How to Fix Okta Blind Spots and Automate Non-SCIM App Deprovisioning

Okta blind spots are unmanaged applications and identities that live outside of Okta's automated provisioning and visibility. These blind spots arise when:

• Apps are not federated through SSO
• SCIM isn't enabled (or too expensive)
• Contractors or vendors access tools directly
• Legacy or AI tools lack enterprise APIs

While Okta secures the front door, these tools sneak in through the side and back. And they're growing.

Modern IT environments face incredible SaaS sprawl as someone adds a design tool outside the provisioning flow, a project manager invites a contractor to Jira via personal email, or a team forgets to remove an intern from Figma.

Most SaaS apps—especially AI tools—are unmanaged applications that operate outside your centralized identity and security infrastructure. According to a recent study, only 40% of companies have official LLM subscriptions, but over 90% of employees report using personal AI tools for work—often multiple times a day.

That’s shadow IT at scale—and it’s creating serious Okta blind spots.

TL;DR

• Okta blind spots leave around 40% of non-SCIM apps unmanaged, creating security, compliance, and license waste risks.
• Non-SCIM apps lack SCIM or robust APIs, so onboarding, offboarding, and access changes must be handled manually, which is error-prone and time-consuming.
• Disconnected apps increase audit overhead, require manual reconciliation, and can leave orphaned accounts that contribute to security breaches.
• Stitchflow automates discovery, reconciliation, and deprovisioning for all apps—including non-SCIM and legacy tools—providing full visibility, audit-ready reports, and efficient license management.

Why Okta can't solve non-SCIM apps deprovisioning alone

Okta's power lies in identity federation and provisioning/deprovisioning automation for apps that support it. But there's a ceiling when it comes to non-SCIM apps deprovisioning:

• SSO/SCIM tax: Many apps place basic features behind $10-15/user/month enterprise tiers
• API fragmentation: Newer, AI-based, or niche tools don't offer robust APIs
• Contractor chaos: External identities bypass centralized identity systems
• Multi-domain mess: M&A leads to multiple IDPs, multiple domains, and more confusion

You're left with a disconnected ecosystem that your IDP can't see or touch. The challenge isn't unique to Okta. Most IT tools fail at providing comprehensive visibility and deprovisioning workflows because they're designed for their specific use cases, not cross-tool orchestration.

💡What’s SCIM and how does it work

SCIM (System for Cross-domain Identity Management) automates user provisioning, updates, and deprovisioning across connected apps.

Non-SCIM apps lack this standard. They often don’t provide APIs or consistent endpoints for syncing users. As a result, changes like onboarding, role updates, or offboarding must be handled manually—aka Okta blind spots.

📚Also read: What makes apps disconnected from Okta

Why Okta gaps are getting worse, not better

AI adoption is exploding. From design to productivity to security, teams are trying AI tools before IT even knows they exist.

But here's the catch: most AI tools don't support SAML, SCIM, or API integrations, meaning they can't be easily governed. And IT can't block them without becoming the productivity police.

This creates the same challenge we see with passwordless rollouts. Adoption of tools like Okta FastPass helps—but many legacy applications, niche SaaS tools, and AI platforms lacking SAML or OIDC support break the continuity of the user experience.

The real cost of Okta visibility gaps

Many IT teams assume their SaaS stack is under control—but the reality is costly:

• 30–40% of enterprise apps operate outside the company’s IdP
• Manual cleanup eats up 2 FTEs per 1,000 employees
• Unmanaged apps stay hidden until an audit fails, a security incident hits, or your CFO questions wasted SaaS spend

Take Rula, a behavioral health network. Okta handled core apps with MFA and SCIM provisioning, but the long tail of non-SCIM, non-SSO tools—used by contractors and fringe teams—remained unmanaged.

Here’s what Dean Hoffman, a senior IT manager at Rula, says:

“We were relying on spreadsheets and emails to plug gaps our IDP couldn’t reach. It wasn’t sustainable, and we still couldn’t prove everything was covered.”

For Rula, these gaps meant hours of manual work, persistent blind spots, and costs that went beyond licensing—proof that even with Okta, unmanaged apps can quietly drain resources.

The hidden cost of manual SaaS management

Even with Okta in place, managing the long tail of disconnected apps silently drains time, money, and security. From wasted licenses to audit headaches and security gaps, IT teams pay a steep price for what they can’t see or automate. Here’s how it adds up:

License waste

Disconnected apps mean unmonitored licenses. Tools that nobody uses continue to renew, draining budgets. Without visibility into usage, IT can't justify what to cut.

In fact, organizations often pay for hundreds of licenses assigned to suspended users in Okta who are no longer with the company, thinking these licenses would be removed during offboarding workflows, but missing them because they're assigned through Okta groups not part of the workflow.

