แก้ไข

แชร์ผ่าน

Writing expressions for attribute mappings in Microsoft Entra ID

  • บทความ

When you configure cloud sync, one of the types of attribute mappings that you can specify is an expression mapping.

The expression mapping allows you to customize attributes using a script-like expression. This allows you to transform the on-premises data into a new or different value. For example, you may want to combine two attributes into a single attribute because this single attribute is used by one of your cloud applications.

The following document will cover the script-like expressions that are used to transform the data. This is only part of the process. Next you will need to use this expression and place it in a web request to your tenant. For more information on that see Transformations

Syntax overview

The syntax for Expressions for Attribute Mappings is reminiscent of Visual Basic for Applications (VBA) functions.

  • The entire expression must be defined in terms of functions, which consist of a name followed by arguments in parentheses:
    FunctionName(<<argument 1>>,<<argument N>>)

  • You may nest functions within each other. For example:
    FunctionOne(FunctionTwo(<<argument1>>))

  • You can pass three different types of arguments into functions:

    1. Attributes, which must be enclosed in square brackets. For example: [attributeName]
    2. String constants, which must be enclosed in double quotes. For example: "United States"
    3. Other Functions. For example: FunctionOne(<<argument1>>, FunctionTwo(<<argument2>>))

  • For string constants, if you need a backslash ( \ ) or quotation mark ( " ) in the string, it must be escaped with the backslash ( \ ) symbol. For example: "Company name: \"Contoso\""

List of functions

List of functions Description
Append Takes a source string value and appends the suffix to the end of it.
BitAnd The BitAnd function sets specified bits on a value.
CBool The CBool function returns a Boolean based on the evaluated expression
ConvertFromBase64 The ConvertFromBase64 function converts the specified base64 encoded value to a regular string.
ConvertToBase64 The ConvertToBase64 function converts a string to a Unicode base64 string.
ConvertToUTF8Hex The ConvertToUTF8Hex function converts a string to a UTF8 Hex encoded value.
Count The Count function returns the number of elements in a multi-valued attribute
Cstr The CStr function converts to a string data type.
DateFromNum The DateFromNum function converts a value in AD’s date format to a DateTime type.
DNComponent The DNComponent function returns the value of a specified DN component going from left.
Error The Error function is used to return a custom error.
FormatDateTime Takes a date string from one format and converts it into a different format.
GUID The function Guid generates a new random GUID.
IIF The IIF function returns one of a set of possible values based on a specified condition.
InStr The InStr function finds the first occurrence of a substring in a string.
IsNull If the expression evaluates to Null, then the IsNull function returns true.
IsNullOrEmpty If the expression is null or an empty string, then the IsNullOrEmpty function returns true.
IsPresent If the expression evaluates to a string that is not Null and is not empty, then the IsPresent function returns true.
IsString If the expression can be evaluated to a string type, then the IsString function evaluates to True.
Item The Item function returns one item from a multi-valued string/attribute.
Join Join() is similar to Append(), except that it can combine multiple source string values into a single string, and each value will be separated by a separator string.
Left The Left function returns a specified number of characters from the left of a string.
Mid Returns a substring of the source value. A substring is a string that contains only some of the characters from the source string.
NormalizeDiacritics Requires one string argument. Returns the string, but with any diacritical characters replaced with equivalent non-diacritical characters.
Not Flips the boolean value of the source. If source value is "True", returns "False". Otherwise, returns "True".
RemoveDuplicates The RemoveDuplicates function takes a multi-valued string and make sure each value is unique.
Replace Replaces values within a string.
SelectUniqueValue Requires a minimum of two arguments, which are unique value generation rules defined using expressions. The function evaluates each rule and then checks the value generated for uniqueness in the target app/directory.
SingleAppRoleAssignment Returns a single appRoleAssignment from the list of all appRoleAssignments assigned to a user for a given application.
Split Splits a string into a multi-valued array, using the specified delimiter character.
StringFromSID The StringFromSid function converts a byte array containing a security identifier to a string.
StripSpaces Removes all space (" ") characters from the source string.
Switch When source value matches a key, returns value for that key.
ToLower Takes a source string value and converts it to lower case using the culture rules that are specified.
ToUpper Takes a source string value and converts it to upper case using the culture rules that are specified.
Trim The Trim function removes leading and trailing white spaces from a string.
Word The Word function returns a word contained within a string, based on parameters describing the delimiters to use and the word number to return.

