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Tutorial: Configure Contentful for automatic user provisioning

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This article describes the steps you need to complete in Contentful and in Microsoft Entra ID to configure automatic user provisioning. When configured, Microsoft Entra ID automatically provisions and deprovisions users and groups to Contentful by using the Microsoft Entra provisioning service. For important details about what this service does and how it works, and for frequently asked questions, see Automate user provisioning and deprovisioning to SaaS applications with Microsoft Entra ID.

Capabilities supported

  • Create users in Contentful
  • Remove users in Contentful when they don't require access anymore
  • Keep user attributes synchronized between Microsoft Entra ID and Contentful
  • Provision groups and group memberships in Contentful
  • Single sign-on to Contentful (recommended)

Prerequisites

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

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 Contentful.

Configure Contentful to support provisioning with Microsoft Entra ID

  1. In Contentful, create a Service User account. All provisioning permissions for Azure are provided through this account. We recommend that you choose Owner as the organization role for this account.

  2. Sign in to Contentful as the Service User.

  3. In the left menu, select Organization settings > Access Tools > User provisioning.

    Screenshot of the Organization settings menu in Contentful, with User provisioning highlighted under Access Tools.

  4. Copy and save the SCIM URL. You'll enter this value in the Azure portal, on the Provisioning tab of your Contentful application.

  5. Select Generate personal access token.

    Screenshot showing the SCIM URL to generate a personal access token.

  6. In the modal window, enter a name for your personal access token, and then select Generate.

  7. The SCIM URL and the secret token are generated. Copy and save these values. You'll enter these values on the Provisioning tab of your Contentful application.

    Screenshot of the Personal access token pane, with C F P A T and the token placeholder name highlighted.

If you have questions while you configure provisioning in the Contentful admin console, contact Contentful Support.

To manage provisioning to Contentful, add Contentful from the Microsoft Entra application gallery. If you have previously set up Contentful for single sign-on, you can use the same application. However, we recommend that you create a separate app to initially test the integration. Learn how to add an application in the gallery.

Define who will be in scope for provisioning

You can use the Microsoft Entra provisioning service to scope who will be provisioned based on assignment to the application or based on attributes of the user or group.

If you choose to scope who will be provisioned to your app based on assignment, complete the 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, use a scoping filter to define conditional rules for provisioning user accounts.

  • When you assign users and groups to Contentful, you must select a role other than Default Access. Users who have the Default Access role are excluded from provisioning and are indicated in the provisioning logs as not effectively entitled. If the only role available on the application is the Default Access role, you can update the application manifest to add more roles.
  • Start small. Test with a small set of users and groups before you roll out to everyone. When provisioning scope is set to assigned users and groups, you can control the scope by assigning one or two users or groups to the app. When the scope is set to all users and groups, you can specify an attribute-based scoping filter.

Configure automatic user provisioning to Contentful

This section guides you through the steps to set up the Microsoft Entra provisioning service to create, update, and disable users and groups in a test app based on user or group assignments in Microsoft Entra ID.

Configure automatic user provisioning for Contentful 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.

    Screenshot that shows the Enterprise applications menu in the Azure portal, with All applications highlighted.

  3. In the applications list, select Contentful.

    Screenshot that shows the first 20 results returned in the Applications list.

  4. Select the Provisioning tab.

    Screenshot of the Provisioning tab highlighted in the Manage section of the left menu.

  5. Set Provisioning Mode to Automatic.

    Screenshot that shows the Provisioning Mode options, with Automatic highlighted.

  6. In the Admin Credentials section, enter your Contentful tenant URL and secret token. To ensure that Microsoft Entra ID can connect to Contentful, select Test Connection. If the connection fails, be sure that your Contentful account has Admin permissions, and then try again.

    Screenshot that shows the Tenant U R L and Secret Token text boxes, with the Test Connection button highlighted.

  7. In Notification Email, enter the email address of a person or group who should receive the provisioning error notifications, and then select the Send an email notification when a failure occurs check box.

    Screenshot that shows the Notification Email text box.

  8. Select Save.

  9. In the Mappings section, select Synchronize Microsoft Entra users to Contentful.

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

    Attribute Type Supported for filtering
    userName String ✓
    name.givenName String
    name.familyName String

  11. In the Mappings section, select Synchronize Microsoft Entra groups to Contentful.

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

    Attribute Type Supported for filtering
    displayName String ✓
    members Reference

  13. To set up scoping filters, complete the steps that are described in the scoping filter tutorial.

  14. To enable the Microsoft Entra provisioning service for Contentful, in the Settings section, for Provisioning Status, select On.

    Screenshot that shows Provisioning Status On and Off toggle.

  15. To define the users or groups that you want to provision to Contentful, in the Settings section, for Scope, select the relevant option.

    Screenshot that shows options you can select in the Scope pane.

  16. When you're ready to provision, select Save.

    Screenshot that shows the Save button and the Cancel button.

This operation starts the initial sync cycle of all users and groups defined in Scope under Settings. 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.

Monitor your deployment

After you configure provisioning, use the following resources to monitor your deployment:

  • To determine which users have been provisioned successfully or unsuccessfully, view the provisioning logs.
  • To see the status of the provisioning cycle and how close it is to finishing, check the progress bar.
  • If the provisioning configuration seems to be in an unhealthy state, the application goes into quarantine. Learn more about quarantine states.

Next steps