it work?
Definitions
First of all, a source and an application must be defined in order to use the Shared Account feature. The definitions created here will then be used when creating the shared account.
Definition of a source
Social user provider or shared user provider should be selected as the provider type when defining the source. Then, in the Source Settings, a source should be chosen for whichever application will be used as a source.
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Definition of an application
In the application definition, specify which application the shared account will be created for. It will then be ready to be assigned when creating the shared account.
Definition of a shared account
The account type to be shared should be selected as Shared User, and the other settings should then be assigned.
Then, the relevant application is selected from the applications tab to indicate which application this account was created for. After the application is selected, the source selection is made in order to determine which source settings it will use.
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After these selections, you can start to choose the conditions under which the login information will be shared, from the Flow tab. The Authentication feature allows the user to log in to the relevant application automatically via the Chrome extension without exposing any passwords. The Password feature is used when a password needs to be shown to the user. Authenticator shares the OTP code with the user.
How the flow will progress is determined after setting the flow state as a Required option. If desired, the applicant may be required to enter a description (1). This way, who wants to log in to this account, and for what reason, can be logged and shown to the approver.
You can also set how many approvals are required to log in to the account (2). If the approval of 2 people is mandatory, the requested transaction will take place only after 2 people approve, once a notification has been sent to everyone designated as an approver.
While performing the approval process, the approver may also be required to provide a statement.
Who will be giving approvals is also a customizable field (3). For example, if we want only one person to receive a notification, the Only Selected Users option is selected and the users are chosen. Only the selected users are notified after this is done (4).
This way, after the settings are determined, the shared account is ready to be assigned to the right people and used seamlessly.
Assigning shared accounts
Who can use the created shared account is determined from Delegations. If desired, a cron expression and a date range can be specified for this assignment. In the screenshot, it can be seen that the Twitter shared account has been assigned to the mono_test user. This way, the user of the mono_test account can use the Twitter account.
How to use a shared account
When using a shared account, the Monosign mobile application and the Google Chrome extension are used.
There are two roles in this usage: the user and the approver.
If the user has a shared account assigned to them, they can view it from both the Google Chrome extension and the mobile application.
The mobile application view is as follows:
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For the Chrome extension, the user can install the extension from the add-on installation section on the account page.
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Then, after logging in with the help of the mobile application, they can continue their access request from the list that appears.
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When the OTP code is requested from the list — for example, for the Twitter application — an instant message is sent to the approver, who is expected to approve the OTP code sharing. If the approver approves, the OTP code is shown to the user, who can log in using this code.
