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

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

• Control in Azure AD who has access to CakeHR.
• Enable your users to be automatically signed-in to CakeHR 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.
• CakeHR single sign-on (SSO) enabled subscription.

Scenario description

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

• CakeHR supports SP initiated SSO.

Note

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

Add CakeHR from the gallery

To configure the integration of CakeHR into Azure AD, you need to add CakeHR 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 CakeHR in the search box.
6. Select CakeHR 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 CakeHR

Configure and test Azure AD SSO with CakeHR 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 CakeHR.

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

1. 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.
2. Configure CakeHR SSO - to configure the single sign-on settings on application side.
   1. Create CakeHR test user - to have a counterpart of B.Simon in CakeHR that is linked to the Azure AD representation of user.
3. 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 CakeHR 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 pencil icon for Basic SAML Configuration to edit the settings.

   

4. On the Basic SAML Configuration section, perform the following steps:

   a. In the Sign-on URL text box, type a URL using the following pattern: https://<CAKE_DOMAIN>.cake.hr/

   b. In the Reply URL text box, type a URL using the following pattern: https://<CAKE_DOMAIN>.cake.hr/services/saml/consume

   Note

   These values are not real. Update these values with the actual Sign-On URL and Reply URL. Contact CakeHR 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.

5. In the SAML Signing Certificate section, click Edit button to open SAML Signing Certificate dialog.

   

6. In the SAML Signing Certificate section, copy the THUMBPRINT value and save it on your Notepad.

   

7. On the Set up CakeHR 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.

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 CakeHR.

1. In the Azure portal, select Enterprise Applications, and then select All applications.
2. In the applications list, select CakeHR.
3. In the app's overview page, find the Manage section and select Users and groups.
4. Select Add user, then select Users and groups in the Add Assignment dialog.
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 are expecting a role to be assigned to the users, you can select it from the Select a role dropdown. If no role has been set up for this app, you see "Default Access" role selected.
7. In the Add Assignment dialog, click the Assign button.

Configure CakeHR SSO

1. To automate the configuration within CakeHR, you need to install My Apps Secure Sign-in browser extension by clicking Install the extension.

   

2. After adding extension to the browser, click on Set up CakeHR will direct you to the CakeHR application. From there, provide the admin credentials to sign into CakeHR. The browser extension will automatically configure the application for you and automate steps 3-5.

   

3. If you want to setup CakeHR manually, open a new web browser window and sign into your CakeHR company site as an administrator and perform the following steps:

4. On the top-right corner of the page, click on Profile and then navigate to Settings.

   

5. From the left side of the menu bar, click on INTEGRATIONS > SAML SSO and perform the following steps:

   

   a. In the Entity ID text box, type cake.hr.

   b. In the Authentication URL text box, paste the value of Login URL, which you have copied from Azure portal.

   c. In the Key fingerprint (SHA1 format) text box, paste the THUMBPRINT value, which you have copied from Azure portal.

   d. Check the Enable Single Sign on box.

   e. Click Save.

Create CakeHR test user

To enable Azure AD users to sign in to CakeHR, they must be provisioned into CakeHR. In CakeHR, provisioning is a manual task.

To provision a user account, perform the following steps:

1. Sign in to CakeHR as a Security Administrator.

2. From the left side of the menu bar, click on COMPANY > ADD.

   

3. On the Add new employee pop-up, perform the following steps:

   

   a. In Full name text box, enter the name of user like B.Simon.

   b. In Work email text box, enter the email of user like B.Simon@contoso.com.

   c. Click CREATE ACCOUNT.

Test SSO

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

• Click on Test this application in Azure portal. This will redirect to CakeHR Sign-on URL where you can initiate the login flow.

• Go to CakeHR Sign-on URL directly and initiate the login flow from there.

• You can use Microsoft My Apps. When you click the CakeHR tile in the My Apps, this will redirect to CakeHR Sign-on URL. For more information about the My Apps, see Introduction to the My Apps.

Next steps

Once you configure CakeHR 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.