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Tutorial: Configure GitHub AE for automatic user provisioning

  • Article
  • 5 minutes to read

This tutorial describes the steps you need to perform in both GitHub AE and Azure Active Directory (Azure AD) to configure automatic user provisioning. When configured, Azure AD automatically provisions and de-provisions users and/or groups to GitHub AE using the Azure AD Provisioning service. For important details on what this service does, how it works, and frequently asked questions, see Automate user provisioning and deprovisioning to SaaS applications with Azure Active Directory.

Capabilities supported

  • Create users in GitHub AE
  • Remove users in GitHub AE when they do not require access anymore
  • Keep user attributes synchronized between Azure AD and GitHub AE
  • Provision groups and group memberships in GitHub AE
  • Single sign-on to GitHub AE (recommended)

Prerequisites

The scenario outlined in this tutorial assumes that you already have the following prerequisites:

  • An Azure AD tenant
  • A user account in Azure AD with permission to configure provisioning (for example, Application Administrator, Cloud Application administrator, Application Owner, or Global Administrator).
  • GitHub AE, fully initialized and configured for login with SAML SSO through your Azure AD tenant.

Step 1. Plan your provisioning deployment

  1. Learn about how the provisioning service works.
  2. Determine who will be in scope for provisioning.
  3. Determine what data to map between Azure AD and GitHub AE.

Step 2. Configure GitHub AE to support provisioning with Azure AD

Learn how to enable provisioning for GitHub AE here.

Add GitHub AE from the Azure AD application gallery to start managing provisioning to GitHub AE. If you have previously setup GitHub AE for SSO, you can use the same application. However it is recommended that you create a separate app when testing out the integration initially. Learn more about adding an application from the gallery here.

Step 4. Define who will be in scope for provisioning

The Azure AD provisioning service allows you to scope who will be provisioned based on assignment to the application and or based on attributes of the user and/or group. If you choose to scope who will be provisioned to your app based on assignment, you can use the following steps to assign users and/or groups to the application. If you choose to scope who will be provisioned based solely on attributes of the user and/or group, you can use a scoping filter as described here.

  • Start small. Test with a small set of users and groups before rolling out to everyone. When scope for provisioning is set to assigned users and groups, you can control this by assigning one or two users or groups to the app. When scope is set to all users and groups, you can specify an attribute based scoping filter.

  • If you need additional roles, you can update the application manifest to add new roles.

Step 5. Configure automatic user provisioning to GitHub AE

This section guides you through the steps to configure the Azure AD provisioning service to create, update, and disable users and/or groups in TestApp based on user and/or group assignments in Azure AD.

To configure automatic user provisioning for GitHub AE in Azure AD:

  1. Sign in to the Azure portal. Select Enterprise Applications, then select All applications.

    Enterprise applications blade

  2. In the applications list, select GitHub AE.

    The GitHub AE link in the Applications list

  3. Select the Provisioning tab.

    Provisioning tab

  4. Set the Provisioning Mode to Automatic.

    Provisioning tab automatic

  5. Under the Admin Credentials section, input your GitHub AE Tenant URL and Secret Token retrieved earlier from Step 2. Click Test Connection to ensure Azure AD can connect to GitHub AE. If the connection fails, ensure your GitHub AE account has Admin permissions and try again.

    Token

  6. In the Notification Email field, enter the email address of a person or group who should receive the provisioning error notifications and select the Send an email notification when a failure occurs check box.

    Notification Email

  7. Select Save.

  8. Under the Mappings section, select Synchronize Azure Active Directory Users to GitHub AE.

  9. Review the user attributes that are synchronized from Azure AD to GitHub AE in the Attribute-Mapping section. The attributes selected as Matching properties are used to match the user accounts in GitHub AE for update operations. If you choose to change the matching target attribute, you will need to ensure that the GitHub AE API supports filtering users based on that attribute. Select the Save button to commit any changes.

    Attribute Type
    userName String
    externalId String
    emails[type eq "work"].value String
    active Boolean
    name.givenName String
    name.familyName String
    name.formatted String
    displayName String

  10. Under the Mappings section, select Synchronize Azure Active Directory Groups to GitHub AE.

  11. Review the group attributes that are synchronized from Azure AD to GitHub AE in the Attribute-Mapping section. The attributes selected as Matching properties are used to match the groups in GitHub AE for update operations. Select the Save button to commit any changes.

    Attribute Type
    displayName String
    externalId String
    members Reference

  12. To configure scoping filters, refer to the following instructions provided in the Scoping filter tutorial.

  13. To enable the Azure AD provisioning service for GitHub AE, change the Provisioning Status to On in the Settings section.

    Provisioning Status Toggled On

  14. Define the users and/or groups that you would like to provision to GitHub AE by choosing the desired values in Scope in the Settings section.

    Provisioning Scope

  15. When you are ready to provision, click Save.

    Saving Provisioning Configuration

This operation starts the initial synchronization cycle of all users and/or groups defined in Scope in the Settings section. The initial cycle takes longer to perform than subsequent cycles, which occur approximately every 40 minutes as long as the Azure AD provisioning service is running.

Step 6. Monitor your deployment

Once you've configured provisioning, use the following resources to monitor your deployment:

  1. Use the provisioning logs to determine which users have been provisioned successfully or unsuccessfully
  2. Check the progress bar to see the status of the provisioning cycle and how close it is to completion
  3. If the provisioning configuration seems to be in an unhealthy state, the application will go into quarantine. Learn more about quarantine states here.

Change log

  • 02/18/2021 - Added support for Groups provisioning.

Additional resources

Next steps