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

  • Article

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

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

Scenario description

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

  • Tableau Server supports SP initiated SSO

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

Configure and test Microsoft Entra SSO with Tableau Server 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 Tableau Server.

To configure and test Microsoft Entra SSO with Tableau Server, 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 Tableau Server SSO - to configure the single sign-on settings on application side.
    1. Create Tableau Server test user - to have a counterpart of B.Simon in Tableau Server 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 > Tableau Server > 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 Basic SAML Configuration section, enter the values for the following fields:

    a. In the Sign-on URL text box, type a URL using the following pattern: https://azure.<domain name>.link

    b. In the Identifier box, type a URL using the following pattern: https://azure.<domain name>.link

    c. In the Reply URL text box, type a URL using the following pattern: https://azure.<domain name>.link/wg/saml/SSO/index.html

    Note

    The preceding values are not real values. Update the values with the actual Sign-on URL, Identifier and Reply URL from the Tableau Server configuration page which is explained later in the tutorial.

  6. 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.

    The Certificate download link

  7. On the Set up Tableau Server section, copy the appropriate URL(s) based on 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 Tableau Server.

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

  1. To get SSO configured for your application, you need to sign in to your Tableau Server tenant as an administrator.

  2. On the CONFIGURATION tab, select User Identity & Access, and then select the Authentication Method tab.

    Screenshot shows Authentication selected from User Identity & Access.

  3. On the CONFIGURATION page, perform the following steps:

    Screenshot shows the Configuration page where you can enter the values described.

    a. For Authentication Method, select SAML.

    b. Select the checkbox of Enable SAML Authentication for the server.

    c. Tableau Server return URL—The URL that Tableau Server users will be accessing, such as http://tableau_server. Using http://localhost is not recommended. Using a URL with a trailing slash (for example, http://tableau_server/) is not supported. Copy Tableau Server return URL and paste it in to Sign On URL textbox in Basic SAML Configuration section.

    d. SAML entity ID—The entity ID uniquely identifies your Tableau Server installation to the IdP. You can enter your Tableau Server URL again here, if you like, but it does not have to be your Tableau Server URL. Copy SAML entity ID and paste it in to Identifier textbox in Basic SAML Configuration section.

    e. Click the Download XML Metadata File and open it in the text editor application. Locate Assertion Consumer Service URL with Http Post and Index 0 and copy the URL. Now paste it in to Reply URL textbox in Basic SAML Configuration section.

    f. Locate your Federation Metadata file downloaded from Azure portal, and then upload it in the SAML Idp metadata file.

    g. Enter the names for the attributes that the IdP uses to hold the user names, display names, and email addresses.

    h. Click Save.

    Note

    Customer have to upload A PEM-encoded x509 Certificate file with a .crt extension and a RSA or DSA private key file that has the .key extension, as a Certificate Key file. For more information on Certificate file and Certificate Key file, please refer to this document. If you need help configuring SAML on Tableau Server then please refer to this article Configure Server Wide SAML.

    Note

    The SAML Certificate and SAML Key files are generated separately and uploaded to the Tableau Server Manager. For example, in the linux shell, use openssl to generate the cert and key like so: openssl req -x509 -sha256 -nodes -days 365 -newkey rsa:2048 -keyout private.key -out saml.crt then upload the saml.crt and private.key files via the TSM Configruation GUI (As shown in the screenshot at the start of this step) or via the command line according to the tableau docs. If you are in a production environment, you may want to find a more secure way to handle SAML certs and keys.

Create Tableau Server test user

The objective of this section is to create a user called B.Simon in Tableau Server. You need to provision all the users in the Tableau server.

That username of the user should match the value which you have configured in the Microsoft Entra custom attribute of username. With the correct mapping the integration should work Configuring Microsoft Entra Single Sign-On.

Note

If you need to create a user manually, you need to contact the Tableau Server administrator in your organization.

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 Tableau Server Sign-on URL where you can initiate the login flow.

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

  • You can use Microsoft My Apps. When you click the Tableau Server tile in the My Apps, this will redirect to Tableau Server Sign-on URL. For more information about the My Apps, see Introduction to the My Apps.

Next steps

Once you configure Tableau Server 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.