Append

Function:
Append(source, suffix)

Description:
Takes a source string value and appends the suffix to the end of it.

Parameters:

Name Required/ Repeating Type Notes
source Required String Usually name of the attribute from the source object.
suffix Required String The string that you want to append to the end of the source value.

BitAnd

Description:
The BitAnd function sets specified bits on a value.

Syntax:
num BitAnd(num value1, num value2)

  • value1, value2: numeric values that should be AND’ed together

Remarks:
This function converts both parameters to the binary representation and sets a bit to:

  • 0 - if one or both of the corresponding bits in value1 and value2 are 0
  • 1 - if both of the corresponding bits are 1.

In other words, it returns 0 in all cases except when the corresponding bits of both parameters are 1.

Example:

BitAnd(&HF, &HF7)
Returns 7 because hexadecimal "F" AND "F7" evaluate to this value.

CBool

Description:
The CBool function returns a Boolean based on the evaluated expression

Syntax:
bool CBool(exp Expression)

Remarks:
If the expression evaluates to a non-zero value, then CBool returns True, else it returns False.

Example:
CBool([attrib1] = [attrib2])

Returns True if both attributes have the same value.

ConvertFromBase64

Description:
The ConvertFromBase64 function converts the specified base64 encoded value to a regular string.

Syntax:
str ConvertFromBase64(str source) - assumes Unicode for encoding
str ConvertFromBase64(str source, enum Encoding)

  • source: Base64 encoded string
  • Encoding: Unicode, ASCII, UTF8

Example
ConvertFromBase64("SABlAGwAbABvACAAdwBvAHIAbABkACEA")
ConvertFromBase64("SGVsbG8gd29ybGQh", UTF8)

Both examples return "Hello world!"

ConvertToBase64

Description:
The ConvertToBase64 function converts a string to a Unicode base64 string.
Converts the value of an array of integers to its equivalent string representation that is encoded with base-64 digits.

Syntax:
str ConvertToBase64(str source)

Example:
ConvertToBase64("Hello world!")
Returns "SABlAGwAbABvACAAdwBvAHIAbABkACEA"

ConvertToUTF8Hex

Description:
The ConvertToUTF8Hex function converts a string to a UTF8 Hex encoded value.

Syntax:
str ConvertToUTF8Hex(str source)

Remarks:
The output format of this function is used by Microsoft Entra ID as DN attribute format.

Example:
ConvertToUTF8Hex("Hello world!")
Returns 48656C6C6F20776F726C6421

Count

Description:
The Count function returns the number of elements in a multi-valued attribute

Syntax:
num Count(mvstr attribute)

CStr

Description:
The CStr function converts to a string data type.

Syntax:
str CStr(num value)
str CStr(ref value)
str CStr(bool value)

  • value: Can be a numeric value, reference attribute, or Boolean.

Example:
CStr([dn])
Could return "cn=Joe,dc=contoso,dc=com"

DateFromNum

Description:
The DateFromNum function converts a value in AD’s date format to a DateTime type.

Syntax:
dt DateFromNum(num value)

Example:
DateFromNum([lastLogonTimestamp])
DateFromNum(129699324000000000)
Returns a DateTime representing 2012-01-01 23:00:00

DNComponent

Description:
The DNComponent function returns the value of a specified DN component going from left.

Syntax:
str DNComponent(ref dn, num ComponentNumber)

  • dn: the reference attribute to interpret
  • ComponentNumber: The component in the DN to return

Example:
DNComponent(CRef([dn]),1)
If dn is "cn=Joe,ou=…," it returns Joe

Error

Description:
The Error function is used to return a custom error.

Syntax:
void Error(str ErrorMessage)

Example:
IIF(IsPresent([accountName]),[accountName],Error("AccountName is required"))
If the attribute accountName is not present, throw an error on the object.

FormatDateTime

Function:
FormatDateTime(source, inputFormat, outputFormat)

Description:
Takes a date string from one format and converts it into a different format.

Parameters:

Name Required/ Repeating Type Notes
source Required String Usually name of the attribute from the source object.
inputFormat Required String Expected format of the source value. For supported formats, see /dotnet/standard/base-types/custom-date-and-time-format-strings.
outputFormat Required String Format of the output date.

