Tutorial: Azure Active Directory single sign-on (SSO) integration with Amplitude

Article
03/16/2023
6 minutes to read

In this tutorial, you'll learn how to integrate Amplitude with Azure Active Directory (Azure AD). When you integrate Amplitude with Azure AD, you can:

Control in Azure AD who has access to Amplitude.
Enable your users to be automatically signed-in to Amplitude with their Azure AD accounts.
Manage your accounts in one central location - the Azure portal.

Prerequisites

To get started, you need the following items:

An Azure AD subscription. If you don't have a subscription, you can get a free account.
Amplitude single sign-on (SSO) enabled subscription.

Scenario description

In this tutorial, you configure and test Azure AD SSO in a test environment.

Amplitude supports SP and IDP initiated SSO.
Amplitude supports Just In Time user provisioning.

Note

Identifier of this application is a fixed string value so only one instance can be configured in one tenant.

Add Amplitude from the gallery

To configure the integration of Amplitude into Azure AD, you need to add Amplitude from the gallery to your list of managed SaaS apps.

Sign in to the Azure portal using either a work or school account, or a personal Microsoft account.
On the left navigation pane, select the Azure Active Directory service.
Navigate to Enterprise Applications and then select All Applications.
To add new application, select New application.
In the Add from the gallery section, type Amplitude in the search box.
Select Amplitude from results panel and then add the app. Wait a few seconds while the app is added to your tenant.

Alternatively, you can also use the Enterprise App Configuration Wizard. In this wizard, you can add an application to your tenant, add users/groups to the app, assign roles, as well as walk through the SSO configuration as well. Learn more about Microsoft 365 wizards.

Configure and test Azure AD SSO for Amplitude

Configure and test Azure AD SSO with Amplitude using a test user called B.Simon. For SSO to work, you need to establish a link relationship between an Azure AD user and the related user in Amplitude.

To configure and test Azure AD SSO with Amplitude, perform the following steps:

Configure Azure AD SSO - to enable your users to use this feature.
1. Create an Azure AD test user - to test Azure AD single sign-on with B.Simon.
2. Assign the Azure AD test user - to enable B.Simon to use Azure AD single sign-on.
Configure Amplitude SSO - to configure the single sign-on settings on application side.
1. Create Amplitude test user - to have a counterpart of B.Simon in Amplitude that is linked to the Azure AD representation of user.
Test SSO - to verify whether the configuration works.

Configure Azure AD SSO

Follow these steps to enable Azure AD SSO in the Azure portal.

In the Azure portal, on the Amplitude application integration page, find the Manage section and select single sign-on.
On the Select a single sign-on method page, select SAML.
On the Set up single sign-on with SAML page, click the pencil icon for Basic SAML Configuration to edit the settings.
On the Basic SAML Configuration section, if you wish to configure the application in IDP initiated mode, perform the following steps:

a. In the Identifier text box, type the URL: https://amplitude.com/saml/sso/metadata

b. In the Reply URL text box, type a URL using the following pattern: https://analytics.amplitude.com/saml/sso/<UNIQUE_ID>

Note

The Reply URL value is not real. You will get the Reply URL value later in this tutorial.
Click Set additional URLs and perform the following step if you wish to configure the application in SP initiated mode:

In the Sign-on URL text box, type the URL: https://analytics.amplitude.com/sso
On the Set up single sign-on with SAML page, in the SAML Signing Certificate section, find Federation Metadata XML and select Download to download the certificate and save it on your computer.
On the Set up Amplitude section, copy the appropriate URL(s) based on your requirement.

Create an Azure AD test user

In this section, you'll create a test user in the Azure portal called B.Simon.

From the left pane in the Azure portal, select Azure Active Directory, select Users, and then select All users.
Select New user at the top of the screen.
In the User properties, follow these steps:
1. In the Name field, enter B.Simon.
2. In the User name field, enter the username@companydomain.extension. For example, B.Simon@contoso.com.
3. Select the Show password check box, and then write down the value that's displayed in the Password box.
4. Click Create.

Assign the Azure AD test user

In this section, you'll enable B.Simon to use Azure single sign-on by granting access to Amplitude.

In the Azure portal, select Enterprise Applications, and then select All applications.
In the applications list, select Amplitude.
In the app's overview page, find the Manage section and select Users and groups.
Select Add user, then select Users and groups in the Add Assignment dialog.
In the Users and groups dialog, select B.Simon from the Users list, then click the Select button at the bottom of the screen.
If you're expecting any role value in the SAML assertion, in the Select Role dialog, select the appropriate role for the user from the list and then click the Select button at the bottom of the screen.
In the Add Assignment dialog, click the Assign button.

Configure Amplitude SSO

To automate the configuration within Amplitude, you need to install My Apps Secure Sign-in browser extension by clicking Install the extension.
After adding extension to the browser, click on Set up Amplitude will direct you to the Amplitude application. From there, provide the admin credentials to sign into Amplitude. The browser extension will automatically configure the application for you and automate steps 3-6.
If you want to setup Amplitude manually, open a new web browser window and sign into your Amplitude company site as an administrator and perform the following steps:
Click on the Plan Admin from the left navigation bar.
Select Microsoft Azure Active Directory Metadata from the SSO Integration.
On the Set Up Single Sign-On section, perform the following steps:

a. Open the downloaded Metadata Xml from Azure portal in notepad, paste the content into the Microsoft Azure Active Directory Metadata textbox.

b. Copy the Reply URL (ACS) value and paste it into the Reply URL textbox of Basic SAML Configuration in the Azure portal.

c. Click Save

Create Amplitude test user

In this section, a user called B.Simon is created in Amplitude. Amplitude supports just-in-time user provisioning, which is enabled by default. There is no action item for you in this section. If a user doesn't already exist in Amplitude, a new one is created after authentication.

Note

If you need to create a user manually, contact Amplitude support team.

Test SSO

In this section, you test your Azure AD single sign-on configuration with following options.

SP initiated:

Click on Test this application in Azure portal. This will redirect to Amplitude Sign on URL where you can initiate the login flow.
Go to Amplitude Sign-on URL directly and initiate the login flow from there.

IDP initiated:

Click on Test this application in Azure portal and you should be automatically signed in to the Amplitude for which you set up the SSO.

You can also use Microsoft My Apps to test the application in any mode. When you click the Amplitude tile in the My Apps, if configured in SP mode you would be redirected to the application sign on page for initiating the login flow and if configured in IDP mode, you should be automatically signed in to the Amplitude for which you set up the SSO. For more information about the My Apps, see Introduction to the My Apps.

Next steps

Once you configure Amplitude you can enforce session control, which protects exfiltration and infiltration of your organization’s sensitive data in real time. Session control extends from Conditional Access. Learn how to enforce session control with Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps.