# Application onboarding

Application on-boarding is adding an application to OpenIAM so that it can participate in one or more of the following operations:

* Joiner, mover, and leaver (JML) processes
* Request/approval workflows.
* Audit and compliance activities.

It may not be possible to integrate the full universe of applications. Hence, applications can be segregated into the following types:

* **Automated applications** - applications which can be integrated using connectors.
* **Manual applications** - applications which cannot be integrated using connectors. In this case CSV files are usually used for importing the data needed from applications.
* Applications with **no audit impact**. The business may decide not to integrate these applications.

Application onboarding process comes *after* defining business requirements and objectives in sufficient detail for the implementation team.

### Automated applications <a href="#automatedapplications" id="automatedapplications"></a>

Automated applications integrate with the target application using [**connectors**](/application-onboarding/connectors.md). A connector enables direct communication with the application to allow near real time updates to identity information resulting from the JML processes. In addition to the automation, organizations also benefit from the audit logs resulting from these operations since the access to logs can help to improve security and compliance.

### Manual applications <a href="#manualapplications" id="manualapplications"></a>

Unlike automated applications, where a connector enables near real time integration with the business application to support JML processes, the integration with manual applications is limited to importing data that has been exported from the application. The primary benefits of this level of integration are to be able to:

* Have a complete view of a user's access across applications.
* Support governance activities such as access certifications.
* Support request/approval workflows.

Onboarding of manual applications is described in the following sections.

* [Register application in OpenIAM](https://docs.openiam.com/docs-4.2.2/admin/4-app-onboarding/2-Manual-applications/1-reg-applications)
* [Load application entitlements](https://docs.openiam.com/docs-4.2.2/getting-started/4-application-onboarding/2-importentitlements)
* [Load existing users and their entitlements](https://docs.openiam.com/docs-4.2.2/getting-started/4-application-onboarding/3-importusers-and-entitlements)

After the user has connected the application and imported the users and entitlements, the next step is to configure [automated provisioning](https://docs.openiam.com/docs-4.2.2/getting-started/6-automatedprovisioning) and deprovisioning.

[<br>](https://docs.openiam.com/docs-4.2.2/getting-started/31-planning-workforce/3-connector-planning)


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