Guid

Description:
The function Guid generates a new random GUID

Syntax:
str Guid()

IIF

Description:
The IIF function returns one of a set of possible values based on a specified condition.

Syntax:
var IIF(exp condition, var valueIfTrue, var valueIfFalse)

  • condition: any value or expression that can be evaluated to true or false.
  • valueIfTrue: If the condition evaluates to true, the returned value.
  • valueIfFalse: If the condition evaluates to false, the returned value.

Example:
IIF([employeeType]="Intern","t-" & [alias],[alias])
If the user is an intern, returns the alias of a user with "t-" added to the beginning of it, else returns the user’s alias as is.

InStr

Description:
The InStr function finds the first occurrence of a substring in a string

Syntax:

num InStr(str stringcheck, str stringmatch)
num InStr(str stringcheck, str stringmatch, num start)
num InStr(str stringcheck, str stringmatch, num start, enum compare)

  • stringcheck: string to be searched
  • stringmatch: string to be found
  • start: starting position to find the substring
  • compare: vbTextCompare or vbBinaryCompare

Remarks:
Returns the position where the substring was found or 0 if not found.

Example:
InStr("The quick brown fox","quick")
Evalues to 5

InStr("repEated","e",3,vbBinaryCompare)
Evaluates to 7

IsNull

Description:
If the expression evaluates to Null, then the IsNull function returns true.

Syntax:
bool IsNull(var Expression)

Remarks:
For an attribute, a Null is expressed by the absence of the attribute.

Example:
IsNull([displayName])
Returns True if the attribute is not present in the CS or MV.

IsNullOrEmpty

Description:
If the expression is null or an empty string, then the IsNullOrEmpty function returns true.

Syntax:
bool IsNullOrEmpty(var Expression)

Remarks:
For an attribute, this would evaluate to True if the attribute is absent or is present but is an empty string.
The inverse of this function is named IsPresent.

Example:
IsNullOrEmpty([displayName])
Returns True if the attribute is not present or is an empty string in the CS or MV.

IsPresent

Description:
If the expression evaluates to a string that is not Null and is not empty, then the IsPresent function returns true.

Syntax:
bool IsPresent(var expression)

Remarks:
The inverse of this function is named IsNullOrEmpty.

Example:
Switch(IsPresent([directManager]),[directManager], IsPresent([skiplevelManager]),[skiplevelManager], IsPresent([director]),[director])

Item

Description:
The Item function returns one item from a multi-valued string/attribute.

Syntax:
var Item(mvstr attribute, num index)

  • attribute: multi-valued attribute
  • index: index to an item in the multi-valued string.

Remarks:
The Item function is useful together with the Contains function since the latter function returns the index to an item in the multi-valued attribute.

Throws an error if index is out of bounds.

Example:
Mid(Item([proxyAddresses],Contains([proxyAddresses], "SMTP:")),6)
Returns the primary email address.

IsString

Description:
If the expression can be evaluated to a string type, then the IsString function evaluates to True.

Syntax:
bool IsString(var expression)

Remarks:
Used to determine if CStr() can be successful to parse the expression.

Join

Function:
Join(separator, source1, source2, …)

Description:
Join() is similar to Append(), except that it can combine multiple source string values into a single string, and each value will be separated by a separator string.

If one of the source values is a multi-value attribute, then every value in that attribute will be joined together, separated by the separator value.

Parameters:

Name Required/ Repeating Type Notes
separator Required String String used to separate source values when they are concatenated into one string. Can be "" if no separator is required.
source1 … sourceN Required, variable-number of times String String values to be joined together.

Left

Description:
The Left function returns a specified number of characters from the left of a string.

Syntax:
str Left(str string, num NumChars)

  • string: the string to return characters from
  • NumChars: a number identifying the number of characters to return from the beginning (left) of string

Remarks:
A string containing the first numChars characters in string:

  • If numChars = 0, return empty string.
  • If numChars < 0, return input string.
  • If string is null, return empty string.

If string contains fewer characters than the number specified in numChars, a string identical to string (that is, containing all characters in parameter 1) is returned.

Example:
Left("John Doe", 3)
Returns Joh.

