Create externalAuthenticationMethod

Namespace: microsoft.graph

Create a new externalAuthenticationMethod object. This API doesn't support self-service operations.

This API is available in the following national cloud deployments.

Global service	US Government L4	US Government L5 (DOD)	China operated by 21Vianet
✅	❌	❌	❌

Permissions

Choose the permission or permissions marked as least privileged for this API. Use a higher privileged permission or permissions only if your app requires it. For details about delegated and application permissions, see Permission types. To learn more about these permissions, see the permissions reference.

Permission type	Least privileged permissions	Higher privileged permissions
Delegated (work or school account)	UserAuthMethod-External.ReadWrite	UserAuthMethod-External.ReadWrite.All, UserAuthenticationMethod.ReadWrite, UserAuthenticationMethod.ReadWrite.All
Delegated (personal Microsoft account)	Not supported.	Not supported.
Application	UserAuthMethod-External.ReadWrite.All	UserAuthenticationMethod.ReadWrite.All

Important

In delegated scenarios with work or school accounts where the signed-in user is acting on another user, they must be assigned a supported Microsoft Entra role or a custom role with a supported role permission. The following least privileged roles are supported for this operation.

• Authentication Administrator
• Privileged Authentication Administrator

When users manage their own authentication methods, the system prompts them to complete multi-factor authentication (MFA) if they last authenticated more than 10 minutes ago in the current session.

HTTP request

Assign an external MFA to another user. This API doesn't support self-service operations.

POST /users/{usersId}/authentication/externalAuthenticationMethods

Request headers

Name	Description
Authorization	Bearer {token}. Required. Learn more about authentication and authorization.
Content-Type	application/json. Required.

Request body

In the request body, supply a JSON representation of the externalAuthenticationMethod object.

You can specify the following properties when creating an externalAuthenticationMethod.

Property	Type	Description
configurationId	String	A unique identifier used to manage and integrate external auth methods within Microsoft Entra ID. Required.
displayName	String	Custom name given to the registered external MFA. Required.

Response

If successful, this method returns a 201 Created response code and an externalAuthenticationMethod object in the response body.

Examples

Request

The following example shows a request.

HTTP

POST https://graph.microsoft.com/v1.0/users/{id}/authentication/externalAuthenticationMethods
Content-Type: application/json

{
  "@odata.type": "#microsoft.graph.externalAuthenticationMethod",
  "configurationId": "26310fee-860b-4eab-8749-ab730dcf335e",
  "displayName": "Adatum"
}

C#

// Code snippets are only available for the latest version. Current version is 5.x

// Dependencies
using Microsoft.Graph.Models;

var requestBody = new ExternalAuthenticationMethod
{
	OdataType = "#microsoft.graph.externalAuthenticationMethod",
	ConfigurationId = "26310fee-860b-4eab-8749-ab730dcf335e",
	DisplayName = "Adatum",
};

// To initialize your graphClient, see https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/graph/sdks/create-client?from=snippets&tabs=csharp
var result = await graphClient.Users["{user-id}"].Authentication.ExternalAuthenticationMethods.PostAsync(requestBody);

For details about how to add the SDK to your project and create an authProvider instance, see the SDK documentation.

Go

// Code snippets are only available for the latest major version. Current major version is $v1.*

// Dependencies
import (
	  "context"
	  msgraphsdk "github.com/microsoftgraph/msgraph-sdk-go"
	  graphmodels "github.com/microsoftgraph/msgraph-sdk-go/models"
	  //other-imports
)

requestBody := graphmodels.NewExternalAuthenticationMethod()
configurationId := "26310fee-860b-4eab-8749-ab730dcf335e"
requestBody.SetConfigurationId(&configurationId) 
displayName := "Adatum"
requestBody.SetDisplayName(&displayName) 

// To initialize your graphClient, see https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/graph/sdks/create-client?from=snippets&tabs=go
externalAuthenticationMethods, err := graphClient.Users().ByUserId("user-id").Authentication().ExternalAuthenticationMethods().Post(context.Background(), requestBody, nil)

For details about how to add the SDK to your project and create an authProvider instance, see the SDK documentation.

