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Tutorial: Integrate Ascentis with Azure Active Directory

  • Article
  • 5 minutes to read

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

  • Control in Azure AD who has access to Ascentis.
  • Enable your users to be automatically signed-in to Ascentis with their Azure AD accounts.

To learn more about SaaS app integration with Azure AD, see What is application access and single sign-on with Azure Active Directory.

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.
  • Ascentis single sign-on (SSO) enabled subscription.

Scenario description

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

  • Ascentis supports SP and IDP initiated SSO

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

  1. Sign in to the Azure portal using either a work or school account, or a personal Microsoft account.
  2. On the left navigation pane, select the Azure Active Directory service.
  3. Navigate to Enterprise Applications and then select All Applications.
  4. To add new application, select New application.
  5. In the Add from the gallery section, type Ascentis in the search box.
  6. Select Ascentis 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 single sign-on

Configure and test Azure AD SSO with Ascentis 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 Ascentis.

To configure and test Azure AD SSO with Ascentis, complete the following building blocks:

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

Configure Azure AD SSO

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

  1. In the Azure portal, on the Ascentis application integration page, find the Manage section and select Single sign-on.

  2. On the Select a Single sign-on method page, select SAML.

  3. On the Set up Single Sign-On with SAML page, click the edit/pen icon for Basic SAML Configuration to edit the settings.

    Edit Basic SAML Configuration

  4. On the Basic SAML Configuration section, if you wish to configure the application in IDP initiated mode, enter the values for the following fields:

    In the Reply URL text box, type a URL using the following pattern: https://services.ascentis.com/iam/samlsso?spEntityID=<clientname>.ascentis.com

  5. 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 a URL using any one of the following pattern:

    https://selfservice.ascentis.com/<clientname>/STS/signin.aspx?SAMLResponse=true
https://selfservice2.ascentis.com/<clientname>/STS/signin.aspx?SAMLResponse=true

    Note

    These values are not real. Update these values with the actual Reply URL and Sign-On URL. Contact Ascentis Client support team to get these values. You can also refer to the patterns shown in the Basic SAML Configuration section in the Azure portal.

  6. On the Set up Single Sign-On with SAML page, in the SAML Signing Certificate section, find Certificate (Base64) and select Download to download the certificate and save it on your computer.

    The Certificate download link

  7. On the Set up Ascentis section, copy the appropriate URL(s) based on your requirement.

    Copy configuration URLs

Configure Ascentis SSO

To configure single sign-on on Ascentis side, you need to send the downloaded Certificate (Base64) and appropriate copied URLs from Azure portal to Ascentis support team. They set this setting to have the SAML SSO connection set properly on both sides.

Create an Azure AD test user

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

  1. From the left pane in the Azure portal, select Azure Active Directory, select Users, and then select All users.
  2. Select New user at the top of the screen.
  3. 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 Ascentis.

  1. In the Azure portal, select Enterprise Applications, and then select All applications.

  2. In the applications list, select Ascentis.

  3. In the app's overview page, find the Manage section and select Users and groups.

    The "Users and groups" link

  4. Select Add user, then select Users and groups in the Add Assignment dialog.

    The Add User link

  5. In the Users and groups dialog, select B.Simon from the Users list, then click the Select button at the bottom of the screen.

  6. 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.

  7. In the Add Assignment dialog, click the Assign button.

Create Ascentis test user

In this section, you create a user called Britta Simon in Ascentis. Work with Ascentis support team to add the users in the Ascentis platform. Users must be created and activated before you use single sign-on.

Test SSO

In this section, you test your Azure AD single sign-on configuration using the Access Panel.

When you click the Ascentis tile in the Access Panel, you should be automatically signed in to the Ascentis for which you set up SSO. For more information about the Access Panel, see Introduction to the Access Panel.

Additional resources