Service account overview

What is a service account?

A service account is a non-user account used for automating integrations, accessing common resources from outside the account, or acting on behalf of a user to approve items in Kissflow. It has an impersonation feature, allowing it to represent users and perform actions for them. Service accounts can access common resources like My items, User and group management, processes, boards, datasets, integrations, and chats based on use cases. Each action by the service account is audited in a dedicated log, allowing Super Admins and IAM Admins to govern them.

Note:
You can only create a maximum of 25 service accounts. Under each service account, you can create 50 access keys that you can use to access them. 

Differences between a service account and a user account

Multiple Super Admins and IAM Admins can manage service accounts, whereas individuals typically access user accounts. You can't access service accounts through the standard username-password pair but by authenticating the access keys' ID-secret key pair. This reduces the risk of unauthorized access and chances of misuse. Depending on the user role, user accounts can have broader access to the Kissflow account, but service accounts can only access resources that have been shared with it. Service accounts are generally created for a specific purpose, but a user account is unlike that. 

Use cases for service accounts.

You can use service accounts in various scenarios. Below are some practical ways to use it in Kissflow: 

• Automating integrations between two processes so that the initiator of an item in the first process is considered the initiator in the second process and not the integration owner.  
• Integrations authenticated using service account credentials will run seamlessly without interruption, whereas integrations authenticated using user credentials may fail if the user gets deactivated/deleted from Kissflow.
• Access internal Kissflow resources programmatically without using Kissflow. 

Advantages of using a service account

Using a service account has multiple advantages. A few of these advantages are listed below:

• Service accounts can automate certain aspects of Kissflow without manual intervention.
• Service accounts can be selectively granted access to specific resources within Kissflow, which helps control and manage resources easily.
• Service accounts improve security by isolating specific actions from an individual user account.
• Service accounts provide a reliable way of accessing resources even if the user who created the service account is deactivated or deleted from Kissflow.