Identity types on Adobe Admin Console

Adobe’s identity management system helps admins create and manage user's access to applications and services. Adobe offers these identities types or accounts to authenticate and authorize users.

Identity types allow the organization different levels of control over user's account and data. Your choice of identity model has a considerable impact on the way your organization stores and shares assets. The Business ID, Federated ID, and Enterprise ID models are ideal choices for organizations that needs to control how the users use apps and products, while Adobe ID is better suited for individuals.

Business IDs, Enterprise IDs, and Federated IDs support the best data practices and ensure effective software deployment and data management. The following table guides you to decide which identity model is most suitable for your organization.

Note:

So as to provide benefits such as enterprise storage and other enterprise-level features, we are migrating all existing Adobe IDs to Business IDs. All new business customers will use Business IDs for their team members.

You'll receive advance communication when your organization is scheduled for this upgrade. For more information, see Introduction to Business IDs and new storage features. Until your organization is migrated, you will continue to use Adobe ID type to access the organization. Support for Adobe IDs will then be reserved for individual customers only.

Account-type	Company or school account			Personal account
	Federated ID	Enterprise ID	Business ID	Adobe ID
Key offerings	Created, owned, and managed by the organization. The organization manages user-credentials and uses Single Sign-On (SSO) via a SAML2 Identity Provider (IdP).	Created, owned, and managed by the organization. The organization retains exclusive rights to create user accounts on verified domains.	Created, owned, and managed by the organization. The organization creates user accounts on unverified, public, or trusted domains (4).	Created, owned, and managed by the end user. Adobe performs the authentication, and the end user manages the identity.
Account & Data Ownership	Organization owned and controlled			User-controlled
Security & Monitoring	Audit logs Content Logs Sharing restrictions Organization’s authentication settings	Content logs Sharing restrictions Password policy (1)		Password policy (1)
Reset password	Not Supported	Send password reset email.	Not Supported
Creative Cloud for enterprise & Document Cloud for enterprise	Supported			Partially supported (2)
Creative Cloud for teams & Document Cloud for teams	Not Supported		Supported	Supported
Experience Cloud	Supported			Supported
Recommended for	Organizations already using SSO or SAML Existing Directory services, such as Google and Azure AD Require seamless integration with non-Adobe services Can demonstrate ownership of domain	Can demonstrate ownership of domain Don’t require SSO	Creative Cloud for teams Organization prefers to use domains they do not own Public domains for example, Hotmail, Gmail, etc. Access apps like Adobe Experience Manager Mobile	Creative Cloud for teams Want control in user's hand Access apps like Digital Publishing Suite (3) Users own assets after separation from organization
Get Started	Set up identity	Claim domains	Add User	Add User

Note:

(1) Password policy for Creative Cloud for teams is the same as that for Creative Cloud for individuals.

(2) For Creative Cloud for enterprise customers using enterprise storage, admins can add Adobe ID users to the Admin Console but cannot add them to Product Profiles. Admins need to migrate Adobe ID users to another identity type.

(3) There are some products and services such as Adobe Licensing Website that only support Adobe ID.

(4) Business ID users can be authenticated either by their Adobe ID credentials or by the authentication method as defined by the owning organization. If the Business ID user's domain is already claimed by an owning organization, then the user is authenticated by the owning organization's identity framework, whether there's a trust with the owning organization or not. In such scenarios, Business ID users are redirected to the owning organization's SSO page. After authentication, users may need to choose a Business Profile. For example, say the admin of Acme, adds a Business ID user john@cooperdesign.com. If cooperdesign.com is claimed by another organization, john@cooperdesign.com will be authenticated by the authentication framework on Cooper Design. Else, john@cooperdesign.com is authenticated by their Adobe ID credentials.