User provisioning is the process of creating, managing, and maintaining user accounts across applications and systems. It simplifies onboarding, tightens security, and automates access management. Automated user provisioning enhances security by ensuring appropriate access based on roles, improves efficiency for IT and HR teams, streamlines automated onboarding and offboarding, and ensures compliance with data privacy regulations like GDPR. User deprovisioning removes access to data and applications from a user, reducing security risks. Two common protocols for user provisioning are SCIM (System for Cross-domain Identity Management) and JIT (Just-in-Time). Best practices for implementing user provisioning include using Role-Based Access Control (RBAC), regularly auditing access, and integrating automated workflows between HR and IT systems. WorkOS's Directory Sync simplifies managing user provisioning across different directories by automatically syncing changes in any directory with applications.