Access request management systems help IT teams address several pain points, including: 

• Slow, manual approval cycles. Without a centralized system, access requests get lost in email threads, Slack messages, and disconnected tickets. Employees wait days for software access that should take minutes. This slows down onboarding, project starts, and day-to-day productivity.
  ‍
• Repetitive requests consuming valuable IT time. When every access request requires manual intervention, agents spend their days on routine tasks instead of strategic work. This creates backlogs and frustration on both sides.
  ‍
• Inefficient audit trail processes. When access requests are scattered across various channels (e.g., email, Slack, tickets), pulling together documentation for audits requires significant manual work. A centralized system keeps everything in one place.

Access request management systems address these problems by centralizing requests, automating approvals where appropriate, and maintaining a complete audit trail.

‍The result? Faster access for employees, less manual work for IT, and the visibility you need for compliance.

The best solutions seamlessly integrate with your existing tech stack and can be deployed in hours rather than weeks or months.

In this article, we explore the top access request management software, beginning with our own solution, Risotto.

1. Risotto

Risotto is our conversational AI agent that lets employees submit access requests using natural language in the tools they already use — Slack, Teams, email, and more.

It also integrates via two-way sync with Jira, Zendesk, and Freshservice, adding powerful IGA automation on top of these platforms.

Based on the conditional rules and approval flows you've set, Risotto automatically handles provisioning and de-provisioning and coordinates approvals with the necessary managers (with full context of the ticket for easy approval). Throughout the entire process, Risotto maintains detailed access records, so you always stay audit-ready. 

This frees IT agents for higher-value work and lets you serve more employees without increasing IT headcount. 

As Phillip Rickett, VP of IT at Fundrise, stated in our case study: 

"When a team member asks, ‘How do I get access to Hightouch?’ they’re not looking for a link or a document; they need immediate, actionable assistance… Risotto intelligently understands the intent behind the request. It confirms existing permissions, coordinates necessary approvals proactively, and automatically provisions access upon approval. This automation significantly speeds up provisioning and improves user satisfaction."

A key benefit is that Risotto provides a single support funnel with IGA embedded in the same help desk as everything else. Employees never have to wonder where to go for support, and adoption rates are much higher since they don't need to open another tool or tab to submit requests.

As Toby Stewart, IT Engineering Manager at Ironclad, shared in our case study on how they achieved a 90% automation rate across access-related IT requests:   

Below is an example of an employee submitting a time-based access request in Slack, with Risotto auto-solving it with minimal human intervention. (We'll cover additional examples of Risotto's IGA automation capabilities later.)

In this example:

🧑‍💼 Andrew asks in Slack: "Can I get a license to MS Office?"

🤖 Risotto intelligently interprets the request and replies in the same thread, asking for a justification and duration (anywhere from 1 hour to 21 days).

🧑‍💼 Andrew responds: "I need to create reports and 21 days is great."

🤖 Risotto handles the entire approval workflow. It messages the appropriate manager(s) in Slack or Teams with full ticket context (who's requesting access, why they need it, and for how long). Once approved, Risotto provisions the license for 21 days, then automatically revokes it when time’s up. 

Beyond access requests, Risotto auto-solves knowledge-based tickets. It performs triage and multi-step troubleshooting, and can interpret screenshots and other visual inputs. This means Risotto doesn't just deflect tickets — it fully resolves a large portion of them.

Most IT teams achieve tier-1 ticket automation rates of 20-60%:

• Fundrise: Automated nearly 60% of IT support tickets
• Superhuman: Automated nearly 20% of IT support tickets
• Ironclad: Automated nearly 90% of access-related IT requests
• ThoughtSpot: Automated nearly 48% of IT support tickets
• Trust & Will: Automated nearly 35% of IT support tickets
• Hazel Health: Improved deflection rates from 3-5% to over 20%
• Shakepay: Automated nearly 40% of IT support tickets
• Retool: Reduced SLA resolution time from an average of 2 days to under 1 day
• Vidyard: Automated nearly 56% of IT support tickets

Risotto deploys in hours, not weeks or months. As we share in our origin story, Risotto was built by IT for IT to focus on one core use case: automated tier-1 ticket resolution. Legacy tools try to be everything for everyone. We don't.

Next, let’s take a look at:

• How our access request management system works, including 3 examples of how Risotto streamlines time-based, approval-based, and instant self-service access for low-risk applications. 

• Additional customer quotes highlighting Risotto’s IGA automation capabilities.

