How to Use Azure AD with Learnworlds SAML SSO

If you have all your users in Azure Active Directory, you may use Azure AD as an authentication provider for your Learnworlds school. All your users will be able to log in by using your Azure AD authentication.

In this article, we will demonstrate the setup process. Some steps may need to be altered depending on your infrastructure. 

Create a new application with Azure AD

You will need to create a new application within your Azure AD.

1. Open your Azure portal and navigate to Azure Active Directory.

2. Open the Enterprise applications.

3. Create a New application in Azure.

4. Use Create your own application.

5. Give it a name and select the third option Integrate any other application you don't find in the gallery (Non-gallery).

Set up SAML SSO

Now that your application is ready, you need to set up the SAML SSO to be connected with your LearnWorlds school.

1. Navigate to Single sign-on and select SAML.

2. You will need to add the necessary information in the Basic SAML configuration section on Azure AD.

Visit your sign-up settings in your LearnWorlds school and copy the following on Azure ID.

3. You need to get the information below as well and add it to your Learnworlds sign-up settings.

Find it on Azure AD.

4. In your LearnWorlds school, go to Website → Website settings → Authentication and select SAML.

i. Add a new SAML

ii. Activate SAML and add a name for this SAML solution.

iii. Once you set up this information on your IDP and create the authentication application, you will need to update your school’s setup with the necessary information from your IDP:

a. IDP Identifier (Entity ID): This is the given IDP ID for the created application.

b. Sign-on URL: This is the URL that the school will call to authenticate the user via the IDP.

c. Single Logout URL: If you implement a single logout, you may provide this URL. When the user logs out from LearnWorlds the system will call this URL, and the IDP will log out the user from all other Services.

d. Identity Provider Certificate: You need to pass the public certificate to authenticate the call.

e. Service Provider (SP) URL: It is your school SAML Service Provider (sp) URL that the IDP will use to identify your service.

f. Assertion Consumer Service (ACS) URL: This is the “Reply URL” that the IDP will use to inform your school (SP) if the user has been authenticated successfully.

g. Single Logout URL: The URL that will be used by the identity provider to inform the service provider (your school) in case the user should be logged out; please paste this value to your identity provider, if needed.

h. Create User: Adds a new user to the school if a user with this email does not already exist.

5. Click on Create to save your settings and you are all set. Your users may now Single Sign-On by using your favorite IDP.

If you're using SAML as an authentication method, you must change the Site Navigation settings in the Payment Flow section for Logged-out users, as they will need to sign up/log in before proceeding to the payment page.

Also, you need to ensure that in all Payment Sections of your school's pages, 1-click Sales funnels, or the Payment Page of your school , the Sign in/up form option is set to hide since the user will not be able to sign in/up via the Learnworlds system.

1. Multiple Azure AD tenants and Azure AD B2C are not supported
2. You would need to add the users you want to access the Learnworlds school and also configure the Azure AD application to meet your needs. 
3. If you set up an SSO solution and disable the LearnWorlds login, all the users will be redirected to the SSO provider to authenticate, LearnWorlds passwords will no longer be valid. The users need to exist or sign up with the SSO authentication provider. The change of the authentication provider will only change the authentication mechanism, all the user data as well as their roles (admin, instructor, etc.) will be intact. 
4. In case you misconfigure the custom SSO setup and this is the only available authentication mechanism, then only the Learnworlds School Owner account will be able to sign in to your school via our Learnworlds account sign-in page (https://account.learnworlds.com/login)
5. The Identity Provider certificate must include the full header and footer. The correct format looks like this:

   -----BEGIN CERTIFICATE-----
   [certificate content]
   -----END CERTIFICATE-----

6. The SSO mechanism uses the user’s email address to identify the user (unique key); therefore, to change the user's email address, you need to manually update the new email both in your school and on your IDP.

   Furthermore, you may use the bulk import (and enroll) functionality in case you need to import users that already exist in your SSO provider.
   

7. If you revert to LearnWorlds authentication, users created via the SSO authentication will need to create a new password. Passwords can be changed: 
   • By the user via the forgot password mechanism
   • By the admin reset and/or update password mechanisms
     
8. The integrated Affiliate feature supports user registrations through the LearnWorlds sign-up system, SSO using OpenID or SAML, and Social Logins (e.g., Google, Facebook). Affiliate links are tracked properly when users are registering via any of these methods, while registrations made through custom SSO implementations are not tracked and therefore will not trigger affiliate commissions.
9. The LearnWorlds password update/reset functionality as well as sign-up are only available for the Default LearnWorlds Authentication mechanism. Any other SSO authentication mechanisms will need to handle these functionalities.  
10. If you want to use more than three custom SSO, SAML, or OpenID solutions in total, please contact us at support@learnworlds.com. In case you are on the Learning Center plan you can also add 3 more by purchasing our scale package.

More details about Microsoft's Azure and SSO are in the articles below.

• Quickstart: View the list of applications that are using your Azure Active Directory (Azure AD) tenant for identity management
• Quickstart: Set up SAML-based single sign-on (SSO) for an application in your Azure Active Directory (Azure AD) tenant
• Understand SAML-based single sign-on