Understanding SSO and its benefits

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As a primary administrator for your Autodesk account, you are able to incorporate the use of Single Sign-on.

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In this video, we will introduce this tool and discuss the benefits.

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By default, a user's Autodesk account is defined with a unique username, which is their email address, as well as a confidential password.

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This email-password combination must be frequently entered to grant access to Autodesk services.

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Services include the Autodesk website tools such as the Knowledge Network or the Customer Success Hub for its free online courses.

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But more importantly a user's Autodesk account also provides access to all the Autodesk software licenses that your company has purchased.

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This means that, as users launch their software products,

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their login provides access or not based on how you as the primary administrator have granted those software licenses to your users.

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By implementing Autodesk Single Sign-on or SSO,

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you are implementing a solution for managing and authenticating Autodesk user IDs across web-based desktop applications and services.

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When enabled, Autodesk SSO users will only need to use their company login credentials once,

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which will then automatically authenticate all Autodesk software and services.

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Three of the common reasons why companies like yours choose to implement Autodesk SSO include providing a better experience for your users,

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helping to increase security and compliance, and ultimately aiming to reduce the time you spend administrating your Autodesk account.

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When you enable Autodesk SSO,

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your users now only need to remember a single password to access all of your network resources as well as your Autodesk services.

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Additionally, all password policies that are set for your network also apply to the Autodesk services.

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This simplifies password resets to one action,

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and if an employee's credentials are revoked on your domain, they automatically lose access to all Autodesk services.

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However, please keep in mind that you will still need to reclaim their seats through the Autodesk account.

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After the initial effort to set up Autodesk SSO, you will spend less time administering multiple user credentials.

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There are four distinct phases to implementing Single Sign-on.

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The first of these phases is the preparation phase.

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This is an important phase that sets the stage for the successful implementation of SSO.

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To begin, you are going to want to spend the necessary time to ensure that your user list on manage.autodesk.com is up to date.

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Ensure that all users have set up their Autodesk account using their corporate email address that is associated with your domain.

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Either remove users that are using personal emails or ask them to update their profiles with Autodesk.

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This is an important step, otherwise once SSO is enabled, users will not be authenticated and they will lose access to their Autodesk services.

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You will also want to ensure that all Autodesk software has been patched with all recent updates.

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This is especially important for products released before 2018, as they require updates to enable cloud connectivity.

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All of the latest patches can be found at the autodesk.com website.

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You will also want to ensure that Autodesk SSO supports your identity provider or IdP and that it uses the Security Assertion Markup Language,

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also known as SAML, Version 2.0.

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You can verify the list of supported IdPs in Single Sign-On Configuration Guide in Autodesk Help.

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Lastly, you must register your domain with Autodesk by requesting SSO integration, which can be done through manage.autodesk.com.

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Next, phase two is where you configure the SSO, and the steps in this phase vary depending on the identity provider you use.

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These steps have all been conveniently detailed in Autodesk Single Sign-On Configuration Guide.

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SSO authentication will impact Autodesk applications and services.

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It is critically important that extensive testing is carried out prior to enabling your SSO connection.

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In order to test your environment, the primary or SSO administrator can assign select users for testing in your production environment.

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These users must have email addresses registered on your domain and they must already have Autodesk IDs.

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Administrators should not add themselves to the test list to avoid inadvertently losing access to the SSO console.

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For optimal testing, include users that frequently access all your Autodesk services and licenses,

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and include users from multiple group to ensure that all services are being tested.

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Ensure also that these users test all desktop software, including older versions.

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During the testing phase, we highly recommend that you notify all users to explain this new process.

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Tell them how it will work and benefit them and when the switch will be made,

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and it is always a good idea to provide users with direction on how to get help, if needed.

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Once all testing is complete and you have verified that all Autodesk services are working with SSO,

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you can move to enabling the SSO connection so that all users can benefit from the convenience of Single Sign-on.