• Other key benefits of Risotto, backed by customer quotes, including:
  
  • Quick deployment and time-to-value
  • Auto-solving knowledge-based questions
  • Automatic learning from past ticket resolutions and Slack updates
  • Seamless bi-directional sync with ticketing platforms 
  • Multi-department capabilities

How Our Access Request Management System Works

Employees kick off the process by requesting access directly in your communication tool of choice, like Slack, Teams, or other corporate chat channels. Risotto takes care of the entire access request process, from provisioning to deprovisioning, while keeping an audit trail for compliance. 

Let’s take a look at three examples of how Risotto handles different types of access requests (time-based, approval-based, and self-service), and how to configure conditional rules and multi-step approval flows through our intuitive self-serve dashboard.

Time-Based Access

In this example:

🧑‍💼 Logan asks IT in Slack: "Can you give my new team member Michael access to Stripe?"

🤖 Risotto asks for the required details, including what level of access Michael needs and how long he needs it for (1 hour to 90 days).

🧑‍💼 Logan replies: "View only" and "90 days."

🤖 Upon a manager’s approval, Risotto provisions "View only" Stripe access for 90 days, and automatically revokes it upon expiration. 

Risotto can also optionally remind employees that access is set to expire and ask if they want to extend.

In the example above:

🤖 Risotto proactively messages Ethan in Slack: "Your access to Asana will expire in 7 days. Would you like to extend it by another 30 days?"

🧑‍💼 Ethan replies: "Yes, extend access I’m still working on the design project."

🤖 Risotto coordinates approval with the appropriate manager(s), and automatically completes the request: "Done. I’ve extended your access to Asana by 30 more days. Good luck finishing the design project!"

Approval-Based Access

In this example:

🧑‍💼 Eli asks in Slack: "Hey! Can I get access to Appetize?"

🤖 Risotto asks, "What level do you need – Admin, Developer, or Appetize User?"

🧑‍💼 Eli replies: "Developer access, please."

🤖 Risotto follows up asking for a reason.

🧑‍💼 Eli responds: "To test and post iOS builds."

🤖 Risotto manages the entire approval workflow automatically, routing to the correct approver, logging the justification, and coordinating setup without IT lifting a finger.

Self-Service Access

For low-risk applications, based on your pre-configured rules, Risotto can automatically grant access without requiring a manager’s approval. 

In the example above:

🧑‍💼 Maya messages Risotto in Slack: "Kai Turner and I need Figma access."

🤖 Risotto replies: "Sure! Can you tell me why you need access?"

🧑‍💼 Kai and Maya clarify that they need to view the roadmap.

🤖 Based on your preconfigured rules, Risotto grants access automatically — no IT involvement needed.

Adding and Managing New Applications 

Risotto's dashboard gives you centralized control over application access. Simply connect your IDP (Okta, Google Groups, and others) to pull in existing applications and access rules. Setup only takes minutes.

Flexible Configuration Options

Risotto's dashboard lets you easily configure granular access controls for each application, including:

• RBAC (role-based access control) policies with intuitive Boolean logic
• Multi-step approval workflows including sequential approvals and broadcast approvals
• Custom workflows tailored to your requirements

Customer Quotes Highlighting Risotto’s IGA Automation Capabilities

"Automated software access saves us so much time. Within minutes people get the access they need with everything tracked, approved, and no additional overhead needed… For sensitive tools and resources Risotto's automated time-based access has been a game-changer."

– Collin Clifford, Legal & Compliance Manager at Superhuman

"The problem we faced is other AI support bots were not confident in themselves. If you asked, 'Can I have access to Salesforce?' it would respond, 'Do you want access to Salesforce?' Or worse, it wouldn't find the app at all."

– Toby Stewart, IT Engineering Manager at Ironclad 

“The software access automations were a huge win for us. They were super easy to set up and we now have more than 30 applications with automated provisioning running 24/7.”

– Tom Grinberg, IT Manager at Trust & Will 

"Our control for SOC 2 is that access to privileged systems is approved by a manager… Risotto is able to automate the approval process and ticket tracking portion which is exactly what we needed."

– Vergil Smith, IT Manager at Vidyard

"Before Risotto compliance reports could take days to figure out but now I can pull everything needed in seconds."

– Jason Huey, Senior IT Systems Administrator at ThoughtSpot

Additional Key Benefits of Risotto 

Now, let’s take a look at some of the other advantages Risotto offers, alongside relevant quotes from our customers. 

Quick Deployment and Time-to-Value

Unlike legacy tools, Risotto was built with a singular purpose: to auto-solve repetitive tier-1 tickets. Our prebuilt workflows make Risotto deployable in hours, not weeks or months, offering rapid time-to-value.