Audit overhead

Every SOC 2 or ISO 27001 audit becomes a spreadsheet marathon. You're hunting down owners, usage logs, and confirming offboarding manually, especially for non-SSO tools.

With multiple domains, you're pulling CSVs from Okta, Google Workspace, and individual app admin panels, then doing cross-sheet comparisons to match users across email aliases and departments.

Stitchflow users have reported saving weeks of manual prep by replacing VLOOKUP-fueled audits with app-level reporting.

📚Also read: A complete guide to IT compliance audits

Security debt

Disconnected apps can't enforce MFA or password policies. They're often the last to be offboarded or forgotten altogether. According to IBM's 2023 Cost of a Data Breach report, 53% of breaches involve orphaned or stale accounts. That's a gap your IDP doesn't cover.

Deprovisioning that never finishes

An employee leaves. Okta removes access to 70% of tools. The rest? They're in Google Sheets, buried in an old admin's inbox, or completely missed.

This is the core challenge of non-SCIM apps deprovisioning automation. Even when workflows exist, they often break down due to:

• Non-SCIM apps
• Lack of API support
• Access managed by business units
• One-off exceptions

In reality, Okta deprovisioning was never meant to be complete. While Okta works well for integrated applications, it doesn't reach the entire tail of disconnected SaaS apps, leaving a 40% gap that exposes organizations to real risk.

⚠️Contractor deprovisioning adds another layer of complexity.

Contractors often fall outside automated controls, meaning their access is provisioned manually, inconsistently, or sometimes not at all. They may use personal emails, bypass SSO, or get added directly to apps by project managers.

This creates hidden accounts, orphaned access, and gaps that IT can’t easily track—further expanding Okta's blind spots and increasing security and compliance risk.

The manual work behind "managing the gaps"

Let's break down the effort required to manage apps outside of Okta manually.

Multiply this across 100+ apps and 1,000+ users, and you've got a full-time job just managing what your IdP misses.

The reality is that manual IAM processes are breaking security budgets and creating hidden liabilities. When your IAM program relies on manual workflows for provisioning, deprovisioning, and access reviews, especially for disconnected apps, you're burning your most valuable resource: time from a team you can't easily replace.

👉Curious about how much you’d save with automations? Here’s a free ROI calculator from Stitchflow.

How Stitchflow eliminates Okta blind spots

Stitchflow was built by Okta product veterans who knew exactly where the cracks in the system lived. Instead of relying on SCIM, we built an approach that works for every app in your environment—no matter how modern, messy, or manual.

Here’s how it works:

• Connect any app: Stitchflow ingests data from APIs when they exist, or automates CSV exports and browser-based capture when they don’t. Even legacy, niche, or AI tools are included.
• Reconcile against your source of truth: Our IT Graph continuously compares app data with HR and IDP records to surface orphaned, hidden, or unused accounts.
• One-click remediation: IT teams can bulk-remove accounts directly in Stitchflow or auto-generate ITSM tickets for cleanup, closing off security gaps fast.
• Audit-ready by default: Every deprovisioning action is logged, giving you continuous compliance evidence across all apps, not just SCIM-ready ones.

The result: Complete coverage without paying the SCIM tax, weeks of IT time reclaimed, and no more blind spots lurking in spreadsheets.

How Turing plugged the 40% Okta gap with Stitchflow

Turing, a global AI/software talent platform, struggled with 3,000+ contractors, multiple identity providers, and 100+ apps—many without SCIM/SSO—leaving Okta blind spots and manual offboarding chaos.

Stitchflow connected to Turing’s Okta, Google Workspace, and all other apps—even those without SCIM or APIs. Then Stitchflow began continuously flagging hidden, idle, and orphaned accounts, giving IT clear visibility into gaps. With just one click, teams could remediate issues instantly, turning offboarding into an automated, audit-ready process.

The result:

• 1 full FTE saved for higher-value IT work
• 150+ idle licenses reclaimed, saving $60K annually
• 312 offboarding gaps across Tier-1 apps closed
• Zero false positives in reporting

Stitchflow plugged the 40 % gap our IDP couldn't reach. Off-boarding is finally done for us instead of being manually done by us.

– Amit Sharma, IT Administrator, Turing

👉Read more about how Turing got 100% SaaS coverage with Okta + Stitchflow

How Stitchflow complements Okta for complete SaaS coverage

This table shows how pairing Okta with Stitchflow closes those gaps, automates offboarding, and gives IT full visibility across the entire SaaS stack.

Book a free Stitchflow pilot

Your IDP is only as strong as the apps it manages. With AI sprawl, shadow IT, contractors, and disconnected tools, visibility has become your new superpower. Stitchflow helps you:

• Eliminate orphaned accounts
• Reclaim underused licenses
• Automate SaaS deprovisioning

And you can see the results in just four weeks by enrolling in our free pilot.

👉Stop settling for partial governance—see what you’ve been missing. Start your free pilot and experience 100% SaaS visibility.