Proof-of-Concept Project Checklist
This guide is designed by our Product, Implementation, and Sales specialists at Bitwarden to help guide your business in running a PoC of Bitwarden. Bitwarden offers a free trial for Enterprise Organizations, and we're confident that spreading out these steps over that time will help shape a successful PoC.
Day | Action | Key Person | Description | Resource(s) | Duration (hrs) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
1 | Identify an Organization Owner | Organization Owner | Create a free Bitwarden account for your Organization Owner, who will manage your Organization's settings, structure, and subscription. | 0.1 | |
1 | Create your Organization | Organization Owner | Create a free Organization on the Bitwarden Cloud. Once created, let us know and we'll upgrade you to an Enterprise trial. | 0.1 | |
1 | (Self-hosting only) Download a License | Organization Owner | If you're self-hosting Bitwarden, a license file enables Enterprise functionality and the right number of seats for your instance. | 0.1 | |
1 | (Self-hosting only) Install Bitwarden | Organization Owner / IT Team | Setup your Bitwarden server. We recommend deploying on Linux for optimal performance and lowest total cost of ownership. | 2.5 | |
1 | Add Admins | Organization Owners + Admins | Onboard Admins to Bitwarden, who can manage most Organization structures. We also recommend adding a second Owner for redundancy. | 0.2 | |
2 | Create Collections | Organization Owners + Admins | Create Collection, which gather items for secure sharing with Groups of users. | 0.25 | |
2 | Create Groups | Organization Owners + Admins | Create Groups, which gather users for scalable assignment of permissions and access to Collections. | 0.25 | |
2 | Assign Groups to Collections | Organization Owners + Admins | Assign Groups to Collections, making shared items available to supersets of users. Test the Read Only and Hide Password options. | .5 | |
2 | Share items to Collections | Organization Owners + Admins | Add items manually or import data from another password management application. | 0.25 | |
2 | Configure Enterprise Policies | Organization Owners + Admins | Enterprise Policies can be used to tailor your Bitwarden Organization to fit your security needs. Enable and configure desired policies before user onboarding begins. | 0.1 | |
3 | Add users to Groups | Organization Owners + Admins | Add a set of users to your Organization manually and assign them to different groups. With these users, you'll broadly test all pre-configured functionality in the next step, before moving on to advanced functions like Directory Connector. | 0.5 | |
3 | Download Bitwarden Client Applications | All users | All Organization members should download Bitwarden on an assortment of devices, login, and test access to shared items/Collections/Groups and application of applied Policies. If you're self-hosting, users will need to connect each client to your server. | 0.5 | |
4-6 | Configure Login with SSO | Organization Owners + Admins | Configure Bitwarden to authenticate using your SAML 2.0 or OIDC Identity Provider. | 1.5 | |
4-6 | Choose between SCIM and Directory Connector | Organization Owners + Admins | Decide whether SCIM or Directory Connector is the right user onboarding solution for your Organization. | 1 | |
4-6 | Configure and test user onboarding with SCIM or Directory Connector | Organization Owners + Admins | Configure and test Bitwarden SCIM integrations or the Bitwarden Directory Connector application to automatically sync users and groups. | 1.5 | |
4-6 | Onboard users with SCIM or Directory Connector | Organization Owners + Admins | Execute on SCIM or Directory Connector syncing to invite your remaining users to the Organization. | 1 |
We've seen a lot of deployments and have found that taking the following actions can positive contribute towards a successful PoC and successful adoption with your users:
Day | Action | Key Person | Description | Resource(s) | Duration (hrs) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
4-6 | Determine timeline for rollout to first-wave users | Senior Leadership & Security teams | There are lots of different strategies for rolling out Bitwarden. Take things at whatever pace best suits your team. | ||
7 | Craft internal messaging about Bitwarden rollout | Internal Training & Managers | Bitwarden provides a lot of resources to help users quickly adopt, check some out with the links in the Resource(s) column. |