We also offer guided onboarding to ensure smooth implementation, led by a founding team that's been in your shoes. Risotto was built on direct experience leading IT engineering at companies like Gusto and Dropbox, so we know what IT teams actually need, down to the details that matter. (Read our origin story.)

As several of our customers shared:

“Risotto is one of the easiest tools I’ve implemented. We were up and running in less than a week and already seeing our first autosolves... getting Risotto integrated with Jira, Slack, and Okta was so seamless and fast.”

– Jason Huey, Senior IT Systems Administrator at ThoughtSpot

“Ease of deployment was huge. We didn’t need a consultant or months of configuration. Risotto just worked.”

– Peter Hadjisavas, Head of IT at Hazel Health

"Risotto had the most thorough onboarding experience I've ever been a part of. Alex was great - he met with us weekly and made it very easy to quickly get up and running."

– Collin Clifford, Legal & Compliance Manager at Superhuman

“With our old chatbot, every new application required a cumbersome onboarding process through the vendor. Now, adding an application to Risotto takes just a few minutes.”

– Phillip Rickett, VP of IT at Fundrise

Auto-Solving Knowledge-Based Questions

Beyond access requests, Risotto excels at auto-solving knowledge-based questions. When appropriate, it performs triage and multi-step troubleshooting, understands multimodal inputs like screenshots, and pulls from multiple sources (your knowledge base, historical ticket resolutions, and Slack conversations) to deliver the most up-to-date, accurate answers.

The result: Risotto functions like an extension of your IT team. It's best-in-class at AI-powered knowledge ticket resolution, meaning a large portion of your tickets get fully resolved, not just deflected.

As several of our customers have shared: 

“Our previous tool summarized whatever it pulled from wiki articles, it didn’t supplement responses with broader LLM knowledge or reasoning. This approach fell short because it lacked the capability to fully understand user intent or supplement answers with external knowledge… Risotto, however, synthesizes information from multiple inputs to provide context-aware, accurate, and actionable responses.”

– Phillip Rickett, VP of IT at Fundrise

“Risotto was able to combine knowledge from different sources and give me an instant answer to a complex question, which was awesome to watch."

– Jason Huey, Senior IT Systems Administrator at ThoughtSpot

“It was amazing to see Risotto solve questions for me when I was out of the office, and our employees loved getting answers instantly.”

– Collin Clifford, Legal & Compliance Manager at Superhuman 

Automatic Learning From Past Ticket Resolutions and Slack Updates

When an agent resolves an issue, Risotto automatically learns from their response, ensuring you never answer the same question twice. Risotto can also learn from designated Slack channels with your approval.

In the example above, taken from the Superhuman case study:

🧑‍💼 Jessica asks in Slack: "Hey when’s our next audit for SOC 2?"

🤖 Risotto instantly replies with the correct information pulled not just from Notion, but also a relevant Slack update: "The next SOC 2 audit will start in July and the observation period should last three months."

🧑‍💼 Jessica confirms her issue is resolved.

As several of our customers shared:

"The killer feature for us was that it could effortlessly learn and capture knowledge that our team creates every day in Slack… with Risotto, instead of constantly writing new documentation, our team can simply answer questions, and Risotto learns as we go."

– Phillip Rickett, VP of IT at Fundrise

"The more we use Risotto, the smarter it gets, that’s what makes it different from every other tool we’ve tried."

– Peter Hadjisavas, Head of IT at Hazel Health

Seamless Bi-Directional Sync with Ticketing Platforms 

Risotto integrates seamlessly with Jira, Freshservice, Zendesk, and other ticketing systems. It adds a powerful AI automation layer that works alongside your existing workflow. 

In the background, Risotto performs automated ticket lifecycle management, including: 

• Ticket creation 
• Titling 
• Categorizing  
• Tagging 
• Routing 

As one of our customers shared:

“Risotto became the orchestration layer for Jira Service Management and gives us instant automation with AI… We always wanted to require a reason for application access, but it was really difficult to integrate that into JSM. Risotto adds that functionality to JSM and so much more.”

– Tom Grinberg, IT Manager at Trust & Will 

Multi-Department Capabilities

IT is often just the starting point. Teams across the organization (e.g., HR, Sales, Legal, Finance, Engineering, and others) also use Risotto to auto-solve their own repetitive tickets, freeing up time for higher-value work.

Key benefits of Risotto for multi-department adoption include:  

• One license covers your entire organization, with no added cost for additional departments.
• Risotto intelligently routes tickets to the right person and department based on context, and does it better than most other AI IT support tools. It's one of our core differentiators.
• Each department maintains its own knowledge base, rules, and conditions, with strict privacy controls (e.g., IT can't access HR content, and vice versa). 
• Many non-IT teams use Risotto as their primary ticketing system — it has everything they need without the complexity or cost of tools like Jira. 

