Tutorial: Configure Island for automatic user provisioning

This tutorial describes the steps you need to perform in both Island and Microsoft Entra ID to configure automatic user and group provisioning. When configured, Microsoft Entra ID automatically provisions and deprovisions users to Island using the Microsoft Entra 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 Microsoft Entra ID.

Supported capabilities

  • Create users in Island.
  • Remove users in Island when they do not require access anymore.
  • Keep user attributes synchronized between Microsoft Entra ID and Island.
  • Provision groups and group memberships in Island.
  • Single sign-on to Island (recommended).

Prerequisites

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

Step 1: Plan your provisioning deployment

Step 2: Configure Island to support provisioning with Microsoft Entra ID

Contact Island support to configure Island to support provisioning with Microsoft Entra ID.

Add Island from the Microsoft Entra application gallery to start managing provisioning to Island. If you have previously setup Island for SSO, you can use the same application. However it's 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 Microsoft Entra provisioning service allows you to scope who will be provisioned based on assignment to the application and or based on attributes of the users and groups. 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 groups to the application. If you choose to scope who will be provisioned based solely on attributes of the users and groups, you can use a scoping filter as described here.

  • Start small. Test with a small set of users 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 and groups to the app. When scope is set to all users and groups, you can specify an attribute based scoping filter.

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

Step 5: Configure automatic user provisioning to Island

This section guides you through the steps to configure the Microsoft Entra provisioning service to create, update, and disable users in Island based on user assignments in Microsoft Entra ID.

To configure automatic user provisioning for Island in Microsoft Entra ID:

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

  2. Browse to Identity > Applications > Enterprise applications

    Screenshot of Enterprise applications blade.

  3. In the applications list, select Island.

    Screenshot of the Island link in the Applications list.

  4. Select the Provisioning tab.

    Screenshot of Provisioning tab.

  5. Set the Provisioning Mode to Automatic.

    Screenshot of Provisioning tab automatic.

  6. Under the Admin Credentials section, input your Island Tenant URL and Secret Token. Click Test Connection to ensure Microsoft Entra ID can connect to Island. If the connection fails, ensure your Island account has Admin permissions and try again.

    Screenshot of Token.

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

    Screenshot of Notification Email.

  8. Select Save.

  9. Under the Mappings section, select Synchronize Microsoft Entra users to Island.

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

    Attribute Type Supported for filtering Required by Island
    userName String
    active Boolean
    displayName String
    title String
    emails[type eq "work"].value String
    preferredLanguage String
    name.givenName String
    name.familyName String
    name.formatted String
    externalId String
  11. Under the Mappings section, select Synchronize Microsoft Entra ID Groups to Island.

  12. Review the group attributes that are synchronized from Microsoft Entra ID to Island in the Attribute-Mapping section. The attributes selected as Matching properties are used to match the groups in Island for update operations. Select the Save button to commit any changes.

    Attribute Type Supported for filtering Required by Island
    displayName String
    externalId String
    members Reference
  13. To configure scoping filters, refer to the following instructions provided in the Scoping filter tutorial.

  14. To enable the Microsoft Entra provisioning service for Island, change the Provisioning Status to On in the Settings section.

    Screenshot of Provisioning Status Toggled On.

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

    Screenshot of Provisioning Scope.

  16. When you're ready to provision, click Save.

    Screenshot of Saving Provisioning Configuration.

This operation starts the initial synchronization cycle of all users and 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 Microsoft Entra provisioning service is running.

Step 6: Monitor your deployment

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

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

More resources

Next steps