This article discusses functionality that is included in the Aha! Knowledge Advanced plan. Please contact us if you would like a live demo or want to try using it in your account.

Aha! Roadmaps | Portal SSO | SAML 2.0

Every organization wants better ideas. But it is tough to actually capture ideas from customers, employees, and others in a manageable way.

Single sign-on (SSO) allows your users to log in to your ideas portal using their existing SAML-enabled ID provider, such as Active Directory, OneLogin, PingIdentity, Okta, and many more. With SSO, you can increase engagement of your idea portals as employees and customers no longer need to keep track of yet another email and password. This allows you to tightly integrate your idea management system with the roadmapping process.

If you have multiple ideas portals and want to use a single SAML 2.0 identity provider configuration between all of them, you may be interested in the Aha! Ideas Advanced plan.

This article will provide information on how to set up SAML 2.0 SSO for your public and private ideas portals.

Click any of the following links to skip ahead:

This article discusses proxy votes or ideas portal custom domains. You need to be an Ideas Advanced customer to access these features. Please contact us if you would like a live demo or would like to try using it in your account. If your Aha! account was created before October 20, 2020, you may have access to these integrations, but you will need to upgrade to Ideas Advanced for any future enhancements.

How it works

When a user authenticates to the ideas portal, they will be presented with the option to authenticate to the portal via SSO only. They cannot self-register with a username and password. If they are already logged in to the SSO provider, they will automatically be logged in to your portal without any additional actions.

  • Public portal: Once SSO is configured, users will be prompted to log in before posting or voting on ideas in the public portal. Anyone can view ideas, regardless of whether they are logged in.

  • Private portal: In order to access the private portal, users will be prompted to log in via SSO. If SSO is configured, any user with the SSO account will be able to access the ideas portal, regardless of email domain.

It is possible to invite an ideas portal user from your ideas portal configuration who has not been configured with the identity provider your portal is using. The user will not be able to log in to the ideas portal until they can be authenticated by the identity provider.

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Enable SSO for any ideas portal

There are two ways to enable SAML 2.0 SSO in your ideas portals.

  1. Navigate to Settings ⚙️ Account Ideas Ideas portals or Ideas Overview. You will need to be an administrator with customization permissions to configure an ideas portal.

    1. From your account settings, click the name of the ideas portal you wish to edit.

    2. From Ideas Overview, click the pencil icon by the name of the ideas portal you wish to edit.

  2. Once you have your portal settings open, navigate to the Users tab, and the SSO section.

  3. Click Add new provider.

  4. Choose SAML as your identity provider Type. Click Save.

  5. The SAML 2.0 configuration will display. Enter the remaining fields following the SAML 2.0 configuration requirements. The SAML 2.0 configuration will differ based on the SAML provider that you've selected.

  6. Click Enable SSO to complete the configuration.

The email domains you specify in the Users Employee section will still determine a portal users type when you provision portal users through SSO. This means that they can still be provisioned as an employee type portal user if their email domain matches what you entered in the Employee configuration.

Note: Adding a new email domain will not automatically mark existing portal users as employees.

There are two additional advanced settings beneath Access for Aha! users. They are disabled by default, and most Aha! accounts will not need to use them — in fact, unless you configure these settings carefully, you can break your SSO configuration. If you need help configuring these options, you are welcome to reach out to our Customer Success team.

  • Enable CNAME for SSO URLs: This option is rarely needed and will break SSO if not carefully configured. Enabling this option causes SSO to use the CNAME as well. This is not necessary for most portals, even when using a CNAME for the portal. It may be useful if your customers have strict corporate networking policies.

  • CNAME: This must match an existing CNAME used in an active ideas portal in your Aha! account. After adding the CNAME click Update URLs and Save or Update SSO. If you have previously configured SSO the URLs must be updated in your external system.

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Configure your SAML identity provider

The last step in configuring your ideas portal for SAML 2.0 SSO is to configure your identity provider so that it will send your Aha! account the right information. Particularly, you should ensure that the identity provider is sending the required user attributes to your Aha! account.

  • EmailAddress

  • FirstName

  • LastName

  • NameID

    We strongly recommend using a persistent, unique identifier in this field rather than the user's email address.

Your Aha! account uses these attributes to identify users and match them to users in your Aha! account or ideas portal.

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Share your SSO configuration between portals (Aha! Ideas Advanced plan)

If you have added Aha! Ideas Advanced plan functionality to your Aha! account, the process to create and assign an identity provider looks a little different.

  1. Follow the same steps to enable SSO for your ideas portal listed above.

  2. Navigate to Settings ⚙️ Account Ideas Single sign-on or Ideas Overview. You will need to be an administrator with customization permissions to configure an ideas portal.

    1. From your account settings, click the name of the ideas portal you wish to edit.

    2. From Ideas Overview, click the pencil icon by the name of the ideas portal you wish to edit.

  3. Once you have your portal settings open, navigate to the Users tab, then the SSO section.

  4. Select Add new provider from the Identity provider dropdown.

    1. Name: Name your identity provider.

      We recommend that you name your provider something easily recognizable to the different portals that might want to use it, like Employees, or Customers.

    2. Type: Choose SAML as your identity provider type.

    3. Click Save and continue in Aha!

    4. Enter the remaining fields following the SAML 2.0 configuration instructions.

  5. Click Enable SSO to enable your identity provider.

To share your identity provider configuration between multiple ideas portals:

  1. Open each portal's settings.

  2. Once you have your portal settings open, navigate to the Users tab, then the SSO section.

  3. Select the identity provider you just created from the Identity provider dropdown.

  4. Congratulations! You just shared your configuration with another portal.

  5. Repeat these steps for each portal you wish to use the shared Identity provider configuration.

You can manage your identity provider configuration — and the portals that use it — from the Identity providers tab in Settings ⚙️ Account Ideas portals.

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Existing Aha! user accounts and SSO

Aha! idea portals prompt the user for their email address to determine if they already have an Aha! account login. If the email entered is not registered in your Aha! account, they will be redirected to SSO based upon your configuration. If their email address is registered in your Aha! account they will be redirected to log in via your Aha! account to ensure they do not have two separate logins.

This setting is selected by default, and can be disabled by unchecking the box Access for Aha! users.

When using SSO, email addresses should be managed within the identity provider system. If an email address is modified within your Aha! account, the email address will be reset to the value in the identity provider system.

Disabling this option on custom CNAME portals will prevent Aha! users from accessing the portal.

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Troubleshooting

We have created an article to help you troubleshoot common SSO configuration issues, complete with explanations and resolutions.

The best place to start in most of these situations is the Recent SSO events for your SSO configuration, at the bottom of the configuration page. Those messages will help diagnose and solve the problem.

It is possible to invite an ideas portal user from your ideas portal settings who has not been configured with the identity provider your portal is using. The user will not be able to log in to the ideas portal until they can be authenticated by the identity provider.

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If you get stuck, please reach out to our Customer Success team. Our team is made up entirely of product experts and responds fast.