Microsoft Entra single sign-on (SSO) integration with SAP Cloud Identity Services

In this article, you'll learn how to integrate SAP Cloud Identity Services with Microsoft Entra ID. When you integrate SAP Cloud Identity Services with Microsoft Entra ID, you can:

  • Control in Microsoft Entra ID who has access to SAP Cloud Identity Services.
  • Enable your users to be automatically signed-in to SAP Cloud Identity Services and downstream SAP applications with their Microsoft Entra accounts.
  • Manage your accounts in one central location.

Tip

Follow the recommendations and best-practice guide "Using Microsoft Entra ID to secure access to SAP platforms and applications" to operationalize the setup.

Prerequisites

To get started, you need the following items:

If you do not yet have users in Microsoft Entra ID, then start with the article plan deploying Microsoft Entra for user provisioning with SAP source and target apps. That article illustrates how to connect Microsoft Entra with authoritative sources for the list of workers in an organization, such as SAP SuccessFactors. It also shows you how to use Microsoft Entra to set up identities for those workers, so they can sign in to one or more SAP applications, such as SAP ECC or SAP S/4HANA.

If you are configuring single sign-in into SAP Cloud Identity Services in a production environment, where you will be governing access to SAP workloads using Microsoft Entra ID Governance, then review the prerequisites before configuring Microsoft Entra ID for identity governance before proceeding.

Scenario description

In this article, you configure and test Microsoft Entra single sign-on in a test environment.

  • SAP Cloud Identity Services supports service provider (SP) and identity provider (IDP) initiated SSO.
  • SAP Cloud Identity Services supports Automated user provisioning.

Before you dive into the technical details, it's vital to understand the concepts you're going to look at. SAP Cloud Identity Services enable you to implement SSO across SAP applications and services, with the same SSO experience as non-SAP applications integrated directly with Microsoft Entra ID as an Identity Provider.

SAP Cloud Identity Services acts as a Proxy Identity Provider to other SAP applications as target systems. Microsoft Entra ID in turn acts as the leading Identity Provider in this setup.

The following diagram illustrates the trust relationship:

Diagram of the architecture of trust relationships between SAP applications, SAP Cloud Identity Services and Microsoft Entra.

With this setup, your SAP Cloud Identity Services is configured as one or more applications in Microsoft Entra ID. Microsoft Entra is configured as a Corporate Identity Provider in your SAP Cloud Identity Services.

All SAP applications and services that you want to provide single sign-in for this way are subsequently configured as applications in SAP Cloud Identity Services.

Diagram of the architecture of SSO and provisioning flow between SAP applications, SAP Cloud Identity Services and Microsoft Entra.

User assignment to an SAP Cloud Identity Services application role in Microsoft Entra controls Microsoft Entra token issuance to SAP Cloud Identity Services. The authorization for granting access to specific SAP applications and services, and role assignments for those SAP applications, takes place in SAP Cloud Identity Services and the applications themselves. This authorization can be based on user and groups provisioned from Microsoft Entra ID.

Note

Currently only Web SSO has been tested by both parties. The flows that are necessary for App-to-API or API-to-API communication should work but have not been tested yet. They will be tested during subsequent activities.

To configure the integration of SAP Cloud Identity Services into Microsoft Entra ID, you need to add SAP Cloud Identity Services 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 SAP Cloud Identity Services in the search box.
  4. Select SAP Cloud Identity Services 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 SAP Cloud Identity Services

Configure and test Microsoft Entra SSO with SAP Cloud Identity Services 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 SAP Cloud Identity Services.

To configure and test Microsoft Entra SSO with SAP Cloud Identity Services, 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 SAP Cloud Identity Services SSO - to configure the single sign-on settings on application side.
    1. Create SAP Cloud Identity Services test user - to have a counterpart of B.Simon in SAP Cloud Identity Services that is linked to the Microsoft Entra representation of user.
  3. Test SSO - to verify whether the configuration works.

Obtain the SAP Cloud Identity Services federation metadata

  1. Sign in to the SAP Cloud Identity Services administration console. The URL has the following pattern: https://<tenant-id>.accounts.ondemand.com/admin or https://<tenant-id>.trial-accounts.ondemand.com/admin.

  2. Under Applications and Resources, select Tenant Settings.

    Screenshot showing tenant settings.

  3. In the Single Sign-On tab, select SAML 2.0 Configuration. Then select Download Metadata File to download the federation metadata of SAP Cloud Identity Services.

    Screenshot showing download metadata button.

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. Type the name of your application, such as SAP Cloud Identity Services. Select the application, then select Single sign-on.

  3. On the Select a single sign-on method page, select SAML.

  4. On the Basic SAML Configuration section, if you have Service Provider metadata file from SAP Cloud Identity Services, perform the following steps:

    a. Click Upload metadata file.

    b. Click on folder logo to select the metadata file which you have downloaded from SAP and click Upload.

