Tutorial: Microsoft Entra SSO integration with Culture Shift

In this tutorial, you'll learn how to integrate Culture Shift with Microsoft Entra ID. When you integrate Culture Shift with Microsoft Entra ID, you can:

  • Control in Microsoft Entra ID who has access to Culture Shift.
  • Enable your users to be automatically signed-in to Culture Shift with their Microsoft Entra accounts.
  • Manage your accounts in one central location.

Prerequisites

To get started, you need the following items:

  • A Microsoft Entra subscription. If you don't have a subscription, you can get a free account.
  • Culture Shift single sign-on (SSO) enabled subscription.

Scenario description

In this tutorial, you configure and test Microsoft Entra SSO in a test environment.

  • Culture Shift 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 Culture Shift into Microsoft Entra ID, you need to add Culture Shift from the gallery to your list of managed SaaS apps.

  1. Sign in to the Microsoft Entra admin center as at least a Cloud Application Administrator.
  2. Browse to Identity > Applications > Enterprise applications > New application.
  3. In the Add from the gallery section, type Culture Shift in the search box.
  4. Select Culture Shift 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 Microsoft Entra SSO for Culture Shift

Configure and test Microsoft Entra SSO with Culture Shift using a test user called B.Simon. For SSO to work, you need to establish a link relationship between a Microsoft Entra user and the related user in Culture Shift.

To configure and test Microsoft Entra SSO with Culture Shift, perform the following steps:

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

Configure Microsoft Entra SSO

Follow these steps to enable Microsoft Entra SSO.

  1. Sign in to the Microsoft Entra admin center as at least a Cloud Application Administrator.

  2. Browse to Identity > Applications > Enterprise applications > Culture Shift > Single sign-on.

  3. On the Select a single sign-on method page, select SAML.

  4. 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

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

    a. In the Identifier (Entity ID) text box, type the value: urn:amazon:cognito:sp:eu-west-2_tWqrsHU3a

    b. In the Reply URL text box, type the URL: https://auth.reportandsupport.co.uk/saml2/idpresponse

    c. In the Sign on URL text box, type the URL: https://dashboard.reportandsupport.co.uk/

  6. Culture Shift application expects the SAML assertions in a specific format, which requires you to add custom attribute mappings to your SAML token attributes configuration. The following screenshot shows the list of default attributes.

    image

  7. In addition to above, Culture Shift application expects few more attributes to be passed back in SAML response which are shown below. These attributes are also pre populated but you can review them as per your requirements.

    Name Source Attribute
    displayname user.displayname
  8. 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.

    The Certificate download link

Create a Microsoft Entra test user

In this section, you'll create a test user called B.Simon.

  1. Sign in to the Microsoft Entra admin center as at least a User Administrator.
  2. Browse to Identity > Users > All users.
  3. Select New user > Create new user, at the top of the screen.
  4. In the User properties, follow these steps:
    1. In the Display name field, enter B.Simon.
    2. In the User principal 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. Select Review + create.
  5. Select Create.

Assign the Microsoft Entra test user

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

  1. Sign in to the Microsoft Entra admin center as at least a Cloud Application Administrator.
  2. Browse to Identity > Applications > Enterprise applications > Culture Shift.
  3. In the app's overview page, select Users and groups.
  4. Select Add user/group, then select Users and groups in the Add Assignment dialog.
    1. In the Users and groups dialog, select B.Simon from the Users list, then click the Select button at the bottom of the screen.
    2. 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.
    3. In the Add Assignment dialog, click the Assign button.

Configure Culture Shift SSO

To configure single sign-on on Culture Shift side, you need to send the App Federation Metadata Url to Culture Shift support team. They set this setting to have the SAML SSO connection set properly on both sides.

Create Culture Shift test user

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

Test SSO

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

  • Click on Test this application, this will redirect to Culture Shift Sign-on URL where you can initiate the login flow.

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

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

Next steps

Once you configure Culture Shift 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 Cloud App Security.