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Tutorial: Configure Asana for automatic user provisioning

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This tutorial describes the steps you need to do in both Asana and Azure Active Directory (Azure AD) to configure automatic user provisioning. When configured, Azure AD automatically provisions and de-provisions users and groups to Asana using the Azure AD Provisioning service. For important details on what this service does, how it works, and frequently asked questions, see Automate user provisioning and deprovisioning to SaaS applications with Azure Active Directory.

Capabilities Supported

  • Create users in Asana.
  • Remove users in Asana when they do not require access anymore.
  • Keep user attributes synchronized between Azure AD and Asana.
  • Provision groups and group memberships in Asana.
  • Single sign-on to Asana(recommended).

Prerequisites

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

  • An Azure AD tenant
  • An Asana tenant with an Enterprise plan or better enabled
  • A user account in Asana with admin permissions

Note

Azure AD provisioning integration relies on the Asana API, which is available to Asana.

Step 1. Plan your provisioning deployment

  1. Learn about how the provisioning service works.
  2. Determine who will be in scope for provisioning.
  3. Determine what data to map between Azure AD and Asana.

Step 2. Configure Asana to support provisioning with Azure AD

Tip

To enable SAML-based single sign-on for Asana, follow the instructions provided in the Azure portal. Single sign-on can be configured independently of automatic provisioning, although these two features complement each other.

Generate Secret Token in Asana

  • Sign in to Asana by using your admin account.
  • Select the profile photo from the top bar, and select your current organization-name settings.
  • Go to the Service Accounts tab.
  • Select Add Service Account.
  • Update Name and About and the profile photo as needed. Copy the token in Token, and select it in Save Changes.

Add Asana from the Azure AD application gallery to start managing provisioning to Asana. If you have previously setup Asana for SSO, you can use the same application. However it's recommended that you create a separate app when testing out the integration initially. Learn more about adding an application from the gallery here.

Step 4. Define who will be in scope for provisioning

The Azure AD provisioning service allows you to scope who will be provisioned based on assignment to the application and or based on attributes of the user / group. If you choose to scope who will be provisioned to your app based on assignment, you can use the following steps to assign users and groups to the application. If you choose to scope who will be provisioned based solely on attributes of the user or group, you can use a scoping filter as described here.

  • Start small. Test with a small set of users and groups before rolling out to everyone. When scope for provisioning is set to assigned users and groups, you can control this by assigning one or two users or groups to the app. When scope is set to all users and groups, you can specify an attribute based scoping filter.

  • If you need additional roles, you can update the application manifest to add new roles.

Step 5. Configure automatic user provisioning to Asana

This section guides you through the steps to configure the Azure AD provisioning service to create, update, and disable users and groups in Asana based on user and/or group assignments in Azure AD.

To configure automatic user provisioning for Asana in Azure AD:

  1. Sign in to the Azure portal. Select Enterprise Applications, then select All applications.

    Enterprise applications blade

  2. In the applications list, select Asana.

    The Asana link in the Applications list

  3. Select the Provisioning tab.

    Provisioning tab

  4. Set the Provisioning Mode to Automatic.

    Provisioning tab automatic

  5. In the Admin Credentials section, input your Asana Tenant URL and Secret Token provided by Asana. Click Test Connection to ensure Azure AD can connect to Asana. If the connection fails, contact Asana to check your account setup.

    Token

  6. In the Notification Email field, enter the email address of a person or group who should receive the provisioning error notifications and select the Send an email notification when a failure occurs check box.

    Notification Email

  7. Select Save.

  8. In the Mappings section, select Synchronize Azure Active Directory Users to Asana.

  9. Review the user attributes that are synchronized from Azure AD to Asana in the Attribute-Mapping section. The attributes selected as Matching properties are used to match the user accounts in Asana for update operations. If you choose to change the matching target attribute, you'll need to ensure that the Asana API supports filtering users based on that attribute. Select the Save button to commit any changes.

    Attribute Type Supported for filtering Required by Asana
    userName String ✓ ✓
    active Boolean
    name.formatted String
    preferredLanguage String
    title String
    urn:ietf:params:scim:schemas:extension:enterprise:2.0:User:department String

  10. Under the Mappings section, select Synchronize Azure Active Directory Groups to Asana.

  11. Review the group attributes that are synchronized from Azure AD to Asana in the Attribute-Mapping section. The attributes selected as Matching properties are used to match the groups in Asana for update operations. Select the Save button to commit any changes.

    Attribute Type Supported for filtering Required by Asana
    displayName String ✓ ✓
    members Reference

  12. To configure scoping filters, refer to the following instructions provided in the Scoping filter tutorial.

  13. To enable the Azure AD provisioning service for Asana, change the Provisioning Status to On in the Settings section.

    Provisioning Status Toggled On

  14. Define the users and groups that you would like to provision to Asana by choosing the appropriate values in Scope in the Settings section.

    Provisioning Scope

  15. When you're ready to provision, click Save.

    Saving Provisioning Configuration

This operation starts the initial synchronization cycle of all users and groups defined in Scope in the Settings section. The initial cycle takes longer to execute than next cycles, which occur approximately every 40 minutes as long as the Azure AD provisioning service is running.

Step 6. Monitor your deployment

Once you've configured provisioning, use the following resources to monitor your deployment:

  • Use the provisioning logs to determine which users have been provisioned successfully or unsuccessfully
  • Check the progress bar to see the status of the provisioning cycle and how close it's to completion
  • If the provisioning configuration seems to be in an unhealthy state, the application will go into quarantine. Learn more about quarantine states here.

Change log

  • 11/06/2021 - Dropped support for externalId, name.givenName and name.familyName. Added support for preferredLanguage , title and urn:ietf:params:scim:schemas:extension:enterprise:2.0:User:department. And enabled Group Provisioning.

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