Using Teams for Clients?

[Deleted User]

Dear all,

I frequently manage accounts and machines on behalf of clients and am looking for a way to distribute passwords to them securely. As a long-time 1Password user, I am convinced that the most secure way would be to use shared vaults, so that an unencrypted password never hits the wire. (As a bonus, this would solve the problem of clients changing passwords and forgetting to let me know, without, of course, "forcing" them to keep me in the loop should they no longer want to.)

In that light, I am thinking it might make sense to create a 1Password for Teams account for my consultancy, and add each one of my clients as an "employee," so that they cannot see each other's passwords. This raises a few questions, though, including the possibility of cross-contamination and information leakage since 1Password's team trust model means that all user accounts on a team can know about one another. Furthermore, I am not sure that the Teams license permits such usage — which could be said to amount to my "reselling" 1Password service to my clients, if one wanted to stretch it a little.

Would the community and powers-that-be at AgileBits have any pointers? Is there a simpler and better way to handle this, not involving Dropbox or third-party storage solutions?

AGAlumB

This raises a few questions, though, including the possibility of cross-contamination and information leakage since 1Password's team trust model means that all user accounts on a team can know about one another. Furthermore, I am not sure that the Teams license permits such usage — which could be said to amount to my "reselling" 1Password service to my clients, if one wanted to stretch it a little.

@Deleted User: I think that's a great idea! It's almost the reverse of what 1Password Teams was designed for, but only really in the social sense (company > employee versus you > companies). Pretty irrelevant, but it's always interesting to hear about the different ways that people like to use 1Password.

Using Guests is a good option if they only need limited access to a single vault you share with them. Also, you get some of these for free with your Owner account: if you have the Standard plan, 5; if you have the Pro plan, 20. Additional guests cost the same as members on the plan. Depending on your volume, this may negate the concerns over "reselling", since there would be no charge for those to a point.

But frankly, so long as you're not literally reselling our service as a middleman, don't worry about it. 1Password Teams is meant for collaboration and sharing, so if you're doing collaboration and sharing anyway as part of your business (which I imagine involves much greater services and costs than just the 1Password subscription), you're just using 1Password as a tool to facilitate that. That's beautiful! :chuffed:

Regarding the question of privacy(?) between clients, the only way normal/guest users will be aware of each others' existence is if you share the same vault with them. They'll see the others who have access to that vault, since you don't want to put data somewhere without knowing who can access it. Only those with Owner and Admin rights can access the console and manage all users.

Personally, 1Password Teams would be the perfect fit for me were I in your shoes, rather than managing individual vaults and syncing each with Dropbox. Let me know what you think! :)

[Deleted User]

Thank you, @brenty, for your kind and thoughtful reply! 1Password does indeed sound perfect. All that remains now is to implement it! ;)

AGAlumB

You're totally welcome! Be sure to let us know if you need anything else. Cheers! :)

krismorrison72

This thread answered a lot of my questions about using Dropbox for teams with my clients...but what happens when I am no longer working with a client and they want to keep their own vault of passwords after that?

AGAlumB

@krismorrison72: I'm not sure we can answer questions about Dropbox business accounts, but I think you may have meant "1Password Teams". ;)

Using 1Password Teams to invite a client while you're working with them will mean that when you remove them, they will no longer have access to that account. After all, you probably don't want to keep paying for it at that point! So the best thing to do would be to give them some buffer before removing them and have them sign up for their own 1Password Account and move any data over as needed.

And, most importantly, if they're a 1Password subscriber (even if they aren't the one paying for the account), they should't hesitate to reach out to us if they have any questions. We're here to help. :)

krismorrison72

Oops. I was debating using the version of 1Password that shares w dropbox vaults or 1Password Teams - thus my slip in the question. Now that I'm looking at the options though, I'm wondering if I can use a Family account since I never have more than 2 clients at a time anyway. Would they be able to move data over to their own account when our contract ends in the same way?

Jacob

@krismorrison72 While 1Password Families could work, it's specifically for personal use, not that of a business. You're welcome to sign up for 1Password Teams and use that. It would work well for your clients too, since you can have up to 20 guests on the Pro plan. Right now that plan is quite affordable with our early adopter special. You'd be the only member of the team, and those guests are included for free. You'll get all the benefits of a team account, like custom permissions and unlimited item history for when you grow to have hundreds of clients — we can dream right? ;)

When a contract with a clients ends, you can let them know they need to move the items out of the account and into their own. They can then create an account and move their items over with one of the 1Password apps.

Hope that helps!

krismorrison72

Thanks! That's a great option. I didn't know about the 20 guests benefit.
Kris

AGAlumB

@krismorrison72: Guests are pretty limited, so they aren't perfect for every use case, but it sounds like that will help in yours. Cheers! :)