Configuring SCIM with Azure AD

If you are configuring SCIM with Azure AD, this article is for you. The below guide provides the steps required to configure provisioning for 15Five, and includes the following sections:

• Features
• Prerequisites
• Configuration Steps
• Troubleshooting Tips

Features

Automatic User Provisioning is supported for the 15Five application.

This enables Azure AD to:

• Add new users to 15Five
• Update select fields in users’ profile information in 15Five
• Deactivate users in 15Five
• Push groups and membership to 15Five

The following provisioning features are supported:

• Push New Users - Creating a new user in Azure AD and assigning them to the 15Five application will create a new user in 15Five.
• Push Profile Updates - Updates to a user in Azure AD will be pushed to 15Five.
• Push User Deactivation - Deactivating the user or disabling the user's access to 15Five within Azure AD will deactivate the user in 15Five.
• Push Groups - Groups created in Azure AD can be pushed to 15Five. Attributes pushed include name and group members.
• Delete Groups - Groups deleted or removed from the 15Five application within Azure AD will be deleted within 15Five.

Currently, a non-gallery app within Azure AD is required for use of 15Five's SCIM provisioning features. The application found here is deprecated. 15Five is in communication with Microsoft regarding a new marketplace application however Microsoft has projected a 6-month wait period before such an application could be considered due to their backlogged work. 

Prerequisites

Before you configure provisioning, navigate to 15Five and:

1. Navigate to the integrations page: https://my.15five.com/integrations/
2. Click on SCIM 2.0 and enable SCIM in your 15Five account.
3. Generate an Access Token.
4. Make sure you have configured the General Settings and any Sign-On Options for the 15Five app.

Configuration Steps

• Navigate to this URL and start with the "Getting Started" section. Follow the 15 steps in that section and then return to this document.
  • Please note that you will need to use a tenant URL of the form below:
    • https://<subdomain>.15five.com/scim/v2/
  • Important Notes
    
    • The SCIM key is 30 characters long and should be placed in the "Secret Token" field. Make sure to use a SCIM key rather than a 15Five Public API key. A 15Five Public API key is 32 characters long.
    • It may take 40 minutes before the first users are pushed from Azure AD to 15Five after the Admin Credentials (tenant URL and secret token) have been tested and the non-gallery app has been saved. After that, pushes occur about every 20 minutes.

• Navigate to the Mappings section of the Provisioning section.

• Update the User Attribute Mappings to reflect the table below.
• You will need to create the location, startDate, and potentially the manager.value attribute. Do so via the following steps.
  • Click "Edit attribute list for customappsso" at the bottom of the Attribute Mapping page for Users.
  • Enter "urn:ietf:params:scim:schemas:extension:15Five:2.0:User:location" for the attribute name and "String" for the type. Click "Add Attribute".
  • Enter "urn:ietf:params:scim:schemas:extension:15Five:2.0:User:startDate" for the attribute name and "String" for the type. Click "Add Attribute".
  • If "manager" is not avialable as an AD attribute, enter "manager.value" for the attribute name, "Reference"  for the type, and "urn:ietf:params:scim:schemas:extension:enterprise:2.0:User" for the  referenced object attribute. Click "Add Attribute".
  • Navigate back to the User Attribute Mapping page.
  • Click "Add New Mapping" at the bottom of the Attribute Mappings table to add each mapping for location and manager.

No changes need to be made to the Group attributes. 

Syncing Passwords

Azure AD can be configured to sync passwords with 15Five. This sync direction is from Azure AD to 15Five. That is, passwords are only ever sent from Azure AD to 15Five for a user; never from 15Five to Azure AD.

If your company uses SSO with 15Five, do not send the "passwordProfile.password" as an attribute via SCIM. User authentication will be determined from the SAML setup associated with 15Five.

SSO 

If SCIM and SAML SSO are being used together, only an email address needs to be sent as a SAML claim. All other data can and should be sent via SCIM. 

Welcome Emails

After assigning 15Five to an Azure AD user for the first time, a new user in 15Five will be created. If SSO is enabled for that user’s company in 15Five, that user will be sent a welcome email with a link to the SSO page at 15Five. If SSO is not enabled, that user will be sent a link to sign in and set their password.

Passwords

When updating an Azure AD user’s password, that user’s 15Five password may be updated (depending on whether the"passwordProfile.password" attribute is being sent by Azure AD). If SSO is enabled for the user’s company in 15Five, no password changes will occur for the user within 15Five. If SSO is not enabled in 15Five and the"passwordProfile.password" attribute is being sent by Azure AD to 15Five, then a user will receive an email with a link to reset their password in 15Five.

Group types

When a new group gets created and synced over via SCIM, that new group will go into the 'Groups' group type. In terms of attributes, the only thing 15Five will read from SCIM in regards to groups and group types is the group ID. After a group is appearing in 15Five, it will be up to the account admins to reorganize this group(s) to other group types as needed. Groups can be moved to a new group type (manually, via CSV, or via API) in 15Five and SCIM syncs will not override the group type because the group ID itself hasn't changed.

The gist: Group types within 15Five do not talk to SCIM. SCIM does not talk to 15Five about group types. SCIM only talks to 15Five from a group perspective (ie creating a group, naming a group, adding or removing members, deleting a group). The group type organization and maintenance is manually done in 15Five alone (ie creating a new group type, moving to a group type, enabling features per group type). 

Start Dates

Interested in having your users enter 15Five for the first time on a specific day? With 15Five Start Dates, you can send a date before which your users will not be able to log in to 15Five nor will they receive notifications. One the specified date, they will be sent an email notifying them that they can log in.

To send Start Dates to 15Five, follow these steps:

• Ensure each user that needs to be provisioned with a start date has a start date of the form "MM/DD/YYYY" stored in an extension attribute. For this example, "extensionAttribute1" will be used. If you would like information on setting extension attributes in Azure AD, please see these documents: 

  • https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/exchange/recipients/mailbox-custom-attributes?view=exchserver-2019
  • https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/powershell/module/azuread/set-azureaduserextension?view=azureadps-2.0 (With PowerShell)
• Navigate to the 15Five application within Azure AD > Enterprise Application. 
• Under the provisioning sections, open the Mappings drop-down, and click on the User mappings link.
• Under the Attribute Mappings list, click on "Edit attribute list for ..." to add a new attribute.
• Enter "urn:ietf:params:scim:schemas:extension:15Five:2.0:User:startDate" for the attribute name and "String" for the type. Click "Add Attribute".
• Navigate back to the User Attribute Mapping page.
• Click "Add New Mapping" at the bottom of the Attribute Mappings table.
  • For "Source Attribute", select the extension attribute that holds your user's start date value. For example (extensionAttribute1)
  • For "Target Attribute", select  "urn:ietf:params:scim:schemas:extension:15Five:2.0:User:startDate".
  • Click Ok and save your mappings and application. 

Please note that you must add the start date to the user before assigning the user to 15Five for the first time. If a user is assigned to 15Five for the first time without a start date, it is assumed that the user should start immediately and a welcome email will be sent immediately.

Troubleshooting, Support, and FAQs

Manager/Reviewer not syncing? 

Make sure that the manager exists within 15Five prior to provisioning. 15Five will ignore any manager assignments that include managers not present in 15Five. 

Azure AD sends the manager information present in the manager attribute for a given user. The information in the attribute can be an email address for the manager or a 15Five ID for the user. Make sure this field is populated.

Finally, ensure that Sync Managers is enabled within 15Five's SCIM settings.

Changing a username?

15Five depends on the uniqueness of a user’s email address. Therefore, provisioning will fail if a user’s userPricipleName is updated but their email address is not. Ensure these two source attributes (userPricipleName and mail) send the same value and retry the provision if has failed. 

Updates or de-provisioning not working for some users? 

Users added to 15Five before SCIM was enabled for the 15Five account may not be tracked by Azure AD. To make Azure AD aware of these users' membership in 15Five, select "Clear current state and restart synchronization" and save the non-gallery app. NOTE: This could remove users from 15Five if they are not assigned to the non-gallery app in Azure AD. 

Q: My user has a SCIM ID. Does that mean they were provisioned via SCIM?
A: No. All users are given a SCIM ID upon account creation regardless of whether or not they were provisioned via SCIM. Assigning these IDs helps 15Five stay consistent and organized. It's the value which is used to look up the user when a SCIM call comes in of the form /scim/v2/Users/<scim id>.

Q: We have data currently in 15Five, if we turn on SCIM provisioning do we risk having data deleted for people with existing data?
A: No, the data will not be deleted if the email addresses are the same. You will need to reimport all of your people so that SCIM will work with users that were active in 15Five prior to SCIM being enabled. Doing this does not affect check-ins, objectives, and other user-generated content.

Q: Can I sync employee timezones via SCIM?
A: Not at this time.

Q: If SCIM is on can I still add people on a one-off basis?
A: No, if SCIM is on you cannot manually add users via the 'Manage people' page or the team 15Five page. Importing new users via CSV is an option if SCIM is enabled for your organization. Please reach out to Support, your Implementation Specialist, or your Customer Success Manager to support you with this.

Q: Should we make groups in our IdP and then push them over to 15Five? If so, how do we pass over the group admin?
A: It is advisable to pass over the groups through IdP. However, there is no way to pass over a group admin. The field for group admin will be blank in 15Five. After you set up the groups between IdP and 15Five, you can add a group admin for each group.

Q: What is the frequency of SCIM uploads from our IdP to 15Five?
A: It’s an on demand basis, i.e. you make a change and your IdP pushes it immediately to 15Five.

This integration is built and supported by 15Five and our Support Team. Contact the 15Five Support Team at support@15five.com if any issues arise. Thanks!