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

  • Article
  • 6 minutes to read

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

  • Control in Azure AD who has access to Whimsical.
  • Enable your users to be automatically signed-in to Whimsical 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.
  • Whimsical Team Workspace.

Scenario description

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

  • Whimsical supports SP and IDP initiated SSO
  • Whimsical 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 Whimsical into Azure AD, you need to add Whimsical 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 Whimsical in the search box.
  6. Select Whimsical 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 Whimsical

Configure and test Azure AD SSO with Whimsical 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 Whimsical.

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

  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 Whimsical SSO - to configure the single sign-on settings on application side.
    1. Create Whimsical test user - to have a counterpart of B.Simon in Whimsical 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 Whimsical 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/pencil icon for Basic SAML Configuration to edit the settings.

    Edit Basic SAML Configuration

  4. On the Basic SAML Configuration section, if you wish to configure the application in IDP initiated mode, enter the values for the following fields:

    In the Reply URL text box, type a URL using the following pattern: https://whimsical.com/saml/<CUSTOM_IDENTIFIER>

  5. 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 a URL using the following pattern: https://whimsical.com/@<TENANT_NAME>

    Note

    These values are not real. Update these values with the actual Reply URL and Sign-On URL. Your specific values will be shown on the SAML setup screen inside Whimsical Workspace settings. You can also refer to the patterns shown in the Basic SAML Configuration section in the Azure portal.

  6. The Whimsical 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

  7. In addition to above, Whimsical 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

  8. 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

  9. In the Set up Whimsical 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 Whimsical.

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

  2. In the applications list, select Whimsical.

  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 Whimsical SSO

  1. To automate the configuration within Whimsical, 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 Whimsical will direct you to the Whimsical application. From there, provide the admin credentials to sign into Whimsical. The browser extension will automatically configure the application for you and automate steps 3-4.

    Setup configuration

  3. If you want to setup Whimsical manually, in a different web browser window, sign in to your Whimsical company site as an administrator.

  4. To configure single sign-on on the Whimsical side, you need to upload the Federation Metadata XML you just downloaded to your workspace settings.

    Whimsical Workspace SAML setup

Uploading the Federation Metadata XML should be the only step you need to take in Whimsical to set up the SAML SSO connection.

Create Whimsical test user

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

Test SSO

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

SP initiated:

  • Click on Test this application in Azure portal. This will redirect to Whimsical Sign on URL where you can initiate the login flow.

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

IDP initiated:

  • Click on Test this application in Azure portal and you should be automatically signed in to the Whimsical 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 Whimsical 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 Whimsical 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 Whimsical 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.