Mid

Function:
Mid(source, start, length)

Description:
Returns a substring of the source value. A substring is a string that contains only some of the characters from the source string.

Parameters:

Name Required/ Repeating Type Notes
source Required String Usually name of the attribute.
start Required integer Index in the source string where substring should start. First character in the string will have index of 1, second character will have index 2, and so on.
length Required integer Length of the substring. If length ends outside the source string, function will return substring from start index till end of source string.

NormalizeDiacritics

Function:
NormalizeDiacritics(source)

Description:
Requires one string argument. Returns the string, but with any diacritical characters replaced with equivalent non-diacritical characters. Typically used to convert first names and last names containing diacritical characters (accent marks) into legal values that can be used in various user identifiers such as user principal names, SAM account names, and email addresses.

Parameters:

Name Required/ Repeating Type Notes
source Required String Usually a first name or last name attribute.

Not

Function:
Not(source)

Description:
Flips the boolean value of the source. If source value is "True", returns "False". Otherwise, returns "True".

Parameters:

Name Required/ Repeating Type Notes
source Required Boolean String Expected source values are "True" or "False".

RemoveDuplicates

Description:
The RemoveDuplicates function takes a multi-valued string and make sure each value is unique.

Syntax:
mvstr RemoveDuplicates(mvstr attribute)

Example:
RemoveDuplicates([proxyAddresses])
Returns a sanitized proxyAddress attribute where all duplicate values have been removed.

Replace

Function:
Replace(source, oldValue, regexPattern, regexGroupName, replacementValue, replacementAttributeName, template)

Description:
Replaces values within a string. It works differently depending on the parameters provided:

  • When oldValue and replacementValue are provided:

    • Replaces all occurrences of oldValue in the source with replacementValue

  • When oldValue and template are provided:

    • Replaces all occurrences of the oldValue in the template with the source value

  • When regexPattern and replacementValue are provided:

    • The function applies the regexPattern to the source string and you can use the regex group names to construct the string for replacementValue

  • When regexPattern, regexGroupName, replacementValue are provided:

    • The function applies the regexPattern to the source string and replaces all values matching regexGroupName with replacementValue

  • When regexPattern, regexGroupName, replacementAttributeName are provided:

    • If source has no value, source is returned
    • If source has a value, the function applies the regexPattern to the source string and replaces all values matching regexGroupName with the value associated with replacementAttributeName

Parameters:

Name Required/ Repeating Type Notes
source Required String Usually name of the attribute from the source object.
oldValue Optional String Value to be replaced in source or template.
regexPattern Optional String Regex pattern for the value to be replaced in source. Or, when replacementPropertyName is used, pattern to extract value from replacementPropertyName.
regexGroupName Optional String Name of the group inside regexPattern. Only when replacementPropertyName is used, we will extract value of this group as replacementValue from replacementPropertyName.
replacementValue Optional String New value to replace old one with.
replacementAttributeName Optional String Name of the attribute to be used for replacement value
template Optional String When template value is provided, we will look for oldValue inside the template and replace it with source value.

SelectUniqueValue

Function:
SelectUniqueValue(uniqueValueRule1, uniqueValueRule2, uniqueValueRule3, …)

Description:
Requires a minimum of two arguments, which are unique value generation rules defined using expressions. The function evaluates each rule and then checks the value generated for uniqueness in the target app/directory. The first unique value found will be the one returned. If all of the values already exist in the target, the entry will get escrowed and the reason gets logged in the audit logs. There is no upper bound to the number of arguments that can be provided.

Note

  • This is a top-level function, it cannot be nested.
  • This function cannot be applied to attributes that have a matching precedence.
  • This function is only meant to be used for entry creations. When using it with an attribute, set the Apply Mapping property to Only during object creation.
  • This function is currently only supported for "Workday and SuccessFactors to Active Directory User Provisioning". It cannot be used with other provisioning applications.

Parameters:

Name Required/ Repeating Type Notes
uniqueValueRule1 … uniqueValueRuleN At least 2 are required, no upper bound String List of unique value generation rules to evaluate.

