How to remove leading zeros using the expression builder in entra ID

Question

How to remove leading zeros using the expression builder in entra ID

Ghebremichael, Rahwa 45

Hi All,

We are working on Workday to on-premise AD integration through entra provisioning service solution. We need to remove leading zeros from the "employeeId" attribute because Workday has leading zeros present but on-premise AD doesn’t have leading zeros. My goal is to configure the mapping of the "employeeId" attribute so that only leading zeros are removed during the synchronization.

I tried setting the mapping type to "Expression mapping "and using regular expressions to remove the leading zeros, but my attempts haven't worked as expected.

Here are the expressions I tried:

Replace([employeeId], "^0+", "") I expected this to remove only the leading zeros, but it didn't work.
Replace([employeeId], "0", "", "", "", "", "") This removed all zeros, but I need to keep non-leading zeros intact.
Replace([employeeId], "^0+", "", "", "", "", "") This also didn’t work as intended and returned the same result.

How can I correctly remove only the leading zeros from the "employeeId" attribute during the sync to on-premise AD? Thanks.

Sakshi Devkante 4,395 Reputation points Microsoft External Staff Moderator

2025-01-10T02:07:49.69+00:00

Hello @Ghebremichael, Rahwa

Thank you for posting your query on Microsoft Q&A.

The extra zero from the attribute coming from the workday will not be removed by creating an expression; all we can do is prevent the user from synchronizing to the on-premises.

Reviewing standard regular expression instructions can be useful if you're unclear about the regular expression syntax supported by Workday or Azure AD. You may test and debug your regular expressions using websites such as regex101: build, test, and debug regex

Understand how expression builder works with Application Provisioning in Microsoft Entra ID - Microsoft Entra ID | Microsoft Learn

https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/entra/identity/app-provisioning/functions-for-customizing-application-data
However, the expression you used may not work as intended for the following reasons

1.You may need to make sure that the expression is applied correctly, depending on the exact syntax that Workday requires. Workday may call for a particular format or even a case-sensitive method of handling regular expressions.

2.An empty string may result if the employeeId property only contains zeros, such as 000000. Make sure your synchronization procedure manages these situations appropriately.

3.Verify again that the context in which you are using the expression mapping supports the regular expression syntax as stated.

Alternative:
Replace([employeeId], "^0{1,}", "")

Replace(Trim([employeeID]),"0+", "")

To guarantee that just the leading zeros are eliminated, this slightly altered expression matches one or more zeros at the beginning of the string

I suggest verifying this logic with a simple text-based tool (such as a text editor that supports regular expressions) if these approaches still fail to ensure that the regular expression is operating properly outside of Workday.

Best regards,

Sakshi Devkante
Ghebremichael, Rahwa 45 Reputation points

2025-01-10T12:17:09.6566667+00:00
@Sakshi Devkante They all work well with regex debugger but not on the actual Microsoft Entra expression builder.

We have tried your suggested solution as well but not working at all, it is giving null result and my observation is the provisioning App’s expression builder couldn’t interpret the caret ^. So, I would appreciate if anyone can help on these.

so far we tried

Replace([employeeId], "^0{1,}", "")

Replace([employeeId], "^0+", "")

Replace([employeeId], "^0", "") and so on.

Accepted answer

1 additional answer

Your answer

Sakshi Devkante 4,395 Reputation points Microsoft External Staff Moderator

2025-01-10T02:07:49.69+00:00

Hello @Ghebremichael, Rahwa

Thank you for posting your query on Microsoft Q&A.

The extra zero from the attribute coming from the workday will not be removed by creating an expression; all we can do is prevent the user from synchronizing to the on-premises.

Reviewing standard regular expression instructions can be useful if you're unclear about the regular expression syntax supported by Workday or Azure AD. You may test and debug your regular expressions using websites such as regex101: build, test, and debug regex

Understand how expression builder works with Application Provisioning in Microsoft Entra ID - Microsoft Entra ID | Microsoft Learn

https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/entra/identity/app-provisioning/functions-for-customizing-application-data
However, the expression you used may not work as intended for the following reasons

1.You may need to make sure that the expression is applied correctly, depending on the exact syntax that Workday requires. Workday may call for a particular format or even a case-sensitive method of handling regular expressions.

2.An empty string may result if the employeeId property only contains zeros, such as 000000. Make sure your synchronization procedure manages these situations appropriately.

3.Verify again that the context in which you are using the expression mapping supports the regular expression syntax as stated.

Alternative:
Replace([employeeId], "^0{1,}", "")

Replace(Trim([employeeID]),"0+", "")

To guarantee that just the leading zeros are eliminated, this slightly altered expression matches one or more zeros at the beginning of the string

I suggest verifying this logic with a simple text-based tool (such as a text editor that supports regular expressions) if these approaches still fail to ensure that the regular expression is operating properly outside of Workday.

Best regards,

Sakshi Devkante
Ghebremichael, Rahwa 45 Reputation points

2025-01-10T12:17:09.6566667+00:00

@Sakshi Devkante They all work well with regex debugger but not on the actual Microsoft Entra expression builder.

We have tried your suggested solution as well but not working at all, it is giving null result and my observation is the provisioning App’s expression builder couldn’t interpret the caret ^. So, I would appreciate if anyone can help on these.

so far we tried

Replace([employeeId], "^0{1,}", "")

Replace([employeeId], "^0+", "")

Replace([employeeId], "^0", "") and so on.

Answer 1

Chetan Desai 1,066 Microsoft Employee

Use this expression mapping function to remove the leading zeros.

So, if your WorkerID is 0000A2309, then this expression will emit A2309.

Replace([WorkerID], , "(?<leadingZeros>^0+)(?<actualValue>[a-zA-Z0-9]+)", , "${actualValue}", ,)

Ghebremichael, Rahwa 45 Reputation points

2025-01-17T12:05:08.59+00:00

@chetan desai thank you very much.

This expression worked :-

Replace([WorkerID],,”^0+”,”” “”,””,””)

Answer 2

Hello @Ghebremichael, Rahwa

Thank you for posting your query on Microsoft Q&A.
User's image

Refer document: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/entra/identity/app-provisioning/functions-for-customizing-application-data

Please note that if you are creating an expression, it will not remove the extra zero from the attribute originating from Workday. The Expression Builder is not designed to address this issue of eliminating the extra zero.

Reviewing standard regular expression instructions can be useful if you're unclear about the regular expression syntax supported by Workday or Azure AD. You may test and debug your regular expressions using websites such as regex101: build, test, and debug regex

Understand how expression builder works with Application Provisioning in Microsoft Entra ID - Microsoft Entra ID | Microsoft Learn

To guarantee that just the leading zeros are eliminated, this slightly altered expression matches one or more zeros at the beginning of the string

Replace([WorkerID], , "(?<leadingZeros>^0+)(?<actualValue>[a-zA-Z0-9]+)", , "${actualValue}", ,)

I hope this clarifies things. Please contact us if you have any additional questions.

If this answers your query, do click Accept Answer and Yes for "Was this answer helpful". And, if you have any further query do let us know.

Best regards,

Sakshi Devkante

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How to remove leading zeros using the expression builder in entra ID

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