Thank you for your interest in the InCommon Federation. Here's a 10,000 foot view of what to do once you have joined InCommon. If you have not already joined, please see Joining the InCommon Federation to learn more.

IMPORTANT: if you are new to identity federations, read things-to-consider-when-joining-incommon first.

As you join InCommon, follow this three step plan to get started:

Step One - Deploy your services

If you are responsible for the identity and access management infrastructure of your institution...

The InCommon Trusted Access Platform offers a great suite of open-source, community-curated IAM software: Shibboleth (federated SSO), Grouper (group, role and access management), CoManage (virtual organization management), and midPoint (identity records provisioning). This standards-based software suite is optimized for use in InCommon. It is widely adopted among many of InCommon participants.

In addition, peruse the InCommon Federation Library. It contains additional resources to help you achieve a successful deployment of your chosen software.

If you are offering a content or resource platform to InCommon-participating organizations...

The sp-onboarding-guide guide is your starting point to learn how to design your platform and service to work well with InCommon. 

Step Two - Register your metadata with the Federation

A big advantage of joining the InCommon Federation is to be able to exchange service (entity) metadata with fellow participants via a trusted and secure registry. The InCommon Metadata Service is that registry. Registering your metadata allows others find your service easily and reduces the need to individually coordinate integration set up and configuration. 

Your Site Administrator can use the Federation Manager to register metadata on your organization's behalf.

Site Administrators: getting your metadata right will make your life much easier. Time spent now will pay you back over the lifetime of your IdPs and SPs; don't skimp on this task. See federation-manager-introduction to learn more.

Step Three - Enhance your participation in InCommon

See Engage - get the most out of InCommon for information about how to keep current with new developments, augment your ability interoperate within the federation, and become more involved in InCommon's vibrant community.