Tutorial: Configure Salesforce Sandbox for automatic user provisioning

The objective of this tutorial is to show you the steps you need to perform in Salesforce Sandbox and Microsoft Entra ID to automatically provision and de-provision user accounts from Microsoft Entra ID to Salesforce Sandbox.

Prerequisites

The scenario outlined in this tutorial assumes that you already have the following items:

  • A Microsoft Entra tenant.
  • A valid tenant for Salesforce Sandbox for Work or Salesforce Sandbox for Education. You may use a free trial account for either service.
  • A user account in Salesforce Sandbox with Team Admin permissions.

Assigning users to Salesforce Sandbox

Microsoft Entra ID uses a concept called "assignments" to determine which users should receive access to selected apps. In the context of automatic user account provisioning, only the users and groups that have been "assigned" to an application in Microsoft Entra ID are synchronized.

Before configuring and enabling the provisioning service, you need to decide which users or groups in Microsoft Entra ID need access to your Salesforce Sandbox app. After you've made this decision, you can assign these users to your Salesforce Sandbox app by following the instructions in Assign a user or group to an enterprise app

Important tips for assigning users to Salesforce Sandbox

  • It is recommended that a single Microsoft Entra user is assigned to Salesforce Sandbox to test the provisioning configuration. Additional users and/or groups may be assigned later.

  • When assigning a user to Salesforce Sandbox, you must select a valid user role. The "Default Access" role does not work for provisioning.

Note

The Salesforce Sandbox app will, by default, append a string to the username and email of the users provisioned. Usernames and Emails have to be unique across all of Salesforce so this is to prevent creating real user data in the sandbox which would prevent these users being provisioned to the production Salesforce environment

Note

This app imports custom roles from Salesforce Sandbox as part of the provisioning process, which the customer may want to select when assigning users.

Enable automated user provisioning

This section guides you through connecting your Microsoft Entra ID to Salesforce Sandbox's user account provisioning API, and configuring the provisioning service to create, update, and disable assigned user accounts in Salesforce Sandbox based on user and group assignment in Microsoft Entra ID.

Tip

You may also choose to enabled SAML-based Single Sign-On for Salesforce Sandbox, following the instructions provided in the Azure portal. Single sign-on can be configured independently of automatic provisioning, though these two features compliment each other.

Configure automatic user account provisioning

The objective of this section is to outline how to enable user provisioning of Active Directory user accounts to Salesforce Sandbox.

  1. Sign in to the Microsoft Entra admin center as at least a Cloud Application Administrator.

  2. Browse to Identity > Applications > Enterprise applications.

  3. If you have already configured Salesforce Sandbox for single sign-on, search for your instance of Salesforce Sandbox using the search field. Otherwise, select Add and search for Salesforce Sandbox in the application gallery. Select Salesforce Sandbox from the search results, and add it to your list of applications.

  4. Select your instance of Salesforce Sandbox, then select the Provisioning tab.

  5. Set the Provisioning Mode to Automatic.

    Screenshot shows the Salesforce Sandbox Provisioning page, with Provisioning Mode set to Automatic and other values you can set.

  6. Under the Admin Credentials section, provide the following configuration settings:

    1. In the Admin Username textbox, type a Salesforce Sandbox account name that has the System Administrator profile in Salesforce.com assigned.

    2. In the Admin Password textbox, type the password for this account.

  7. To get your Salesforce Sandbox security token, open a new tab and sign into the same Salesforce Sandbox admin account. On the top right corner of the page, click your name, and then click Settings.

    Screenshot shows the Settings link selected.

  8. On the left navigation pane, click My Personal Information to expand the related section, and then click Reset My Security Token.

    Screenshot shows Reset My Security Token selected from My Personal Information.

  9. On the Reset Security Token page, click the Reset Security Token button.

    Screenshot shows the Rest Security Token page, with explanatory text and the option to Reset Security Token

  10. Check the email inbox associated with this admin account. Look for an email from Salesforce Sandbox.com that contains the new security token.

  11. Copy the token, go to your Microsoft Entra window, and paste it into the Secret Token field.

  12. Select Test Connection to ensure Microsoft Entra ID can connect to your Salesforce Sandbox app.

  13. In the Notification Email field, enter the email address of a person or group who should receive provisioning error notifications, and check the checkbox.

  14. Click Save.

  15. Under the Mappings section, select Synchronize Microsoft Entra users to Salesforce Sandbox.

  16. In the Attribute Mappings section, review the user attributes that are synchronized from Microsoft Entra ID to Salesforce Sandbox. The attributes selected as Matching properties are used to match the user accounts in Salesforce Sandbox for update operations. Select the Save button to commit any changes.

  17. To enable the Microsoft Entra provisioning service for Salesforce Sandbox, change the Provisioning Status to On in the Settings section

  18. Click Save.

It starts the initial synchronization of any users and/or groups assigned to Salesforce Sandbox in the Users and Groups section. The initial sync takes longer to perform than subsequent syncs, which occur approximately every 40 minutes as long as the service is running. You can use the Synchronization Details section to monitor progress and follow links to provisioning activity logs, which describe all actions performed by the provisioning service on Salesforce Sandbox app.

For more information on how to read the Microsoft Entra provisioning logs, see Reporting on automatic user account provisioning.

Additional resources