Java

// Code snippets are only available for the latest version. Current version is 6.x

GraphServiceClient graphClient = new GraphServiceClient(requestAdapter);

ExternalAuthenticationMethod externalAuthenticationMethod = new ExternalAuthenticationMethod();
externalAuthenticationMethod.setOdataType("#microsoft.graph.externalAuthenticationMethod");
externalAuthenticationMethod.setConfigurationId("26310fee-860b-4eab-8749-ab730dcf335e");
externalAuthenticationMethod.setDisplayName("Adatum");
ExternalAuthenticationMethod result = graphClient.users().byUserId("{user-id}").authentication().externalAuthenticationMethods().post(externalAuthenticationMethod);

For details about how to add the SDK to your project and create an authProvider instance, see the SDK documentation.

JavaScript

const options = {
	authProvider,
};

const client = Client.init(options);

const externalAuthenticationMethod = {
  '@odata.type': '#microsoft.graph.externalAuthenticationMethod',
  configurationId: '26310fee-860b-4eab-8749-ab730dcf335e',
  displayName: 'Adatum'
};

await client.api('/users/{id}/authentication/externalAuthenticationMethods')
	.post(externalAuthenticationMethod);

For details about how to add the SDK to your project and create an authProvider instance, see the SDK documentation.

PHP

<?php
use Microsoft\Graph\GraphServiceClient;
use Microsoft\Graph\Generated\Models\ExternalAuthenticationMethod;


$graphServiceClient = new GraphServiceClient($tokenRequestContext, $scopes);

$requestBody = new ExternalAuthenticationMethod();
$requestBody->setOdataType('#microsoft.graph.externalAuthenticationMethod');
$requestBody->setConfigurationId('26310fee-860b-4eab-8749-ab730dcf335e');
$requestBody->setDisplayName('Adatum');

$result = $graphServiceClient->users()->byUserId('user-id')->authentication()->externalAuthenticationMethods()->post($requestBody)->wait();

For details about how to add the SDK to your project and create an authProvider instance, see the SDK documentation.

PowerShell

Import-Module Microsoft.Graph.Identity.SignIns

$params = @{
	"@odata.type" = "#microsoft.graph.externalAuthenticationMethod"
	configurationId = "26310fee-860b-4eab-8749-ab730dcf335e"
	displayName = "Adatum"
}

New-MgUserAuthenticationExternalAuthenticationMethod -UserId $userId -BodyParameter $params

For details about how to add the SDK to your project and create an authProvider instance, see the SDK documentation.

Python

# Code snippets are only available for the latest version. Current version is 1.x
from msgraph import GraphServiceClient
from msgraph.generated.models.external_authentication_method import ExternalAuthenticationMethod
# To initialize your graph_client, see https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/graph/sdks/create-client?from=snippets&tabs=python
request_body = ExternalAuthenticationMethod(
	odata_type = "#microsoft.graph.externalAuthenticationMethod",
	configuration_id = "26310fee-860b-4eab-8749-ab730dcf335e",
	display_name = "Adatum",
)

result = await graph_client.users.by_user_id('user-id').authentication.external_authentication_methods.post(request_body)

For details about how to add the SDK to your project and create an authProvider instance, see the SDK documentation.

Response

The following example shows the response.

Note: The response object shown here might be shortened for readability.

HTTP/1.1 201 Created
Content-Type: application/json

{
  "@odata.type": "#microsoft.graph.externalAuthenticationMethod",
  "id": "78381c69-811f-51f6-66ec-c2c2aa0e2b46",
  "createdDateTime": "2025-04-02T16:01:39",
  "configurationId": "26310fee-860b-4eab-8749-ab730dcf335e",
  "displayName": "Adatum"
}