How should SSO and MFA connect to our other security tools?

Treat the identity provider as the hub. Applications authenticate through it with SAML or OpenID Connect, accounts are provisioned and removed through it with SCIM, MFA is enforced there, and other tools feed it signals that change access decisions.

A sensible order

1. Put the highest-risk applications behind SSO first: email, file storage, finance and admin consoles.
2. Enforce MFA at the identity provider rather than per application, and prefer phishing-resistant methods such as FIDO2 security keys or passkeys, starting with administrators.
3. Enable SCIM where supported, so disabling a user in one place removes access everywhere it reaches.
4. Connect device compliance or endpoint risk into conditional access policies.
5. Forward sign-in and audit logs to your central logging platform.

Common pitfalls

Applications that support SSO but keep local accounts as a fallback quietly bypass MFA. Inventory those local accounts and disable or vault them. Also watch for service accounts excluded from MFA without a compensating control.

See the full integration scope or which logs to centralise first.