Clear Skye IGA: IGA on the ServiceNow NOW platform

Identity and Access Management (IAM), particularly Identity Governance & Administration (IGA), manages user lifecycles and access entitlements, including governance activities like access reviews. In parallel, IT Service Management (ITSM) has surged due to cloud-based tools that simplify deployment and use, with ServiceNow leading through a large customer base. Because IGA and ITSM both touch request, approval, and fulfillment processes, most IAM initiatives debate integration between them. Integration is usually recommended, but attempts to “build your own IGA” inside an ITSM platform frequently fail because they create long-lived home-grown software, quickly hit complexity (legacy connectors, entitlement models, Segregation of Duties), and expand in scope and cost beyond expectations.

Despite the risks of rebuilding, tight integration remains valuable—linking ITSM portals to IGA requests and using ITSM ticketing for manual fulfillment, which is common since many organizations do not automate provisioning for most applications (often above 90%). Traditional external integration to ServiceNow can still be complex and project-specific.

Clear Skye offers an alternative: a standard, commercial IGA product that runs on the ServiceNow NOW Platform, delivering native integration with ServiceNow’s portal, workflows, approvals, security, task management, and operational model. Clear Skye focuses on five capability areas: identity lifecycle management (Joiner/Mover/Leaver), access requests, access reviews, workflow management, and application governance. It emphasizes automated, attribute-based policies to reduce manual requests and review workload, though it currently has limited role management and SoD features—gaps that may matter less for many organizations than expected. Strong points include easy deployment (one-click if ServiceNow is present), dashboards, and a multi-instance model that isolates tenant data. Key limitations include connector breadth/depth, lack of SCIM support, limited language localization, and a smaller partner ecosystem, making it most compelling for organizations strategically standardizing on ServiceNow.

• IGA covers identity lifecycle management, account management, access entitlements, and governance activities such as regular access reviews.
• ServiceNow leads the ITSM segment and has a very significant number of customers on its platform.
• Many organizations provision the vast majority of applications manually, frequently above 90%.
• Clear Skye provides an IGA solution that runs on the ServiceNow NOW Platform.
• Clear Skye’s feature set is focused on identity lifecycle management, access requests, access reviews, workflow management, and application governance.
• Clear Skye integrates access requests into the ServiceNow Service Catalog so entitlements appear like other requestable services.
• Clear Skye supports access reviews through campaigns and dashboards showing review status.
• Clear Skye provides out-of-the-box integrations to services including Microsoft Office 365, Azure Active Directory, Workday, and Okta via REST APIs.
• SCIM support is not yet available in Clear Skye.
• ServiceNow instances use a multi-instance approach rather than a multi-tenant model, keeping each tenant’s data isolated.

• “Such ‘build your own IGA on your ITSM tool’ approaches are made to fail.”
• “Manual fulfillment is the norm for many systems that are not connected to IGA for automated provisioning.”
• “If the policies are set correctly and enforcement works correctly, the resulting entitlements are correct by default.”
• “There is no need for UI integration between ITSM and IGA, because this is by default and design.”
• “Many role projects failed.”
• “Automated, policy-based provisioning building on attributes are far less complex.”
• “The value of IGA stays and falls with the integrations to target systems.”
• “If that platform is rolled-out, installation is merely one click.”
• “Clear Skye… does not run in a multi-tenant model, but a multi-instance deployment, where data of that tenant remains isolated from other tenant’s data.”
• “For companies already relying on ServiceNow, it provides an interesting alternative to established approaches on IGA.”