---
title: Introduction to PingCentral
description: An introduction to PingCentral and a high-level explanation of how it works.
component: pingcentral
version: 3.1.1
page_id: pingcentral:pingcentral_for_iam_administrators:pingcentral_intro/pingcentral_intro
canonical_url: https://docs.pingidentity.com/pingcentral/3.1.1/pingcentral_for_iam_administrators/pingcentral_intro/pingcentral_intro.html
revdate: October 9, 2025
page_aliases: ["index.adoc"]
---

# Introduction to PingCentral

PingCentral allows you to delegate common application configuration and deployment tasks to application owners, streamlining processes and saving time.

PingCentral:

* Removes many tasks from your list of responsibilities, which lowers operational costs and reduces bottlenecks.

* Provides a central monitoring location for greater visibility into applications across deployment life cycles.

* Minimizes the risk of promoting applications with vulnerable security policies and makes it easier to standardize policies across the applications within your organization.

Using PingCentral does not require extensive training. However, for the best possible experience, review how the platform works before getting started.

* In PingCentral, you set up users and define PingFederate and PingAccess development, test, and production environments.

* In PingFederate and PingAccess, you locate clients, connections, and application security configurations worthy of replicating.

* In PingCentral, you create PingFederate OAuth *(tooltip: \<div class="paragraph">
  \<p>A standard framework that enables an application (OAuth client) to obtain access tokens from an OAuth authorization server for the purpose of retrieving protected resources on a resource server.\</p>
  \</div>)*, OpenID Connect (OIDC) *(tooltip: \<div class="paragraph">
  \<p>An authentication protocol built on top of OAuth that authenticates users and enables clients (relying parties) of all types to request and receive information about authenticated sessions and users. OIDC is extensible, allowing clients to use optional features such as encryption of identity data, discovery of OpenID Providers (OAuth authorization servers), and session management.\</p>
  \</div>)*, Security Assertion Markup Language (SAML) *(tooltip: \<div class="paragraph">
  \<p>A standard, XML-based, message-exchange framework enabling the secure transmittal of authentication tokens and other user attributes across domains.\</p>
  \</div>)*, and PingAccess application templates based on these clients, connections, and applications by using the template wizard, by saving them as templates, or by adding them directly to PingCentral.

  ![This flowchart illustrates the tasks IAM Administrators perform when using PingCentral.](../_images/yen1616785397887.png)

This flowchart shows the tasks that application owners perform when using PingCentral.

In PingCentral, application owners manage the applications assigned to them and use your templates to apply OAuth, OIDC, SAML SP, and PingAccess security configurations to them. A wizard guides them through the process of providing a name and description for each application they create as well as environment-specific information that makes it possible to run the application on the target environment.

![This flowchart illustrates the tasks application owners perform to add applications to and promote them to development, staging, or production environments.](../../_images/nuq1601349842175.jpg)

For a deeper understanding of how PingAccess applications work, see [Promoting applications](../../pingcentral_for_application_owners/pingcentral_promoting_apps/pingcentral_promoting_apps.html).