Tutorial: Microsoft Entra single sign-on (SSO) integration with Productive

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

  • Control in Microsoft Entra ID who has access to Productive.
  • Enable your users to be automatically signed-in to Productive 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.
  • Productive single sign-on (SSO) enabled subscription.

Scenario description

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

  • Productive supports SP and IDP initiated SSO.
  • Productive supports Just In Time user provisioning.

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 Productive into Microsoft Entra ID, you need to add Productive 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 Productive in the search box.
  4. Select Productive 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 Productive

Configure and test Microsoft Entra SSO with Productive 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 Productive.

To configure and test Microsoft Entra SSO with Productive, 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 Productive SSO - to configure the single sign-on settings on application side.
    1. Create Productive test user - to have a counterpart of B.Simon in Productive 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 > Productive > 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, if you wish to configure the application in IDP initiated mode, perform the following step:

    a. In the Reply URL text box, type a URL using the following pattern: https://api.productive.io/api/v2/sessions/consume_single_sign_on?account_id=<ID>&app=https://latest.productive.io/public/sso

  6. Click Set additional URLs and perform the following step if you wish to configure the application in SP initiated mode:

    In the Sign-on URL text box, type the URL: https://app.productive.io/public/sso

    Note

    This value is not real. Update this value with the actual Reply URL. Contact Productive Client support team to get these values. You can also refer to the patterns shown in the Basic SAML Configuration section.

  7. Your Productive 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 an example for this. The default value of Unique User Identifier is user.userprincipalname but Productive expects this to be mapped with the user's email address. For that you can use user.mail attribute from the list or use the appropriate attribute value based on your organization configuration.

    image

  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 Productive.

  1. Sign in to the Microsoft Entra admin center as at least a Cloud Application Administrator.
  2. Browse to Identity > Applications > Enterprise applications > Productive.
  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 Productive SSO

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

Create Productive test user

In this section, a user called Britta Simon is created in Productive. Productive 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 Productive, a new one is created after authentication.

Test SSO

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

SP initiated:

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

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

IDP initiated:

  • Click on Test this application, and you should be automatically signed in to the Productive for which you set up the SSO.

You can also use Microsoft My Apps to test the application in any mode. When you click the Productive tile in the My Apps, if configured in SP mode you would be redirected to the application sign on page for initiating the login flow and if configured in IDP mode, you should be automatically signed in to the Productive 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 Productive 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.