SingleAppRoleAssignment

Function:
SingleAppRoleAssignment([appRoleAssignments])

Description:
Returns a single appRoleAssignment from the list of all appRoleAssignments assigned to a user for a given application. This function is required to convert the appRoleAssignments object into a single role name string. Note that the best practice is to ensure only one appRoleAssignment is assigned to one user at a time, and if multiple roles are assigned the role string returned may not be predictable.

Parameters:

Name Required/ Repeating Type Notes
[appRoleAssignments] Required String [appRoleAssignments] object.

Split

Function:
Split(source, delimiter)

Description:
Splits a string into a multi-valued array, using the specified delimiter character.

Parameters:

Name Required/ Repeating Type Notes
source Required String source value to update.
delimiter Required String Specifies the character that will be used to split the string (example: ",")

StringFromSid

Description:
The StringFromSid function converts a byte array containing a security identifier to a string.

Syntax:
str StringFromSid(bin ObjectSID)

StripSpaces

Function:
StripSpaces(source)

Description:
Removes all space (" ") characters from the source string.

Parameters:

Name Required/ Repeating Type Notes
source Required String source value to update.

Switch

Function:
Switch(source, defaultValue, key1, value1, key2, value2, …)

Description:
When source value matches a key, returns value for that key. If source value doesn't match any keys, returns defaultValue. Key and value parameters must always come in pairs. The function always expects an even number of parameters.

Parameters:

Name Required/ Repeating Type Notes
source Required String Source value to check.
defaultValue Optional String Default value to be used when source doesn't match any keys. Can be empty string ("").
key Required String Key to compare source value with.
value Required String Replacement value for the source matching the key.

ToLower

Function:
ToLower(source, culture)

Description:
Takes a source string value and converts it to lower case using the culture rules that are specified. If there is no culture info specified, then it will use Invariant culture.

Parameters:

Name Required/ Repeating Type Notes
source Required String Usually name of the attribute from the source object
culture Optional String The format for the culture name based on RFC 4646 is languagecode2-country/regioncode2, where languagecode2 is the two-letter language code and country/regioncode2 is the two-letter subculture code. Examples include ja-JP for Japanese (Japan) and en-US for English (United States). In cases where a two-letter language code is not available, a three-letter code derived from ISO 639-2 is used.

ToUpper

Function:
ToUpper(source, culture)

Description:
Takes a source string value and converts it to upper case using the culture rules that are specified. If there is no culture info specified, then it will use Invariant culture.

Parameters:

Name Required/ Repeating Type Notes
source Required String Usually name of the attribute from the source object.
culture Optional String The format for the culture name based on RFC 4646 is languagecode2-country/regioncode2, where languagecode2 is the two-letter language code and country/regioncode2 is the two-letter subculture code. Examples include ja-JP for Japanese (Japan) and en-US for English (United States). In cases where a two-letter language code is not available, a three-letter code derived from ISO 639-2 is used.

Trim

Description:
The Trim function removes leading and trailing white spaces from a string.

Syntax:
str Trim(str value)

Example:
Trim(" Test ")
Returns "Test".

Trim([proxyAddresses])
Removes leading and trailing spaces for each value in the proxyAddress attribute.

Word

Description:
The Word function returns a word contained within a string, based on parameters describing the delimiters to use and the word number to return.

Syntax:
str Word(str string, num WordNumber, str delimiters)

  • string: the string to return a word from.
  • WordNumber: a number identifying which word number should return.
  • delimiters: a string representing the delimiter(s) that should be used to identify words

Remarks:
Each string of characters in string separated by the one of the characters in delimiters are identified as words:

  • If number < 1, returns empty string.
  • If string is null, returns empty string.

If string contains less than number words, or string does not contain any words identified by delimiters, an empty string is returned.

Example:
Word("The quick brown fox",3," ")
Returns "brown"

Word("This,string!has&many separators",3,",!&#")
Would return "has"

Examples

Strip known domain name

You need to strip a known domain name from a user’s email to obtain a user name.
For example, if the domain is "contoso.com", then you could use the following expression:

Expression:
Replace([mail], "@contoso.com", , ,"", ,)

Sample input / output:

  • INPUT (mail): "john.doe@contoso.com"
  • OUTPUT: "john.doe"

Append constant suffix to user name

If you are using a Salesforce Sandbox, you might need to append an additional suffix to all your user names before synchronizing them.