    Screenshot showing choose metadata file

    c. After the metadata file is successfully uploaded, the Identifier and Reply URL values get auto populated in Basic SAML Configuration section.

    Screenshot showing URLs.

    Note

    If the Identifier and Reply URL values do not get auto populated, then fill in the values manually according to your requirement.

  5. If you wish to make further configurations, then 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

    In the Sign on URL (Optional) text box, type your specific business application Sign-on URL.

    Note

    Update this value with the actual sign-on URL. For more information, see SAP knowledge base article 3128585. Contact the SAP Cloud Identity Services Client support team if you have any questions.

  6. SAP Cloud Identity Services 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.

    Screenshot showing attributes.

  7. In addition to above, SAP Cloud Identity Services 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
  8. On the Set up Single Sign-On with SAML page, in the SAML Signing Certificate section, click Download to download the Metadata XML from the given options as per your requirement and save it on your computer.

    The Certificate download link

  9. On the Set up SAP Cloud Identity Services section, copy the appropriate URL(s) as per your requirement.

    Copy configuration URLs

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 SAP Cloud Identity Services.

  1. Sign in to the Microsoft Entra admin center as at least a Cloud Application Administrator.

  2. Browse to Identity > Applications > Enterprise applications > SAP Cloud Identity Services.

  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 SAP Cloud Identity Services SSO

In this section, you will create a Corporate Identity Provider in the SAP Cloud Identity Services administration console. For more information, see Create Corporate IdP in Administration Console.

  1. Sign in to the SAP Cloud Identity Services administration console. The URL has the following pattern: https://<tenant-id>.accounts.ondemand.com/admin or https://<tenant-id>.trial-accounts.ondemand.com/admin.

  2. Under Identity Providers, choose the Corporate Identity Providers tile.

  3. Click + Create to create an identity provider.

    Screenshot showing Identity Provider.

  4. Perform the following steps on Create Identity Provider dialog box.

    Screenshot showing create Identity Provider.

    a. Give a valid name in Display Name.

    b. Select Microsoft ADFS/Entra ID (SAML 2.0) from the dropdown.

    c. Click Create.

  5. Go to Trust -> SAML 2.0 Configuration. On the field for Metadata File, click on Browse to upload the Metadata XML file which you have downloaded from the Microsoft Entra SSO configuration.

    Screenshot showing configuration of Identity Provider.

  6. Click Save.

  7. Continue with the following only if you want to add and enable SSO for another SAP application. Repeat the steps under the section Adding SAP Cloud Identity Services from the gallery.

  8. In the Entra side, on the SAP Cloud Identity Services application integration page, select Linked Sign-on.

    Screenshot showing Configure Linked Sign-On

  9. Save the configuration.

  10. For more information, please read the documentation about SAP Cloud Identity Services at Integration with Microsoft Entra ID.

Note

The new application leverages the single sign-on configuration of the previous SAP application. Make sure you use the same Corporate Identity Providers in the SAP Cloud Identity Services administration console.

Create SAP Cloud Identity Services test user

You don't need to create a user in SAP Cloud Identity Services. Users who are in the Microsoft Entra user store can use the SSO functionality.

SAP Cloud Identity Services supports the Identity Federation option. This option allows the application to check whether users who are authenticated by the corporate identity provider exist in the user store of SAP Cloud Identity Services.

The Identity Federation option is disabled by default. If Identity Federation is enabled, only the users that are imported in SAP Cloud Identity Services can access the application.

For more information about how to enable or disable Identity Federation with SAP Cloud Identity Services, see "Enable Identity Federation with SAP Cloud Identity Services" in Configure Identity Federation with the User Store of SAP Cloud Identity Services.

Note

SAP Cloud Identity Services 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 Microsoft Entra single sign-on configuration with following options, SP initiated and IDP initiated.

If you encounter errors from signing into SAP Cloud Identity Services, with a correlation ID, then in the SAP Cloud Identity Services administration console you can search the troubleshooting logs for that correlation ID. For more information, see SAP knowledge base article 2698571 and SAP knowledge base article 3201824.

SP initiated:

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

  • Go to SAP Cloud Identity Services 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 SAP Cloud Identity Services 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 SAP Cloud Identity Services 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 SAP Cloud Identity Services for which you set up the SSO. For more information about the My Apps, see Introduction to the My Apps.

Once you configure single-sign on to SAP Cloud Identity Services, you can configure SAP Cloud Identity Services to forward all SSO requests to Microsoft Entra.

You can also enforce session controls, which protect exfiltration and infiltration of your organization’s sensitive data in real time. Session controls extend from Conditional Access. Learn how to enforce session control with Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps.

You can also manage access to SAP BTP applications, using Microsoft Entra ID Governance to populate groups associated to roles in the BTP role collection. For more information, see Managing access to SAP BTP.

Consult the recommendations and best-practice guide to operationalize the setup.