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Tutorial: Microsoft Entra single sign-on (SSO) integration with Workday

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In this tutorial, you'll learn how to integrate Workday with Microsoft Entra ID. When you integrate Workday with Microsoft Entra ID, you can:

  • Control in Microsoft Entra ID who has access to Workday.
  • Enable your users to be automatically signed-in to Workday with their Microsoft Entra accounts.
  • Manage your accounts in one central location.

Prerequisites

To get started, you need the following items:

  • A Microsoft Entra subscription. If you don't have a subscription, you can get a free account.
  • Workday single sign-on (SSO) enabled subscription.

Scenario description

In this tutorial, you configure and test Microsoft Entra SSO in a test environment.

  • Workday supports SP initiated SSO.

  • Workday Mobile application can now be configured with Microsoft Entra ID for enabling SSO. For more details on how to configure, please follow this link.

Note

Identifier of this application is a fixed string value so only one instance can be configured in one tenant.

To configure the integration of Workday into Microsoft Entra ID, you need to add Workday from the gallery to your list of managed SaaS apps.

  1. Sign in to the Microsoft Entra admin center as at least a Cloud Application Administrator.
  2. Browse to Identity > Applications > Enterprise applications > New application.
  3. In the Add from the gallery section, type Workday in the search box.
  4. Select Workday from results panel and then add the app. Wait a few seconds while the app is added to your tenant.

Alternatively, you can also use the Enterprise App Configuration Wizard. In this wizard, you can add an application to your tenant, add users/groups to the app, assign roles, as well as walk through the SSO configuration as well. Learn more about Microsoft 365 wizards.

Configure and test Microsoft Entra SSO for Workday

Configure and test Microsoft Entra SSO with Workday using a test user called B.Simon. For SSO to work, you need to establish a link relationship between a Microsoft Entra user and the related user in Workday.

To configure and test Microsoft Entra SSO with Workday, perform the following steps:

  1. Configure Microsoft Entra SSO to enable your users to use this feature.
    1. Create a Microsoft Entra test user to test Microsoft Entra single sign-on with B.Simon.
    2. Assign the Microsoft Entra test user to enable B.Simon to use Microsoft Entra single sign-on.
  2. Configure Workday to configure the SSO settings on application side.
    1. Create Workday test user to have a counterpart of B.Simon in Workday that is linked to the Microsoft Entra representation of user.
  3. Test SSO to verify whether the configuration works.

Configure Microsoft Entra SSO

Follow these steps to enable Microsoft Entra SSO.

  1. Sign in to the Microsoft Entra admin center as at least a Cloud Application Administrator.

  2. Browse to Identity > Applications > Enterprise applications > Workday application integration page, find the Manage section and select Single sign-on.

  3. On the Select a Single sign-on method page, select SAML.

  4. On the Set up Single Sign-On with SAML page, click the pencil icon for Basic SAML Configuration to edit the settings.

    Screenshot showing Edit Basic SAML Configuration.

  5. On the Basic SAML Configuration page, enter the values for the following fields:

    a. In the Sign-on URL text box, type a URL using the following pattern: https://impl.workday.com/<tenant>/login-saml2.flex

    b. In the Reply URL text box, type a URL using the following pattern: https://impl.workday.com/<tenant>/login-saml.htmld

    c. In the Logout URL text box, type a URL using the following pattern: https://impl.workday.com/<tenant>/login-saml.htmld

    Note

    These values are not the real. Update these values with the actual Sign-on URL, Reply URL and Logout URL. Your reply URL must have a subdomain for example: www, wd2, wd3, wd3-impl, wd5, wd5-impl). Using something like http://www.myworkday.com works but http://myworkday.com does not. Contact Workday Client support team to get these values. You can also refer to the patterns shown in the Basic SAML Configuration section.

  6. Your Workday application expects the SAML assertions in a specific format, which requires you to add custom attribute mappings to your SAML token attributes configuration. The following screenshot shows the list of default attributes, whereas nameidentifier is mapped with user.userprincipalname. Workday application expects nameidentifier to be mapped with user.mail, UPN, and so on. so you need to edit the attribute mapping by clicking on Edit icon and change the attribute mapping.

    Screenshot shows User Attributes with the Edit icon selected.

    Note

    Here we have mapped the Name ID with UPN (user.userprincipalname) as default. You need to map the Name ID with actual User ID in your Workday account (your email, UPN, and so on) for successful working of SSO.

  7. On the Set up Single Sign-On with SAML page, in the SAML Signing Certificate section, find Federation Metadata XML and select Download to download the certificate and save it on your computer.

