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Tutorial: Microsoft Entra integration with Front

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

  • Control in Microsoft Entra ID who has access to Front.
  • Enable your users to be automatically signed-in to Front 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.
  • Front single sign-on (SSO) enabled subscription.

Scenario description

In this tutorial, you configure and test Microsoft Entra single sign-on in a test environment.

  • Front supports IDP initiated SSO.

To configure the integration of Front into Microsoft Entra ID, you need to add Front 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 Front in the search box.
  4. Select Front 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 Front

Configure and test Microsoft Entra SSO with Front 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 Front.

To configure and test Microsoft Entra SSO with Front, 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 Front SSO - to configure the single sign-on settings on application side.
    1. Create Front test user - to have a counterpart of B.Simon in Front 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 > Front > 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.

    Edit Basic SAML Configuration

  5. On the Set up Single Sign-On with SAML page, perform the following steps:

    a. In the Identifier text box, type a URL using the following pattern: https://<companyname>.frontapp.com

    b. In the Reply URL text box, type a URL using the following pattern: https://<companyname>.frontapp.com/sso/saml/callback

    Note

    These values are not real. Update these values with the actual Identifier and Reply URL. Contact Front Client support team to get these values. You can also refer to the patterns shown in the Basic SAML Configuration section.

  6. On the Set up Single Sign-On with SAML page, in the SAML Signing Certificate section, click Download to download the Certificate (Base64) from the given options as per your requirement and save it on your computer.

    The Certificate download link

  7. On the Set up Front section, copy the appropriate URL(s) as per your requirement.

    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 username@companydomain.extension. For example, B.Simon@contoso.com.
    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 Front.

  1. Sign in to the Microsoft Entra admin center as at least a Cloud Application Administrator.
  2. Browse to Identity > Applications > Enterprise applications > Front.
  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 Front SSO

  1. Log in to your Front website as an administrator.

  2. Go to the settings and select thePreferences.

  3. Perform the following steps in the Company preferences page.

    Screenshot that shows the "Company preferences" section with the "Single Sign On" link selected.

    a. Click Single Sign On on the left side navigation.

    b. Select SAML in the drop-down list of Single Sign On.

    c. In the Entry Point textbox enter the value of Login URL which you copied previously.

    d. Select the Requested authentication context type as Disabled.

    e. Open your downloaded Certificate(Base64) file in notepad, copy the content of it into your clipboard, and then paste it to the Signing certificate textbox.

  4. On the Service provider settings section, perform the following steps:

    Configure Single Sign-On On App side

    a. Copy the value of Entity ID and paste it into the Identifier textbox in Front Domain and URLs section in Azure portal.

    b. Copy the value of ACS URL and paste it into the Reply URL textbox in Front Domain and URLs section in Azure portal.

  5. Click Save button.

Create Front test user

In this section, you create a user called Britta Simon in Front. Work with Front Client support team to add the users in the Front platform. Users must be created and activated before you use single sign-on.

Test SSO

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

  • Click on Test this application, and you should be automatically signed in to the Front for which you set up the SSO

  • You can use Microsoft My Apps. When you click the Front tile in the My Apps, you should be automatically signed in to the Front 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 Front 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.