help/_articles/getting-started/proof-of-concept.md

---
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title: Proof-of-Concept Project Checklist
categories: [business]
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tags: [project guide, poc]
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---

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]({{site.baseurl}}/article/about-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](https://vault.bitwarden.com/#/register){:target="\_blank"} for your Organization Owner, who will manage your Organization's settings, structure, and subscription.|[Create your Bitwarden Account]({{site.baseurl}}/article/create-bitwarden-account/)|0.1|
|1|Create your Organization|Organization Owner|[Create a **free Organization** on the Bitwarden Cloud]({{site.baseurl}}/article/getting-started-organizations/#setup-your-organization). Once created, let us know and we'll upgrade you to an Enterprise trial.<br><br>If you're self-hosting, this Organization will be used only for billing purposes.|[Organizations]({{site.baseurl}}/article/about-organizations/)|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.|[License Paid Features]({{site.baseurl}}/article/licensing-on-premise/#organization-license)|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.|[Install and Deploy]({{site.baseurl}}/article/install-on-premise/)|2.5|
|1|Add Admins|Organization Owners + Admins|Onboard [Admins]({{site.baseurl}}/article/user-types-access-control/) to Bitwarden, who can manage *most* Organization structures. We also recommend adding a second Owner for redundancy.|[User Management]({{site.baseurl}}/article/managing-users/)|0.2|
|2|Create Collections|Organization Owners + Admins|Create [Collections]({{site.baseurl}}/article/about-collections/), which gather items for secure sharing with Groups of users.|[Collections]({{site.baseurl}}/article/about-collections/)|0.25|
|2| Create Groups|Organization Owners + Admins|Create [Groups]({{site.baseurl}}/article/about-groups/), which gather users for scalable assignment of permissions and access to Collections.<br><br>If you decide to sync Groups and users from your Identity Provider or Directory Service, you may need to reconfigure user and Group assignments later.|[Groups]({{site.baseurl}}/article/groups/)|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.|[Collections Assignment]({{site.baseurl}}/article/about-groups/#edit-collections-assignments)|.5|
|2|Share items to Collections|Organization Owners + Admins|[Add items manually]({{site.baseurl}}/article/sharing/#create-an-organization-item) or [import data]({{site.baseurl}}/article/import-to-org/) from another password management application.|[Sharing]({{site.baseurl}}/article/sharing/)<br><br>[Import to an Organization]({{site.baseurl}}/article/import-to-org/)|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.**|[Enterprise Policies]({{site.baseurl}}/article/policies/)|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.|[User Management]({{site.baseurl}}/article/managing-users/)<br><br>[Groups]({{site.baseurl}}/article/about-groups/)|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]({{site.baseurl}}/article/change-client-environment/).|[Download Bitwarden](https://get.bitwarden.com/)|0.5|
|4-6|Configure Login with SSO|Organization Owners + Admins|Configure Bitwarden to authenticate using your SAML 2.0 or OIDC Identity Provider.|[About Login with SSO]({{site.baseurl}}/article/about-sso/)|1.5|
|4-6|Configure and test user onboarding with Directory Connector|Organization Owners + Admins|Download, configure, and test the Bitwarden Directory Connector application, which is used to automatically sync users and groups from your existing directory service (LDAP, AD, etc.)|[About Directory Connector]({{site.baseurl}}/article/directory-sync/)|1.5|
|4-6|Configure Directory Connector for production onboarding|Organization Owners + Admins|Execute on using Directory Connector to invite your remaining users to the Organization.|[Directory Connector Desktop App]({{site.baseurl}}/article/directory-sync-desktop/)|1|

## Deployment Best Practices

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 on [Youtube](http://youtube.com/bitwarden) and on the [Help Center]({{site.baseurl}}).|[Youtube](http://youtube.com/bitwarden)<br><br>[Help Center](https://bitwarden.com/help)||  
|7|Communicate to internal leaders about Password Management policies|Internal leaders / Security teams|Make sure your teams know about any [Enterprise Policies]({{site.baseurl}}/article/policies/), [2FA]({{site.baseurl}}/article/setup-two-step-login-duo/) or [SSO]({{site.baseurl}}/article/about-sso/) requirements, and password management best practices.| | |
| | | | | | |
| | | | |**Total Hours (Cloud-hosted)**|**7.35**|
| | | | |**Total Hours (Self-hosted)**|**9.85**|