    Screenshot showing The Certificate download link.

  8. To modify the Signing options as per your requirement, click Edit button to open SAML Signing Certificate dialog.

    Screenshot showing Certificate.

    a. Select Sign SAML response and assertion for Signing Option.

    b. Click Save

  9. On the Set up Workday section, copy the appropriate URL(s) based on your requirement.

    Screenshot showing Copy configuration URLs.

Create a Microsoft Entra test user

In this section, you'll create a test user called B.Simon.

  1. Sign in to the Microsoft Entra admin center as at least a User Administrator.
  2. Browse to Identity > Users > All users.
  3. Select New user > Create new user, at the top of the screen.
  4. In the User properties, follow these steps:
    1. In the Display name field, enter B.Simon.
    2. In the User principal name field, enter the [email protected]. For example, [email protected].
    3. Select the Show password check box, and then write down the value that's displayed in the Password box.
    4. Select Review + create.
  5. Select Create.

Assign the Microsoft Entra test user

In this section, you'll enable B.Simon to use single sign-on by granting access to Workday.

  1. Sign in to the Microsoft Entra admin center as at least a Cloud Application Administrator.
  2. Browse to Identity > Applications > Enterprise applications > Workday.
  3. In the app's overview page, select Users and groups.
  4. Select Add user/group, then select Users and groups in the Add Assignment dialog.
    1. In the Users and groups dialog, select B.Simon from the Users list, then click the Select button at the bottom of the screen.
    2. If you are expecting a role to be assigned to the users, you can select it from the Select a role dropdown. If no role has been set up for this app, you see "Default Access" role selected.
    3. In the Add Assignment dialog, click the Assign button.

Configure Workday

  1. In a different web browser window, sign in to your Workday company site as an administrator.

  2. In the Search box, search with the name Edit Tenant Setup – Security on the top left side of the home page.

    Screenshot showing Edit Tenant Security.

  3. In the SAML Setup section, click on Import Identity Provider.

    Screenshot showing SAML Setup.

  4. In Import Identity Provider section, perform the below steps:

    Screenshot showing Importing Identity Provider.

    a. Give the Identity Provider Name like AzureAD in the textbox.

    b. In Used for Environments textbox, select the appropriate environment names from the dropdown.

    c. Click on Select files to upload the downloaded Federation Metadata XML file.

    d. Click on OK.

  5. After clicking OK, a new row will be added in the SAML Identity Providers and then you can add the below steps for the newly created row.

    Screenshot showing SAML Identity Providers.

    a. Click on Enable IDP Initiated Logout checkbox.

    b. In the Logout Response URL textbox, type http://www.workday.com.

    c. Click on Enable Workday Initiated Logout checkbox.

    d. In the Logout Request URL textbox, paste the Logout URL value.

    e. Click on SP Initiated checkbox.

    f. In the Service Provider ID textbox, type http://www.workday.com.

    g. Select Do Not Deflate SP-initiated Authentication Request.

    h. Click Ok.

    i. If the task was completed successfully, click Done.

    Note

    Please ensure you set up single sign-on correctly. In case you enable single sign-on with incorrect setup, you may not be able to enter the application with your credentials and get locked out. In this situation, Workday provides a backup log-in URL where users can sign-in using their normal username and password in the following format:[Your Workday URL]/login.flex?redirect=n

Create Workday test user

  1. Sign in to your Workday company site as an administrator.

  2. Click on Profile at top-right corner, select Home and Click on Directory in the Applications tab.

  3. In the Directory page, select Find Workers in view tab.

    Screenshot showing Find workers.

  4. In the Find Workers page, select the user from the results.

  5. In the following page, select Job > Worker Security and the Workday account has to match with the Microsoft Entra ID as the Name ID value.

    Screenshot showing Worker Security.

Note

For more information on how to create a workday test user, please contact Workday Client support team.

Test SSO

In this section, you test your Microsoft Entra single sign-on configuration with following options.

  • Click on Test this application, this will redirect to Workday Sign-on URL where you can initiate the login flow.

  • Go to Workday Sign-on URL directly and initiate the login flow from there.

  • You can use Microsoft My Apps. When you click the Workday tile in the My Apps, you should be automatically signed in to the Workday for which you set up the SSO. For more information about the My Apps, see Introduction to the My Apps.

Next steps

Once you configure Workday you can enforce Session Control, which protects exfiltration and infiltration of your organization’s sensitive data in real time. Session Control extends from Conditional Access. Learn how to enforce session control with Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps.