Why is this single pane of glass for IT teams so damn hard to build?

Every IT manager has heard the promise of a “single pane of glass.” In practice, it often feels less like clarity and more like “a single glass of pain”. 

The idea comes from telecom OSS, where central dashboards sounded like the answer to network complexity. But reality was more complicated. For IT managers: between SaaS sprawl, shadow IT, and legacy systems, trying to force everything onto one dashboard usually creates more friction than clarity. 

The idea is aspirational—but the reality is far messier. Data lives in silos, the tools rarely integrate cleanly, and different roles need different views of the truth. 

In this article, we explore why the single pane of glass is so difficult to build, what makes it appealing despite the challenges, and how IT managers can think more realistically about visibility across their environments.

TL;DR

• A single pane of glass (SPOG) gives IT teams one unified view of apps, users, and access policies instead of juggling siloed dashboards.
• Building it is difficult because SaaS data is fragmented across APIs, spreadsheets, and legacy systems, and different roles need different views.
• A true SPOG provides clear visibility, actionable insights, and automation for license management, access governance, risk assessment, and shadow IT discovery.
• Teams can build SPOG in-house with open-source tools, but it’s slow, complex, and resource-intensive; buying a third-party solution is faster to deploy but often limits visibility to API-ready apps.
• Modern SaaS management tools like Stitchflow overcome these gaps by unifying data through APIs, OAuth tokens, CSV automation, HR and IDP integrations, and more. This means full visibility and control across every app and user.

What is a single pane of glass solution for IT?

At its simplest, a single pane of glass view is the idea of viewing everything you need to manage in one place. Instead of jumping between tools, dashboards, and logs, you get one consolidated interface that shows all the apps used by your organization in one place. 

It’s meant to reduce friction, save time, and make it easier to spot issues. But there are layers to this idea: 

• Some SPOGs focus on data aggregation—pulling in metrics from multiple systems so you can see trends in one view. 
• Others are more about user experience (UX)—giving IT teams a consistent interface across tools, even if the data still lives in separate systems.

In on-prem environments, where IT had tighter control and fewer moving parts, this vision was easier to imagine. In SaaS-first environments, you get tool sprawl, shadow IT, and disconnected apps. Workflows also span multiple apps—making a single pane of glass for cloud management is not always easy to achieve.

‼️A SPOG is not the same as an aggregated tool. Aggregation may simply pull information together without solving usability problems. A true SPOG promises not just visibility, but a way to act across systems.

For IT managers, that’s the crux: the concept is elegant, but in practice, a single pane of glass is as much about trade-offs as it is about simplicity.

📚Also read: Signs Your IT Team Has Data Visibility Problems

What you miss out on without SPOG

Without a single pane of glass view across multiple vendors and applications, IT teams are forced into fragmented, manual workflows. The result is more time wasted on low-value tasks, higher risk exposure, and fewer resources available for strategic IT initiatives.

Productivity loss

Without a central hub, IT repeats tasks across multiple systems. Teams update spreadsheets with user information, asset inventories, and compliance logs, then re-enter the same data into HR or ticketing tools. Hours are wasted reconciling mismatched records or tracking down answers from other departments instead of solving real problems. 

On top of that, communication silos make it hard to collaborate across departments, so IT often spends more time coordinating than actually solving problems.

‼️Proactive vs. reactive IT: This is where the lack of SPOG really hurts. Instead of proactively closing gaps and preventing risks before they happen, IT is forced into firefighting mode—reacting to failed audits, compliance misses, or security incidents after the fact.

Exposure to risk

The bigger danger is what slips through the cracks. Without unified visibility, inactive user accounts and orphaned accounts often go unnoticed, leaving open doors for attackers. The problem only compounds when you look at vendor and app risk. 

According to Gartner, 60% of organizations work with more than 1,000 third-party vendors, and the average company network is accessed by 89 different vendors each week. Yet only a third of organizations know the exact number of vendors who have access. 

That lack of clarity creates one of the most significant blind spots in enterprise security today.

Data doesn’t back the strategy

And then there’s the long-term cost. Without one place to view and analyze data, budgeting becomes guesswork. License optimization opportunities get missed, meaning money is wasted on unused or underutilized seats. 

Renewal negotiations also suffer because IT can’t walk into vendor conversations with reliable, consolidated usage data. Instead of driving the conversation, IT is forced to react on the vendor’s terms—losing leverage and leaving savings on the table.

📖Vercel, a PCI DSS-regulated company, once spent weeks of IT and Finance time on quarterly access reviews involving 50+ stakeholders. Reliance on spreadsheets and manual follow-ups left budgeting reactive, renewals poorly informed, and compliance a constant scramble.

👉If you’re in the same boat and want to review app access across your organization, try one of Stitchflow’s done-for-you services—the first job is on us.

Some use cases of SPOG for SaaS management

A single pane of glass (SPOG) brings clarity and control to SaaS management, enabling IT teams to handle critical workflows more efficiently and with less risk. Some of the most valuable use cases include:

• License lifecycle management: See how licenses are used across apps, reclaim unused seats, forecast renewals, and avoid unexpected costs.
• Access governance: Unify visibility across managed and disconnected apps to automate offboarding, enforce role-based access, and maintain audit-ready records.
• Vendor risk assessment: Identify which third parties touch your systems, evaluate their risk, and address issues proactively rather than reacting to incidents or audits.
• Shadow IT discovery: Discover apps adopted outside formal channels to balance innovation with security and reduce blind spots.
• Contractor management: Contractors often sit outside the identity provider. A SPOG brings these accounts into view, helping IT prevent temporary access from becoming a lasting security risk.

Why is building a single pane of glass challenging

Imagine an IT manager trying to track license usage across 50 SaaS apps. Some support APIs, some don’t; some use SSO, others rely on local accounts. Pulling all that data into one view sounds ideal—but the reality is far more complicated.

Data silos

Each SaaS app stores data in its own way. One might track users in a hierarchical directory, another logs activity in nested objects, while a third stores incidents in relational tables. Consolidating license usage, access logs, or security events requires building separate connectors—and reconciling differences in field definitions across platforms.

❗Shadow IT makes this even trickier. Apps adopted outside formal IT channels often lack standardized access controls or reporting, creating blind spots that can undermine visibility and compliance.

API diversity

Every tool exposes data differently. Some push updates via webhooks, others rely on batch polling or complex query languages, and legacy systems may still depend on SOAP. Rate limits, pagination styles, and data formats differ across vendors.

Some tools don’t even expose user details through an API. In those cases, IT has to manually export data through CSV files—or worse, take screenshots of the admin panel just to capture basic information.

❗A SPOG that works for modern tools can break entirely when a legacy system returns nested XML or paginates differently, often unnoticed until a critical report fails.

Real-time data synthesis

Apps update at different intervals: some stream changes instantly, others sync every few minutes or only once per night. Without webhook support, dashboards must poll APIs continuously, risking rate limits while trying to maintain current license counts, security events, and user provisioning status.

❗Multi-domain environments make this even harder. The same user may appear across multiple domains or IDPs, each with different sync intervals—creating timing mismatches that leave IT teams with incomplete or misleading visibility.

Authentication issues

Securely accessing multiple apps requires juggling OAuth tokens, API keys, SAML assertions, and other credential types. Each system has its own token refresh cycles, required scopes, and permissions rules, and misconfigurations can block access to critical data.

❗Even a single expired token or incorrect scope can halt integrations for multiple downstream dashboards, leaving IT blind to usage, compliance, or security issues.

UX design

Different IT roles—admins, operators, managers—need different “single pane of glass” dashboards. Admins require granular drill-downs, operators need alert dashboards, and managers want high-level summaries of spend, compliance, and productivity. 

Designing a coherent experience is further complicated by the way apps present data: some work best with tables, others with graphs or heatmaps.

❗For SaaS management, a single pane of glass should show the usage of all apps in one place. It works best when it highlights how users, permissions, and workflows span different apps. This helps IT teams spot issues, monitor adoption, and maintain compliance across the SaaS stack.

Scalability

As organizations grow, so does the number of apps, API calls, and datasets. A SPOG must ingest and display increasingly complex data without slowing queries or breaking integrations. Adding new tools can expose previously hidden assumptions in your data model—what worked for 50 apps rarely scales seamlessly to 500+.

📚Also read: Taking a Data-First Approach to Corporate IT Tool Sprawl

What makes a true single pane of glass solution for IT

A good single pane of glass solution for SaaS management should give IT teams three things: clear visibility, actionable insights, and operational efficiency. 

It should show user activity, license usage, and compliance across all applications. It should let teams take action—monitor access, reclaim unused licenses, and enforce policies. And it should streamline workflows, reducing the time and effort required to manage a growing SaaS stack.

