Tutorial: Configure Cato Networks for automatic user provisioning

This tutorial describes the steps you need to do in both Cato Networks and Microsoft Entra ID to configure automatic user provisioning. When configured, Microsoft Entra ID automatically provisions and de-provisions users and groups to Cato Networks 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.

Capabilities supported

• Create users in Cato Networks
• Remove users in Cato Networks when they do not require access anymore
• Keep user attributes synchronized between Microsoft Entra ID and Cato Networks
• Provision groups and group memberships in Cato Networks

Prerequisites

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

• A Microsoft Entra tenant
• One of the following roles: Application Administrator, Cloud Application Administrator, or Application Owner.
• A Cato Networks account.
• An admin account in Cato Networks with Admin permissions.
• License with a sufficient number of users.

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 Microsoft Entra ID and Cato Networks.

Step 2: Configure Cato Networks to support provisioning with Microsoft Entra ID

1. Log in to your account in the Cato Management Application.
2. From the navigation menu select Access > Directory Services and click the SCIM section tab.
3. Select Enable SCIM Provisioning to set your account to connect to the SCIM app. And then click Save.
4. Copy the Base URL.Click Generate Token and copy the bearer token. Base Url and token will be entered in the Tenant URL and Secret Token field in the Provisioning tab of your Cato Network application.

Step 3: Add Cato Networks from the Microsoft Entra application gallery

Add Cato Networks from the Microsoft Entra application gallery to start managing provisioning to Cato Networks. 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 user / 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 groups to the application. If you choose to scope who will be provisioned based solely on attributes of the user 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 Cato Networks

This section guides you through the steps to configure the Microsoft Entra provisioning service to create, update, and disable users and/or groups in Cato Networks based on user and/or group assignments in Microsoft Entra ID.

To configure automatic user provisioning for Cato Networks 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

   

3. In the applications list, select Cato Networks.

   

4. Select the Provisioning tab.

   

5. Set the Provisioning Mode to Automatic.

   

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

   

7. 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.

   

8. Select Save.

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

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

    Attribute	Type	Supported for filtering
    userName	String	✓
    emails[type eq "work"].value	String
    active	Boolean
    externalId	String
    name.givenName	String
    name.familyName	String
    phoneNumbers[type eq "work"].value	String

11. Under the Mappings section, select Synchronize Microsoft Entra groups to Cato Networks.

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

    Attribute	Type	Supported for filtering
    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 Cato Networks, change the Provisioning Status to On in the Settings section.

    

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

    

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

    

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 complete than next 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 will go into quarantine. Learn more about quarantine states here.

More resources

• Managing user account provisioning for Enterprise Apps
• What is application access and single sign-on with Microsoft Entra ID?

Next steps

• Learn how to review logs and get reports on provisioning activity