Manage Employee Accounts, Sign-In And App Access With Okta

Every time someone joins your company, they need accounts in a dozen applications. Every time someone leaves, those accounts need to close, quickly. In between, people change roles, forget passwords and need a second factor on their phone. Okta handles that sign-in and access work for many businesses, and all of it is available through an API, so your HR system, your IT scripts or an AI assistant can create users, give them access and lock things down without someone working through an admin console.

What Okta does

Okta is a workforce identity platform. Identity here means knowing who someone is and what they are allowed to get into. Its platform covers single sign-on (one login for many apps), adaptive multi-factor authentication, a universal directory of users, lifecycle management, identity governance, privileged access and more. Customer identity is handled by Auth0, which Okta acquired. Okta is also working on securing AI agents through Okta for AI Agents and Cross-App Access, and it offers an official MCP server so AI assistants can perform administrative tasks with a person confirming them.

What you can get done

Identity & Access Management

This is the people side: adding someone, keeping their details current and enrolling their second factor.

• POST /api/v1/users creates a user, such as a new hire on their first day.
• GET /api/v1/users lists users in your organization.
• POST /api/v1/users/{userId} partially updates a user, like a new title or department.
• GET /api/v1/users/{userId}/factors lists the sign-in factors a user has set up.
• POST /api/v1/users/{userId}/factors enrolls a new factor, such as an authenticator app.

Tenant Configuration Management

Your tenant is your company’s own Okta space. These calls keep its settings and branding consistent.

• GET /api/v1/org gets your organization settings.
• PUT /api/v1/org updates them.
• GET /api/v1/brands lists the brands that style your sign-in pages.
• GET /api/v1/brands/{brandId}/templates/email lists the email templates users receive.

Webhook & Event Subscription Management

Event hooks let Okta tell your systems when something happens, such as a user being deactivated.

• POST /api/v1/eventHooks creates an event hook.
• POST /api/v1/eventHooks/{eventHookId}/lifecycle/activate turns it on.
• DELETE /api/v1/eventHooks/{eventHookId} removes it.

Threat Detection & Response Management

• GET /api/v1/threats/configuration gets your threat detection settings.
• POST /api/v1/threats/configuration updates them.

Workflows that put it together

A workflow is a recipe of several calls in order, written down in a standard format called Arazzo so software can follow it step by step. Okta has 21 of them on APIs.io, including:

• Create Application, Assign User, and Activate sets up a new app and gives someone access in one pass.
• Assign Group to Application finds a group by name and gives everyone in it access to an app.
• Assign Admin Role to User grants an administrator role and checks it took.
• Create and Activate Authenticator adds a sign-in method and opens it for enrollment.
• Create and Activate Group Rule sets up a rule that puts people in groups automatically.

Getting started

Okta is a paid, hosted service you call over the web. Okta lists its Starter plan at $6 per user/month; the details are in the pricing section of its APIs.io profile. Start with the Okta API reference and the authorization code with PKCE guide, then look at the Okta Application API and Okta Authenticator API on APIs.io.

If onboarding new hires is still a checklist, the create-user call is where to begin.