Microsoft Azure AD is Microsoft’s flagship cloud identity service. Azure Active Directory (Azure AD) helps developers manage user identities and create intelligence-driven access policies to secure the resources mobile apps need to function.
This Knowledge Base article provides step by step instructions for using Appdome to add Azure AD SSO to any Android and iOS mobile app.
Appdome is a mobile integration platform as a service (iPaaS) that allows users to add a wide variety of features, SDKs and APIs to Android and iOS apps. Using a simple ‘click to add’ user interface, Appdome allows anyone to easily integrate Azure AD SSO to any mobile app – instantly, no code or coding required.
Using Appdome, there are no development or coding prerequisites. For example, there is no Appdome SDK, libraries, or plug-ins to implement. Likewise, there are no required infrastructure changes and no dependency on SAML, OAuth, OpenID Connect or any other authentication standard inside the app. Users merely upload mobile apps, select the Azure AD service and click “Build My App.” The Appdome technology adds Azure AD SSO and relevant standards, frameworks and more to the app automatically, with no manual development work at all.
Using Appdome, mobile apps will use Microsoft Azure AD SSO to authenticate users as if Azure AD SSO was natively coded to the app. Appdome for Azure AD SSO is compatible with mobile apps built in any development environment including Native Android and iOS apps, hybrid apps and non-native apps built in Xamarin, Cordova, and React Native, Ionic and more. This streamlines implementations, cuts development work, and ensures a guaranteed and consistent integration of Azure AD SSO to any mobile app.
The following diagram illustrates the Single-Sign-On flow within the app when integrating Azure as a cloud provider:
In order to use Appdome’s no code implementation of Microsoft Azure AD SSO on Appdome, you’ll need:
Log in to your Microsoft Azure portal and retrieve the Azure Client ID. If you did not register an app in Azure AD yet, you can see How to Register Apps in Microsoft Azure Active Directory.
Follow these step-by-step instructions to add Azure AD SSO to Any Mobile App:
Please follow these steps to add a mobile app to your Appdome account.
If you don’t have an Appdome account, click here to create an account.
The technology behind Build My App has two major elements – (1) a microservice architecture filled with 1000s of code sets needed for mobile integrations, and (2) an adaptive code generation engine that can recognize the development environment, frameworks and methods in each app and match the app to the relevant code-sets needed to add Azure AD SSO to the mobile app in seconds. For example, the technology of Open-ID Connect and Webview authentication, work that ordinarily a developer would need to do.
Congratulations! You now have a mobile app fully integrated with Microsoft Azure Active Directory SSO.
Building Single Sign-On inside Android and iOS apps involves several significant considerations. Perhaps the most significant consideration is “where” and “when” the Single Sign-On workflow will take place inside the app. Usually, an SSO workflow is initiated at the start of a login sequence. In this use case, the client and the server are built to handle the basic authentication sequence (User –> launches app –> enters credentials –> credentials verified by the server –> user issued a token or cookie allowing access to the app).
But, what if the app developer hasn’t or doesn’t want to build the app to support basic authentication? Or, what if the app developer wants more than the username and password provided in the basic authentication workflow (e.g., access to user details available in new authentication methods)? In these cases, Appdome-Threat Events provide a framework to pass user details contained in an OpenID and SAML authentication response to the app developer. This framework allows new flexibility to create custom SSO workflows inside an app using industry-standard methods to retrieve and pass user details between authentication services and mobile apps.
Azure AD authentication services usually connect on the backend to a store of user data and use SAML or OpenID to handle authentication requests. Using SAML and OpenID, applications have access to all the user and authentication details returned by the server backend (i.e. any data the backend implements).
Read this KB article to learn more.
After you have added Azure AD SSO to any Mobile App on Appdome, there are a few additional steps needed to complete your mobile integration project.
Appdome is a full-featured mobile integration platform. Within Context™, Appdome users can brand the app, including adding a favicon to denote the new service added to the app.
For more information on the range of options available in Context™, please read this knowledge base article.
In order to deploy an Appdome-Built app, it must be signed. Signing iOS apps and Signing Android apps are easy using Appdome. Alternatively, you can use Private Signing, download your unsigned app and sign locally using your own signing methods.
Once you have signed your Appdome-Built app, you can download to deploy it using your distribution method of choice. For more information on deploying your Appdome-Built apps, please read this knowledge base.
That is it – Enjoy Appdome for Microsoft Azure AD SSO in your app!
Check out Appdome for SSO+ blog or request a demo at any time.
If you have any questions, please send them our way at support@appdome.com or via the chat window on the Appdome platform.
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