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

  • Article
  • 7 minutes to read

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

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

Note

This integration is also available to use from Azure AD US Government Cloud environment. You can find this application in the Azure AD US Government Cloud Application Gallery and configure it in the same way as you do from public cloud.

Scenario description

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

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

Configure and test Azure AD SSO with Freshservice 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 Freshservice.

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

  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 Freshservice SSO - to configure the single sign-on settings on application side.
    1. Create Freshservice test user - to have a counterpart of B.Simon in Freshservice 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 Freshservice 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, enter the values for the following fields:

    a. In the Sign-on URL text box, type a URL using the following pattern: https://<company-name>.freshservice.com

    b. In the Identifier (Entity ID) text box, type a URL using the following pattern: https://<company-name>.freshservice.com

    c. In the Reply URL text box, type a URL using the following pattern: https://<company-name>.freshservice.com/login/saml

    Note

    These values are not real. Update these values with the actual Sign on URL, Identifier and Reply URL. Contact Freshservice 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. On the Set up Single Sign-On with SAML page, in the SAML Signing Certificate section, find Certificate (Base64) and select Download to download the certificate and save it on your computer.

    The Certificate download link

  6. On the Set up Freshservice section on the Azure portal, 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 Freshservice.

  1. In the Azure portal, select Enterprise Applications, and then select All applications.
  2. In the applications list, select Freshservice.
  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 Freshservice SSO

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

    My apps extension

  2. After adding extension to the browser, click on Set up Freshservice will direct you to the Freshservice application. From there, provide the admin credentials to sign into Freshservice. The browser extension will automatically configure the application for you and automate steps 3-6.

    Setup configuration

  3. If you want to setup Freshservice manually, log in to your Freshservice company site as an administrator.

  4. In the menu on the left, click Admin and select Helpdesk Security in the General Settings.

    Admin

  5. In the Security, click on Go to Freshservice 360 Security.

    Security

  6. In the Security section, perform the following steps:

    Single Sign On

    a. For Single Sign On, select On.

    b. In the Login Method, select SAML SSO.

    c. In the Entity ID provided by the IdP textbox, paste Entity ID value, which you have copied from the Azure portal.

    d. In the SAML SSO URL textbox, paste Login URL value, which you have copied from the Azure portal.

    e. In the Signing Options, select Only Signed Assertions from the dropdown.

    f. In the Logout URL textbox, paste Logout URL value, which you have copied from the Azure portal.

    g. In the Security Certificate textbox, paste Certificate (Base64) value, which you have obtained earlier.

    h. Click Save.

Create Freshservice test user

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

To provision a user account, perform the following steps:

  1. Sign in to your FreshService company site as an administrator.

  2. In the menu on the left, click Admin.

  3. In the User Management section, click Requesters.

    Requesters

  4. Click New Requester.

    New Requesters

  5. In the New Requester section, enter the required fields and click on Save. New Requester

    Note

    The Azure Active Directory account holder gets an email including a link to confirm the account before it becomes active

    Note

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

Note

Freshservice also supports automatic user provisioning, you can find more details here on how to configure automatic user provisioning.

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 Freshservice Sign-on URL where you can initiate the login flow.

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

  • You can use Microsoft My Apps. When you click the Freshservice tile in the My Apps, you should be automatically signed in to the Freshservice 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 Freshservice 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.