As some of our customers have shared:

"Once you add in HR our combined automation rate is even higher at 50.2%.”

– Jason Huey, Senior IT Systems Administrator at ThoughtSpot

"The multi-department capabilities are awesome. Our engineering and RevOps teams now also want to use Risotto as they also get lots of the same questions over and over again.”

– Collin Clifford, Legal & Compliance Manager at Superhuman

Interested in Learning More About Risotto? 

Our access request management tool was built by IT for IT. It seamlessly integrates with the tools your team already uses, and can be deployed in hours, not weeks or months. 

To learn more, we invite you to:

• Schedule a demo call
• Read our origin story
• Explore the following customer success stories: 
  
  • Ironclad: Automated nearly 90% of access-related IT requests
  • Fundrise: Automated nearly 60% of IT support tickets
  • Superhuman: Automated nearly 20% of IT support tickets
  • ThoughtSpot: Automated nearly 48% of IT support tickets
  • Trust & Will: Automated nearly 35% of IT support tickets
  • Hazel Health: Improved deflection rates from 3-5% to over 20%
  • Shakepay: Automated nearly 40% of IT support tickets
  • Retool: Reduced SLA resolution time from an average of 2 days to under 1 day
  • Vidyard: Automated nearly 56% of IT support tickets

2. SailPoint

SailPoint can be used as an access request management software. 

Some of its key capabilities include:

• Agent Identity Security
• Observability & Insights
• Cloud Infrastructure Entitlement Management
• Non-Employee Risk Management
• Data Access Security
• Password Management
• Access Risk Management
• Machine Identity Security
• Harbor Pilot

3. Okta

Okta is an IGA tool that can be used as an access request management platform.

Some of its use cases include:

• Automation
• Centralized Logging
• Directory and HR Sync
• Identity Governance and Administration (IGA)
• Identity Verification
• Lifecycle Management
• Multi-factor Authentication (MFA)
• Single Sign-On
• Social Login
• Zero Trust

Note that Risotto seamlessly integrates with Okta, so you can import your existing applications and permissions in just a few clicks. 

4. ConductorOne

ConductorOne can be used as an access request management solution. 

Some of its key features and capabilities include:

• Modern IGA
• Infrastructure Access Control
• Identity Lifecycle Management
• App self-service
• Non-human Identity Governance
• Shadow Apps
• Just-in-Time Access

Overall, it’s a solid tool for implementing role-based access control (RBAC) and a least privilege access policy.

5. Lumos

Lumos can be used as an access request management system. 

Some of its solutions include:

• Identity Governance
• Identity Security Posture
• Zero-Touch IT
• Shadow IT & SaaS Discovery

To learn more about how Risotto compares to Lumos, see our article on the Lumos Competitors: 8 Best Alternatives.

6. AccessOwl

AccessOwl can be used as an access request management tool, and can help you centrally manage SaaS apps and user access without switching your IdP.

Some of its products include:

• Shadow IT
• Access Reviews
• Provisioning
• Requests & Approvals
• Vendor Management
• SaaS Spend Management

Overall, it’s a solid tool for managing access rights in real-time and can help eliminate bottlenecks. 

7. Saviynt

Saviynt can be used as an access request management solution. 

Some of its products and capabilities include:

• Identity Governance & Administration
• Identity Security & Posture Management
• Application Identity Security
• Privileged Access Management
• External Identity Management
• Advanced Capabilities
• Intelligent Recommendations
• Just-in-Time Access
• Application Onboarding
• Agentic AI Governance
• Non-Human Identity
• Saviynt MCP Server

Overall, it’s a solid IAM provider that can help reduce repetitive manual processes and streamline user access requests. 

8. Jira Service Management

Jira Service Management is an ITSM solution that can be used as an access request management tool.

Some of its key features and capabilities include:

• Request Management
• Incident Management
• Change Management
• Asset Management
• Configuration Management
• Knowledge Management
• Problem Management

To learn more about how Risotto compares to Jira Service Management, see our article on the 7 Best Jira Service Management Alternatives.

9. Trelica by 1Password

Trelica can be used as an access request management system.

Some of its solutions include:

• Discovery & Shadow IT
• Spend Optimization
• Contracts & Renewals
• Automation & SaaS Ops
• Employee On/Off-boarding
• Access Management

Interested in Learning More About Risotto?

Risotto auto-solves 20–60% of tier-1 IT tickets, works within your existing workflows, and deploys in hours — not weeks or months.

To learn more, we invite you to:

• Schedule a demo call
• Read our origin story
• Explore customer success stories