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

  • Article
  • 5 minutes to read

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

  • Control in Azure AD who has access to eCornell.
  • Enable your users to be automatically signed-in to eCornell with their Azure AD accounts.
  • Manage your accounts in one central location - the Azure portal.

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

Scenario description

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

  • eCornell supports SP initiated SSO
  • eCornell supports Just In Time user provisioning

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

Configure and test Azure AD SSO with eCornell 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 eCornell.

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

  1. Configure Azure AD SSO - to enable your users to use this feature.
  2. Configure eCornell SSO - to configure the single sign-on settings on application side.
    • Create eCornell test user - to have a counterpart of B.Simon in eCornell 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 eCornell 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, enter the values for the following fields:

    a. In the Sign-on URL text box, type a URL using the following pattern: https://admin.ecornell.com/sso/clp/<groupCode>

    b. In the Identifier box, type a URL using the following pattern: http://pingone.com/<eCornellCustomGUID>

    c. In the Reply URL text box, type a URL using the following pattern: https://sso.connect.pingidentity.com/sso/sp/ACS.saml2?saasid=<CustomGUID>

    Note

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

  6. In addition to above, eCornell 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
    firstName user.givenname
    lastName user.surname
    email user.mail
    SAML_SUBJECT user.userprincipalname

  7. On the Set up single sign-on with SAML page, in the SAML Signing Certificate section, find Federation Metadata XML and select Download to download the certificate and save it on your computer.

    The Certificate download link

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

    Copy configuration URLs

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 eCornell.

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

  2. In the applications list, select eCornell.

  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.

Configure eCornell SSO

To configure single sign-on on eCornell side, you need to send the downloaded Federation Metadata XML and appropriate copied URLs from Azure portal to eCornell support team. They set this setting to have the SAML SSO connection set properly on both sides.

Create eCornell test user

In this section, a user called B.Simon is created in eCornell. eCornell supports just-in-time user provisioning, which is enabled by default. There is no action item for you in this section. If a user doesn't already exist in eCornell, a new one is created after authentication.

Test SSO

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

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

Additional resources