iD Cloud Feature Day - Shared Devices & In-app Authentication

Feature Day: Shared Devices & In-app Authentication

During this Feature Day, the iD Cloud team would like to discuss the following topics with community experts to understand better how to solve this industry problem:

• What are the associate's 'digital tools' on mobile devices, now and for the future?
• What is the vision of (brand) retailers on shared or individual mobile devices for associates?
• Discuss today's industry solutions for logging into shared devices.
• Share and evaluate industry solutions and iD Cloud-specific solutions for login.
• Define a shared vision on secure, accessible, and manageable login procedures for mobile store devices.
• Determine a first research step towards the future vision.
• Share a timeline for the next steps of this research project.

For this community event, we are looking for specialists, who:

• ...know the landscape of store applications, mobile devices, and how associates use these tools. 
• ...have a vision (or can represent the company's vision) on the future of mobile devices and the digital initiatives on these devices.
• ...can represent the interests of the company's store associates, security, IT teams, and other relevant stakeholders. You need to be able to make decisions on a shared vision of the future and the first steps towards that vision.

Note: we need a minimum of three participating retailers. 

Please register to attend this iD Cloud Feature Day

Additional information: Digital store apps spread across devices

Making digital tools for store associates mobile is the ambition of many (brand) retailers. Mobile digital tools enable associates to respond quickly to customer questions and perform store operations anywhere in the store. 

Due to the increase of digital initiatives in stores, various (mobile) devices have emerged – all with their apps and features—digital initiatives such as stock management, customer loyalty, or in-store fulfillment tools. As a result, the number of devices in the store with different functionalities has grown considerably, making the store operation more complex for (starting) employees.

Brand retailers want to create a unified experience for associates to become more successful and have more time available for the customer. 

By using a suitable mobile device that holds most functionalities of digital initiatives in-store, finding an available device for employees becomes easier, making the operation more efficient. Since all mobile devices perform the same functions, devices can be exchanged more easily.

Shared Devices

Devices are often shared between store associates currently running a service. Devices with unified functionality mean that all persons with access to the unified store device have access to business-sensitive functionalities. For example, retrieving customer data in a customer loyalty app or starting an RFID app and booking a shipment.

To protect business-sensitive functionalities, adding login procedures to the mobile device is important. At the same time, it is crucial to keep the device sufficiently accessible, as several store employees use the same device. 

Today, mobile devices with the Android and iOS operating systems are not designed to be used by multiple users. For example, login screens or fingerprint functionalities native to Android and iOS are designed to be used by one person, making logging in quickly with multiple users challenging.

In-app Authentication

To protect business-sensitive functionalities, adding login procedures to the iD Cloud app is important. To prevent store employees from remembering different credentials for the different apps, single sign-on (SSO) is widely used in the industry. 

Thanks to SSO, it is possible for (brand) retailers to manage the credentials and to use these credentials to log in to all applications that support SSO. Brand retailers are entirely in control and can manage whether two-factor authentication is required or not.

However, to let an associate securely log in to functionalities, the user must log in via SSO for each app. In other words, the user must provide their username and password (at least) for each app specifically. This login procedure is too cumbersome if devices are shared, and SSO login is necessary each time a device is exchanged between associates.