Expression:
Append([userPrincipalName], ".test")

Sample input/output:

  • INPUT: (userPrincipalName): "John.Doe@contoso.com"
  • OUTPUT: "John.Doe@contoso.com.test"

Generate user alias by concatenating parts of first and last name

You need to generate a user alias by taking first 3 letters of user's first name and first 5 letters of user's last name.

Expression:
Append(Mid([givenName], 1, 3), Mid([surname], 1, 5))

Sample input/output:

  • INPUT (givenName): "John"
  • INPUT (surname): "Doe"
  • OUTPUT: "JohDoe"

Remove diacritics from a string

You need to replace characters containing accent marks with equivalent characters that don't contain accent marks.

Expression:
NormalizeDiacritics([givenName])

Sample input/output:

  • INPUT (givenName): "Zoë"
  • OUTPUT: "Zoe"

Split a string into a multi-valued array

You need to take a comma-delimited list of strings, and split them into an array that can be plugged into a multi-value attribute like Salesforce's PermissionSets attribute. In this example, a list of permission sets has been populated in extensionAttribute5 in Microsoft Entra ID.

Expression:
Split([extensionAttribute5], ",")

Sample input/output:

  • INPUT (extensionAttribute5): "PermissionSetOne, PermissionSetTwo"
  • OUTPUT: ["PermissionSetOne", "PermissionSetTwo"]

Output date as a string in a certain format

You want to send dates to a SaaS application in a certain format.
For example, you want to format dates for ServiceNow.

Expression:

FormatDateTime([extensionAttribute1], "yyyyMMddHHmmss.fZ", "yyyy-MM-dd")

Sample input/output:

  • INPUT (extensionAttribute1): "20150123105347.1Z"
  • OUTPUT: "2015-01-23"

Replace a value based on predefined set of options

You need to define the time zone of the user based on the state code stored in Microsoft Entra ID.
If the state code doesn't match any of the predefined options, use default value of "Australia/Sydney".

Expression:
Switch([state], "Australia/Sydney", "NSW", "Australia/Sydney","QLD", "Australia/Brisbane", "SA", "Australia/Adelaide")

Sample input/output:

  • INPUT (state): "QLD"
  • OUTPUT: "Australia/Brisbane"

Replace characters using a regular expression

You need to find characters that match a regular expression value and remove them.

Expression:

Replace([mailNickname], , "[a-zA-Z_]*", , "", , )

Sample input/output:

  • INPUT (mailNickname: "john_doe72"
  • OUTPUT: "72"

Convert generated userPrincipalName (UPN) value to lower case

In the example below, the UPN value is generated by concatenating the PreferredFirstName and PreferredLastName source fields and the ToLower function operates on the generated string to convert all characters to lower case.

ToLower(Join("@", NormalizeDiacritics(StripSpaces(Join(".", [PreferredFirstName], [PreferredLastName]))), "contoso.com"))

Sample input/output:

  • INPUT (PreferredFirstName): "John"
  • INPUT (PreferredLastName): "Smith"
  • OUTPUT: "john.smith@contoso.com"

Generate unique value for userPrincipalName (UPN) attribute

Based on the user's first name, middle name and last name, you need to generate a value for the UPN attribute and check for its uniqueness in the target AD directory before assigning the value to the UPN attribute.

Expression: 

    SelectUniqueValue( 
        Join("@", NormalizeDiacritics(StripSpaces(Join(".",  [PreferredFirstName], [PreferredLastName]))), "contoso.com"), 
        Join("@", NormalizeDiacritics(StripSpaces(Join(".",  Mid([PreferredFirstName], 1, 1), [PreferredLastName]))), "contoso.com"),
        Join("@", NormalizeDiacritics(StripSpaces(Join(".",  Mid([PreferredFirstName], 1, 2), [PreferredLastName]))), "contoso.com")
    )

Sample input/output:

  • INPUT (PreferredFirstName): "John"
  • INPUT (PreferredLastName): "Smith"
  • OUTPUT: "John.Smith@contoso.com" if UPN value of John.Smith@contoso.com doesn't already exist in the directory
  • OUTPUT: "J.Smith@contoso.com" if UPN value of John.Smith@contoso.com already exists in the directory
  • OUTPUT: "Jo.Smith@contoso.com" if the above two UPN values already exist in the directory

Next steps