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Configuring Single Sign-On (SSO)

Learn how to configure your SmartSuite workspace for SSO to increase security and help your users be more efficient

Peter Novosel avatar
Written by Peter Novosel
Updated over 10 months ago

Single Sign-on (SSO) is an authentication mechanism that facilitates a user logging into several independent software systems using a single ID and set of credentials. This is advantageous to organizations in several ways:

  • Mitigates risk because user passwords are not stored or managed externally

  • Reduces the time it takes for users to gain access to external resources

  • Lowers the number of IT password-related tickets

  • Reduces “password fatigue” where users adopt predictable password patterns due to the volume of passwords they need to manage

SmartSuite’s Workspace Administration interface facilitates the configuration of Single Sign-On for a workspace, in the Single Sign-On section of the Workspace Settings page. This article is intended to provide an overview of the available settings and options for this feature, and is intended for workspace administrators who are familiar with SSO and its implementation.

Important Notes

SSO is available only to SmartSuite Enterprise and Signature plan subscribers. If you are a SmartSuite Team or Professional plan subscriber and are interested in upgrading, you can contact us here for more information.

If a Workspace Admin enables SSO for Workspaces containing Solutions 1, 2, and 3, the Admin cannot optionally remove the SSO gate for Solution 1 but leave it on for 2 and 3.

Before You Begin

Prior to configuring SSO in your SmartSuite workspace, you will need information about your SSO provider.

  • Email domain. You will be required to provide the email domain associated with your Single Sign-on process.

  • Protocol. SmartSuite currently supports the OpenID Connect and SAML protocols for SSO. If your organization requires a different protocol, please contact us here.

NOTE:

You can obtain SmartSuite SSO metadata from this URL if it is required for your iDP configuration:
​
​https://app.smartsuite.com/authentication/login/sso/metadata

Single Sign-On with OpenID Connect Prerequisites

Configuration of OpenID Connect SSO requires the following information:

  • Email Domain

  • Client ID

  • Client Secret

  • OIDC Issuer

Single Sign-On with SAML Prerequisites

Configuring SSO with SAML requires the following information:

  • Metadata XML file or file URL

  • User ID Attribute

IMPORTANT NOTE - MIGRATING FROM AUTH0 TO COGNITO

If you had SSO configured for Auth0 and are re-configuring to use the new Cognito authorization, please ensure you do the following when changing your configuration:

  1. Ensure that "Require SSO" is Disabled prior to making changes (unchecked) and that you have an admin account that can authorize without SSO.

  2. Use that admin account to log in and make the SSO changes - we don't want you to accidentally lock yourself out of the workspace!

  3. Before entering your new configuration parameters, disable SSO and save the change. Then access the SSO configuration again and re-enable SSO.

  4. If you have any difficulty with the process, please reach out to us via Intercom and we'll assist with the configuration.

SSO Configuration Process

After retrieving your organization's OpenID or SAML SSO metadata, navigate to the Workspace Administration interface from the user profile menu, then click on the Single Sign-On link in the left navigation menu or the Workspace Settings tab.

The Manage Single Sign-On dialog will be displayed. First specify the email domain associated with your Single Sign-On provider. Next, select whether you want to use OpenID or SAML to communicate with your provider.

The next steps will require the use of the SSO metadata you collected prior to starting configuration (see the beginning of this article if you skipped that). The exact steps differ depending on protocol.

OpenID Connect Configuration

Follow these steps to configure OpenID Connect:

  1. Toggle SSO to Currently Enabled

  2. Enter your email domain

  3. Select OpenID Connect in the Protocol dropdown

  4. Specify the following values (these should be obtained from your IAM team):

    1. Client ID

    2. Client Secret

    3. OIDC Issuer

  5. Cut and paste the Callback URL for the provider

    1. Specify this callback value in your OIDC Issuer

  6. Click Save Configuration

The interface looks like this:

If configuration is successful, you should see the Single Sign-On pane in workspace settings with an Enabled indicator, like this:

SAML Configuration

Follow these steps to configure SAML:

  1. Toggle SSO to Currently Enabled

  2. Enter your email domain

  3. Select SAML in the Protocol dropdown

  4. You have two options to configure your settings:

    1. Provide a SAML Metadata URL

    2. Upload a SAML Metadata file (if you upload the XML file, you can leave the Metadata URL blank)

  5. Specify your User ID Attribute

    1. for Microsoft Entra AD use:

      1. http://schemas.xmlsoap.org/ws/2005/05/identity/claims/emailaddress

  6. Configure your SAML IDP with these values (they can be copied from the configuration UI):

    1. Assertion Consumer Service (ACS) URL

    2. Entity ID

  7. Click Save Configuration

The configuration UI looks like this:

You can always click Edit if your Single Sign-On configuration needs to be modified in the future.

Configuring Microsoft Entra (formerly Azure AD) and SmartSuite SSO

Microsoft Entra Configuration

Follow these steps to configure Microsoft Entra for use with SmartSuite SSO.

  • Log in to Microsoft Entra (link)

  • Navigate to Identity > Applications > Enterprise Applications

  • Click + New application

  • Click + Create your own application

    • Name your App (something like SmartSuite SSO)

    • Select: Integration any other application

  • Select Single sign-on

  • Select SAML

  • Edit Basic SAML Configuration

    • Set Identified (Entity ID) to urn:amazon:cognito:sp:us-east-2_OvB5P61CZ

    • Set Reply URL to https://auth-main.smartsuite.com/saml2/idpresponse

    • Click Save

  • In Single Sign-on > SAML Certificates section

    • Download the Federation Metadata XML file (You will need this to configure SmartSuite SSO)

SmartSuite Configuration

Once Entra is configured, you can follow this set of steps to configure SmartSuite's SSO:
​

  • Navigate to Workspace Administration > Manage Single Sign-on

  • Click Enabled

  • Specify your email domain

  • Select SAML protocol

  • Upload the XML file you downloaded from Microsoft

  • Specify the following User ID Attribute:

    • http://schemas.xmlsoap.org/ws/2005/05/identity/claims/emailaddress

Single Sign-On Tips

  • If you have multiple domains, they can be listed (comma separated) in the email domains entry. NOTE: All domains must use a single IdP.

  • Changes may take up to 5 minutes to take effect.

  • Users must still be invited by a SmartSuite administrator before they will be able to log in with SSO. Invited users receive an email with a verification code. Once this process is completed they will be able to use SSO to login without further restriction.

SSO FAQs

Here are a list of frequently-asked questions about SmartSuite's SSO capabilities:

Q. Does SmartSuite SSO work with Shibboleth?

A. Shibboleth supports SAML, which is one of two protocols SmartSuite supports (the other is OpenID Connect, which Shibboleth does not support).

Q. Can administrators (e.g. department staff) login using SSO?

A. Yes, administrators are permitted to log in using SSO.

Q. When a user logs out, is SmartSuite able to redirect the user to SSO IdP logout URL?

A. Yes, a sign out URL can be specified.

Q. What is the key identifier SmartSuite uses for SSO?

A. SmartSuite uses email as the key identifier

Q. Will SSO data (e.g. name, email, etc.) be accessed by SmartSuite staff?

A. No, SmartSuite staff will not access this data,

Q. How do we provision and de-provision access to target population or department staff?

A. SmartSuite does not yet support automated provisioning / de-provisioning. A SmartSuite user with the Administrator role must invite the user, and similarly must inactivate or delete a user to de-provision. The Invite and inactivation/deletion actions can be performed via SmartSuite’s REST API.

Q. Is API integration supported? For example, can the vendor make an API call to get the target population?

A. Your list of users can be retrieved via SmartSuite’s REST API.

Q. Please describe the storage environment and how data will be protected.

A. All internal data is transiting only through internal AWS VPC without any connection to the Internet. All external data has SSL encryption with latest AWS SSL security policies. All data at rest encrypted with AWS KMS keys generated for our account. Endpoints of our application are secured with AWS WAF protection.

Q. Where is SmartSuite hosted?

A. SmartSuite services currently run in Amazon Web Services (AWS) US-East2 data center.

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