What user system is being troubleshooted when users cannot access a cloud-based collaboration system, despite MFA applications being operational?

The situation described revolves around users being unable to access a cloud-based collaboration system despite multifactor authentication (MFA) applications functioning properly. This indicates that the issue lies with the process of confirming the identity of users attempting to access the system, which is fundamentally an authentication problem.

Authentication is the mechanism used to verify the identity of a user before granting access to a system or resource. Since users are having difficulty accessing the collaboration system even though MFA applications are operational, it suggests that the initial step of validating the user's identity—likely through credentials or MFA tokens—may be failing or not being correctly processed.

While authorization, federation, and single sign-on (SSO) are all relevant concepts in the context of cloud access and may relate to subsequent access issues, they do not directly address the immediate problem of users being unable to authenticate themselves to gain access. Authorization determines what an authenticated user is allowed to do, federation involves trust relationships between different identity providers, and SSO refers to the ability to log in once and gain access to multiple systems without repeated authentication. Thus, in this scenario, authentication is where the troubleshooting needs to focus.