Tutorial: Configure GitHub Enterprise Managed User for automatic user provisioning

This tutorial describes the steps you need to perform in both GitHub Enterprise Managed User and Microsoft Entra ID to configure automatic user provisioning. When configured, Microsoft Entra ID automatically provisions and deprovisions users and groups to GitHub Enterprise Managed User 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.

Note

GitHub Enterprise Managed User (EMU) is a different type of GitHub Enterprise Account. If you haven't specifically requested EMU instance, you have a standard GitHub Enterprise Account. In that case, please refer to the documentation to configure user provisioning in your non-EMU organisation. User provisioning is not supported for standard GitHub Enterprise Accounts, but is supported for organisations under GitHub Enterprise Managed User (EMU).

Capabilities Supported

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

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.
• Enterprise Managed Users enabled GitHub Enterprise and configured to log in with SAML SSO through your Microsoft Entra tenant.

Note

This integration is also available to use from Microsoft Entra US Government Cloud environment. You can find this application in the Microsoft Entra US Government Cloud Application Gallery and configure it in the same way as you do from public cloud.

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 GitHub Enterprise Managed User.

Step 2: Prepare to configure provisioning with Microsoft Entra ID

1. Identify your Tenant URL. This is the value that you enter in the Tenant URL field in the Provisioning tab of your GitHub Enterprise Managed User application.

   • For an enterprise on GitHub.com, the Tenant URL is https://api.github.com/scim/v2/enterprises/{enterprise}.
   • For an enterprise on GHE.com, the Tenant URL is https://api.{subdomain}.ghe.com/scim/v2/enterprises/{subdomain}

2. Ensure you have created a token with the scim:enterprise scope for your enterprise's setup user. This value is entered in the Secret Token field in the Provisioning tab of your GitHub Enterprise Managed User application. See Getting started with Enterprise Managed Users on GitHub Docs.

Step 3: Add GitHub Enterprise Managed User from the Microsoft Entra application gallery

Add GitHub Enterprise Managed User from the Microsoft Entra application gallery to start managing provisioning to GitHub Enterprise Managed User. If you have previously setup GitHub Enterprise Managed User 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 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 more roles, you can update the application manifest to add new roles.

Step 5: Configure automatic user provisioning to GitHub Enterprise Managed User

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

To configure automatic user provisioning for GitHub Enterprise Managed User 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 GitHub Enterprise Managed User.

   

4. Select the Provisioning tab.

   

5. Set the Provisioning Mode to Automatic.

   

6. Under the Admin Credentials section, input your GitHub Enterprise Managed User Tenant URL and Secret Token. Click Test Connection to ensure Microsoft Entra ID can connect to GitHub Enterprise Managed User. If the connection fails, ensure your GitHub Enterprise Managed User account has created the secret token as an enterprise owner 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 GitHub Enterprise Managed User.

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

    Attribute	Type	Supported For Filtering
    externalId	String	✓
    userName	String
    active	Boolean
    roles	String
    displayName	String
    name.givenName	String
    name.familyName	String
    name.formatted	String
    emails[type eq "work"].value	String
    emails[type eq "home"].value	String
    emails[type eq "other"].value	String

11. Under the Mappings section, select Synchronize Microsoft Entra groups to GitHub Enterprise Managed User.

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

    Attribute	Type	Supported For Filtering
    externalId	String	✓
    displayName	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 GitHub Enterprise Managed User, change the Provisioning Status to On in the Settings section.

    

15. Define the users and/or groups that you would like to provision to GitHub Enterprise Managed User 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 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:

1. Use the provisioning logs to determine which users have been provisioned successfully or unsuccessfully
2. Check the progress bar to see the status of the provisioning cycle and how close it's to completion
3. If the provisioning configuration seems to be in an unhealthy state, the application goes 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