The key features that make a SPOG effective for SaaS management include:

• Graphical user interface (GUI): Consolidates license usage, user activity, and adoption trends into a role-based dashboard for admins, operators, and managers
• Reporting tools: Automates creation and distribution of license, compliance, and usage reports for stakeholders
• Monitoring and management console: Allows detailed inspection of accounts, provisioning status, and policy enforcement, with triage and escalation workflows
• Alerts and notifications: Sends real-time alerts for unusual access, license overages, or compliance violations
• Automated workflows: Streamlines user lifecycle tasks like provisioning, deprovisioning, and license reclamation
• Integration with third-party applications: Pulls data from HR systems, identity management tools, and other SaaS platforms to give a consolidated, actionable view

📚Also read: Why Modern IT Teams Need a Data Lake to Manage SaaS Sprawl

Should you build or buy your SPOG solution?

Choosing how to implement a single pane of glass for SaaS management isn’t easy. IT teams often ask: do you build it ourselves, or lean on a third-party platform? Each approach comes with trade-offs in control, speed, and cost.

Internal development

If you go the DIY route, your team builds a solution tailored to your workflows, dashboards, and integrations. You decide how it looks, what data it tracks, and how automation works. Open source tools like Apache Airflow (data orchestration), Grafana (dashboards), or Airbyte (data integration) can accelerate development, but they don’t eliminate the complexity. 

However, you still need engineering resources to build connectors, handle authentication, and design user interfaces. Even with these tools, expect 6–12 months of work before you have a usable SPOG.

Buying a third-party solution

A pre-built SaaS management platform—like Stitchflow—gives you out-of-the-box dashboards, integrations, and templates. Your team configures alerts, workflows, and reports to fit your SaaS stack and roles. Some things to consider when evaluating a third-party SPOG are:

• Integration breadth: Does it cover your current SaaS stack and likely future additions?
• Data freshness: Can it provide near real-time updates?
• Customization: How much can dashboards, alerts, and workflows be tailored?
• Security posture: SOC 2 Type II, encryption, data residency, and compliance reports
• API stability: How does the vendor handle changes to SaaS APIs?
• Scalability: Can it support your organization as you grow?

📚Also read: Why don't existing IT tools help with visibility?

ROI considerations

At the end of the day, it’s about cost, time, and value. With either approach, teams can see ROI: building in-house delivers value over time as custom workflows and integrations come online, while a third-party solution can provide faster access to insights and operational efficiencies.

Build costs (approximate)

• Engineering: 2–3 developers × $120k × 12 months = $240–360k
• Infrastructure and tools: $2–5k/month
• Maintenance: 0.5–1 FTE = $60–120k annually
• Opportunity cost: Delayed insights and manual processes for 12+ months

Buy costs (approximate)

• Platform licensing: $15–50k annually (varies by team size and features)
• Implementation: 2–6 weeks
• Immediate value: start seeing ROI in the first quarter

If your IT team spends 10+ hours weekly on manual SaaS management tasks, a third-party SPOG can typically pay for itself in 6–12 months—without even factoring in the additional benefits of better visibility, faster decision-making, and reduced errors.

👉See the true cost of unused licenses, missed deprovisioning, and SSO overhead. Try our free ROI calculator and discover how a SaaS management solution like Stitchflow can pay for itself.

Why should IT teams invest in unified visibility

Unified visibility is no longer a “nice-to-have”—it’s essential for IT teams tasked with securing, optimizing, and governing today’s sprawling SaaS environment. Without a single source of truth, IT leaders are left juggling spreadsheets, chasing down orphaned accounts, and preparing for audits in the dark.

Stitchflow makes this possible by unifying data from OAuth tokens, APIs, CSVs, HR systems, and IDPs into its IT Graph. 

This means IT can see:

• Every app in use, including shadow IT and AI tools, is discovered and tracked
• Every account tied to an employee, contractor, or external user is reconciled across domains and systems
• Every access gap—whether orphaned, hidden, or unused—is flagged and ready for remediation

Instead of spending hours reconciling exports and manually chasing anomalies, IT gains continuous, real-time visibility into its environment.

And for IT teams managing multi-domain environments or contractors, Stitchflow is uniquely capable of reconciling identities across disconnected systems of record, ensuring no user or account slips through the cracks.

Book a free pilot and, in under four weeks, see how Stitchflow delivers complete visibility and control over your SaaS management.