Tutorial: Configure GroupTalk for automatic user provisioning

This tutorial describes the steps you need to perform in both GroupTalk and Microsoft Entra ID to configure automatic user provisioning. When configured, Microsoft Entra ID automatically provisions and de-provisions users and groups to GroupTalk 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.

Capabilities Supported

  • Create users in GroupTalk
  • Remove users in GroupTalk when they do not require access anymore
  • Keep user attributes synchronized between Microsoft Entra ID and GroupTalk
  • Provision groups and group memberships in GroupTalk

Prerequisites

The scenario outlined in this tutorial assumes that you already have the following prerequisites:

  • A Microsoft Entra tenant
  • A user account in Microsoft Entra ID with permission to configure provisioning (for example, Application Administrator, Cloud Application administrator, Application Owner, or Global Administrator).
  • A user account in GroupTalk with Admin permissions.

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 GroupTalk.

Step 2: Configure GroupTalk to support provisioning with Microsoft Entra ID

  1. Reach out to GroupTalk Support at support@grouptalk.com with the Tenant name and ID you would like to integrate with Microsoft Entra ID.
  2. When you've been notified that the necessary setup for your Microsoft Entra integration is ready, login to GroupTalk Admin and navigate to your Organization view.
  3. A Microsoft Entra Integration configuration item should be visible. Click on it to verify the Tenant name and ID to obtain a JWT (Secret Token).
  4. The GroupTalk Tenant URL is https://api.grouptalk.com/api/scim/. The Tenant URL and the Secret Token retrieved in the previous step will be entered in the Provisioning tab of your GroupTalk application.

Add GroupTalk from the Microsoft Entra application gallery to start managing provisioning to GroupTalk.

  1. Click the Sign up for GroupTalk button, which will route you to the GroupTalk administrative application.

  2. If you're already logged in to GroupTalk, logout to get to the login screen. Select the Microsoft Entra ID tab, and click the Sign in button.

    GroupTalk

  3. Login with your AD Administrative account, and accept the GroupTalk application's access rights. You will get an error message after this is done indicating the user isn't present. This is expected since your user isn't provisioned to GroupTalk yet but you have now added GroupTalk to your tenant.

  4. Go back to the Azure portal and verify that GroupTalk is now added to your Enterprise Applications.

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 additional roles, you can update the application manifest to add new roles.

Step 5: Configure automatic user provisioning to GroupTalk

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 GroupTalk 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

    Enterprise applications blade

  3. In the applications list, select GroupTalk.

    The GroupTalk link in the Applications list

  4. Select the Provisioning tab.

    Provisioning tab

  5. Set the Provisioning Mode to Automatic.

    Provisioning tab automatic

  6. Under the Admin Credentials section, input your GroupTalk Tenant URL and Secret Token retrieved earlier from Step 2. Click Test Connection to ensure Microsoft Entra ID can connect to GroupTalk. If the connection fails, ensure your GroupTalk account has Admin permissions and try again. You can always obtain a new Secret Token as described in Step 2.

    Token

  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.

    Notification Email

  8. Select Save.

  9. Under the Mappings section, select Synchronize Microsoft Entra users to GroupTalk.

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

    Attribute Type Supported for filtering
    userName String
    phoneNumbers[type eq "mobile"].value String
    emails[type eq "work"].value String
    active Boolean
    name.givenName String
    name.familyName String
    externalId String
    urn:ietf:params:scim:schemas:extension:enterprise:2.0:User:costCenter String
    urn:ietf:params:scim:schemas:extension:enterprise:2.0:User:organization String
    urn:ietf:params:scim:schemas:extension:grouptalk:2.0:User:label1 String
    urn:ietf:params:scim:schemas:extension:grouptalk:2.0:User:label2 String
    urn:ietf:params:scim:schemas:extension:grouptalk:2.0:User:label3 String
    urn:ietf:params:scim:schemas:extension:grouptalk:2.0:User:label4 String
    urn:ietf:params:scim:schemas:extension:grouptalk:2.0:User:label5 String
  11. Under the Mappings section, select Synchronize Microsoft Entra groups to GroupTalk.

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

    Attribute Type Supported for filtering
    displayName String
    members Reference
    externalId String
    urn:ietf:params:scim:schemas:extension:grouptalk:2.0:Group:description String
  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 GroupTalk, change the Provisioning Status to On in the Settings section.

    Provisioning Status Toggled On

  15. Define the users and/or groups that you would like to provision to GroupTalk by choosing the desired values in Scope in the Settings section.

    Provisioning Scope

  16. When you are ready to provision, click Save.

    Saving Provisioning Configuration

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 is to completion
  3. If the provisioning configuration seems to be in an unhealthy state, the application will go into quarantine. Learn more about quarantine states here.
  4. You can contact GroupTalk Support for additional provisioning logs set up as custom reports inside GroupTalk Admin. These may give additional hints why users and groups fail to provision properly.

Additional resources

Next steps