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Tutorial: Azure AD SSO integration with Civic Platform

  • Article
  • 6 minutes to read

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

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

Scenario description

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

  • Civic Platform supports SP initiated SSO.

Note

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

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

Configure and test Azure AD SSO with Civic Platform 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 Civic Platform.

To configure and test Azure AD SSO with Civic Platform, 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 Civic Platform SSO - to configure the single sign-on settings on application side.
    1. Create Civic Platform test user - to have a counterpart of B.Simon in Civic Platform 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 Civic Platform 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.

    Edit Basic SAML Configuration

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

    a. In the Identifier (Entity ID) text box, type the value: civicplatform.accela.com

    b. In the Sign on URL text box, type a URL using the following pattern: https://<SUBDOMAIN>.accela.com

    Note

    The Sign on URL value is not real. Update this value with the actual Sign on URL. Contact Civic Platform Client support team to get this value. You can also refer to the patterns shown in the Basic SAML Configuration section in the Azure portal.

  5. On the Set up Single Sign-On with SAML page, In the SAML Signing Certificate section, click copy button to copy App Federation Metadata Url and save it on your computer.

    Screenshot shows SAML Signing Certificate page where you can copy App Federation Metadata U r l.

  6. Navigate to Azure Active Directory > App registrations in Azure AD, select your application.

  7. Copy the Directory (tenant) ID and store it into Notepad.

    Copy the directory (tenant ID) and store it in your app code

  8. Copy the Application ID and store it into Notepad.

    Copy the application (client) ID

  9. Navigate to Azure Active Directory > App registrations in Azure AD, select your application. Select Certificates & secrets.

  10. Select Client secrets -> New client secret.

  11. Provide a description of the secret, and a duration. When done, select Add.

    Note

    After saving the client secret, the value of the client secret is displayed. Copy this value because you aren't able to retrieve the key later.

    Copy the secret value because you can't retrieve this later

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 Civic Platform.

  1. In the Azure portal, select Enterprise Applications, and then select All applications.
  2. In the applications list, select Civic Platform.
  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'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.

Configure Civic Platform SSO

  1. Open a new web browser window and sign into your Atlassian Cloud company site as an administrator.

  2. Click on Standard Choices.

    Screenshot shows Atlassian Cloud site with Standard Choices called out under Administrator Tools.

  3. Create a standard choice ssoconfig.

  4. Search for ssoconfig and submit.

    Screenshot shows Standard Choices Search with the name s s o config entered.

  5. Expand SSOCONFIG by clicking on red dot.

    Screenshot shows Standard Choices Browse with S S O CONFIG available.

  6. Provide SSO related configuration information in the following step:

    Screenshot shows Standard Choices Item Edit for S S O CONFIG.

    1. In the applicationid field, enter the Application ID value, which you have copied from the Azure portal.

    2. In the clientSecret field, enter the Secret value, which you have copied from the Azure portal.

    3. In the directoryId field, enter the Directory (tenant) ID value, which you have copied from the Azure portal.

    4. Enter the idpName. Ex:- Azure.

Create Civic Platform test user

In this section, you create a user called B.Simon in Civic Platform. Work with Civic Platform support team to add the users in the Civic Platform Client support team. 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 with following options.

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

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

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

Next steps

Once you configure Civic Platform 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.