Tutorial: Azure Active Directory integration with FreshDesk

Article
03/16/2023
6 minutes to read

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

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

Scenario description

In this tutorial, you configure and test Azure AD single sign-on in a test environment.

FreshDesk supports SP initiated SSO

Add FreshDesk from the gallery

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

Sign in to the Azure portal using either a work or school account, or a personal Microsoft account.
On the left navigation pane, select the Azure Active Directory service.
Navigate to Enterprise Applications and then select All Applications.
To add new application, select New application.
In the Add from the gallery section, type FreshDesk in the search box.
Select FreshDesk 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 FreshDesk

Configure and test Azure AD SSO with FreshDesk 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 FreshDesk.

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

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 Britta Simon.
2. Assign the Azure AD test user - to enable Britta Simon to use Azure AD single sign-on.
Configure FreshDesk SSO - to configure the Single Sign-On settings on application side.
1. Create FreshDesk test user - to have a counterpart of Britta Simon in FreshDesk that is linked to the Azure AD representation of user.
Test SSO - to verify whether the configuration works.

Configure Azure AD SSO

In the Azure portal, on the FreshDesk application integration page, find the Manage section and select single sign-on.
On the Select a single sign-on method page, select SAML.
On the Set-up single sign-on with SAML page, click the pencil icon for Basic SAML Configuration to edit the settings.
On the Basic SAML Configuration section, enter the values for the following fields:
1. In the Sign-on URL text box, type a URL using the following pattern: https://<tenant-name>.freshdesk.com or any other value Freshdesk has suggested.
2. In the Identifier (Entity ID) text box, type a URL using the following pattern: https://<tenant-name>.freshdesk.com or any other value Freshdesk has suggested.
3. In the Reply URL text box, type a URL using the following pattern: https://<tenant-name>.freshdesk.com/login/saml
Note

These values are not real. Update these values with the actual Sign on URL, Identifier and Reply URL. Contact FreshDesk 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.
FreshDesk 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, whereas Unique User Identifier is mapped with user.userprincipalname but FreshDesk expects this claim to be mapped with user.mail, so you need to edit the attribute mapping by clicking on Edit icon and change the attribute mapping.
On the Set-up Single Sign-On with SAML page, in the SAML Signing Certificate section, click Download to download the Certificate (Base64) from the given options as per your requirement and save it on your computer.
On the Set-up FreshDesk section, copy the appropriate URL(s) as per your requirement.

Create an Azure AD test user

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

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

In the Azure portal, select Enterprise Applications, and then select All applications.
In the applications list, select FreshDesk.
In the app's overview page, find the Manage section and select Users and groups.
Select Add user, then select Users and groups in the Add Assignment dialog.
In the Users and groups dialog, select B.Simon from the Users list, then click the Select button at the bottom of the screen.
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.
In the Add Assignment dialog, click the Assign button.

Configure FreshDesk SSO

In a different web browser window, log into your Freshdesk company site as an administrator.
Select the Security icon and in the Security section, perform the following steps:
1. For Single Sign On, select On.
2. In the Login Method, select SAML SSO.
3. In the Entity ID provided by the IdP textbox, paste Entity ID value, which you have copied from the Azure portal.
4. In the SAML SSO URL textbox, paste Login URL value, which you have copied from the Azure portal.
5. In the Signing Options, select Only Signed Assertions from the dropdown.
6. In the Logout URL textbox, paste Logout URL value, which you have copied from the Azure portal.
7. In the Security Certificate textbox, paste Certificate (Base64) value, which you have obtained earlier.
8. Click Save.

Create FreshDesk test user

In order to enable Azure AD users to log into FreshDesk, they must be provisioned into FreshDesk.
In the case of FreshDesk, provisioning is a manual task.

To provision a user account, perform the following steps:

Log in to your Freshdesk tenant.
In the menu on the left, click Admin and in the General Settings tab, click Agents.
Click New Agent.
On the Agent Information dialog, enter the required fields and click on Create agent.

Note

The Azure AD account holder will get an email that includes a link to confirm the account before it is activated.

Note

You can use any other Freshdesk user account creation tools or APIs provided by Freshdesk to provision Azure AD user accounts to FreshDesk.

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 FreshDesk Sign-on URL where you can initiate the login flow.
Go to FreshDesk Sign-on URL directly and initiate the login flow from there.
You can use Microsoft My Apps. When you click the FreshDesk tile in the My Apps, you should be automatically signed in to the FreshDesk for which you set up the SSO. For more information about the My Apps, see Introduction to the My Apps.

Next steps

Once you configure FreshDesk 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.