Choose and implement JIT provisioning vs SCIM for enterprise SSO customers

Steps

1. Assess your customer's requirements: if they need immediate deprovisioning on termination (required for SOC 2 and most enterprise security policies), SCIM is necessary; if they only need simple onboarding, JIT may suffice.
2. For JIT: parse user attributes from the SAML assertion or OIDC ID token on first login (name, email, groups) and create or update the user record in your application at login time.
3. For SCIM: implement a SCIM 2.0 endpoint and register it with the customer's IdP (Okta, Entra, etc.); the IdP will push creates, updates, and deletes proactively regardless of whether the user logs in.
4. If supporting both (recommended): use SCIM for lifecycle management and JIT as a fallback for first login to handle the window between SCIM provisioning and the user's first actual login.
5. For deprovisioning with JIT-only: implement a background job that periodically cross-checks active users against the customer's directory or rely on session expiration, but document to customers that access removal is not immediate.
6. When implementing SCIM, handle the userName attribute carefully — IdPs use it as the stable identifier for upserts; mismatches between SCIM userName and your app's user identifier cause duplicate account creation.