Enterprise SSO Solution for SaaS: SAML, OIDC, SCIM and Identity Providers

If you are building a B2B SaaS product and your enterprise customers are asking for Single Sign-On (SSO), you are not alone.

Enterprise customers increasingly expect SaaS applications to integrate with their existing identity infrastructure, including Okta, Microsoft Entra ID, Google Workspace, Auth0, Keycloak, Ping Identity and other Identity Providers (IdPs).

But implementing enterprise SSO can involve much more than adding a “Sign in with SSO” button.

You may need to support:

• SAML 2.0
• OpenID Connect (OIDC)
• SCIM provisioning
• User provisioning and deprovisioning
• Attribute mapping
• Group mapping
• Role mapping
• Multiple enterprise tenants
• Different Identity Providers
• SSO configuration per customer

This guide explains what an Enterprise SSO solution is, how it works, and how SaaS companies can add enterprise identity without building every integration themselves.

What is an Enterprise SSO solution?

An Enterprise SSO solution allows users of a SaaS application to authenticate using their company’s existing Identity Provider instead of creating a separate username and password.

For example, an enterprise customer may use:

• Okta
• Microsoft Entra ID
• Google Workspace
• Auth0
• Keycloak
• Ping Identity
• OneLogin
• ForgeRock

Instead of building a custom integration for every provider, a SaaS application can use an SSO integration layer that connects the application to multiple enterprise Identity Providers.

A typical architecture looks like this:

Enterprise Customer
        │
        ▼
Identity Provider
Okta / Entra / Google / Keycloak
        │
        │ SAML / OIDC
        ▼
     SSO Layer
        │
        ▼
    Your SaaS

This approach allows your application to support multiple enterprise identity systems through a single integration.

Why do SaaS companies need Enterprise SSO?

Enterprise customers often have an existing identity and security infrastructure.

They may not want their employees to create separate credentials for every SaaS application they use.

Instead, they expect applications to integrate with their corporate Identity Provider.

For a B2B SaaS company, Enterprise SSO can therefore become an important part of the enterprise onboarding process.

A customer may ask:

“Do you support Okta?”

or:

“Can we connect your application to Microsoft Entra ID?”

or:

“Do you support SAML SSO?”

or:

“Can we provision users through SCIM?”

These questions are all related to the same broader requirement:

Integrating your SaaS application with the customer’s identity infrastructure.

SAML SSO vs OIDC SSO

The two protocols you will encounter most often when implementing Enterprise SSO are SAML and OpenID Connect (OIDC).

What is SAML?

SAML (Security Assertion Markup Language) is a widely used standard for enterprise Single Sign-On.

A typical SAML authentication flow looks like:

User
 │
 ▼
Your SaaS
 │
 ▼
Identity Provider
 │
 │ Authentication
 ▼
SAML Assertion
 │
 ▼
Your SaaS
 │
 ▼
Authenticated User

SAML is particularly common in enterprise environments and is supported by major Identity Providers.

SAML configurations typically involve concepts such as:

• Entity ID
• SSO URL
• ACS URL
• X.509 certificates
• SAML metadata
• NameID
• Attribute mapping

What is OpenID Connect?

OpenID Connect (OIDC) is an authentication protocol built on top of OAuth 2.0.

OIDC commonly uses:

• JSON
• JWT
• authorization endpoints
• token endpoints
• JWKS
• ID tokens

A simplified OIDC flow looks like:

User
 │
 ▼
Your SaaS
 │
 ▼
Authorization Endpoint
 │
 ▼
Identity Provider
 │
 ▼
Authorization Code
 │
 ▼
Your Backend
 │
 ▼
ID Token
 │
 ▼
Authenticated User

Modern Identity Providers such as Okta, Microsoft Entra ID, Google and Auth0 can support OIDC.

SAML or OIDC: which one should a SaaS support?

For a B2B SaaS targeting enterprise customers, supporting both can reduce compatibility issues.

The customer’s Identity Provider and existing infrastructure may determine which protocol they want to use.

Instead of forcing every customer into one authentication protocol, an Enterprise SSO solution can abstract these differences.

Your application can then work with a consistent authentication flow while the SSO layer handles the protocol-specific implementation.

What is SCIM provisioning?

SSO solves authentication.

But enterprise customers often have another requirement:

user lifecycle management.

This is where SCIM comes in.

SCIM stands for System for Cross-domain Identity Management.

SCIM allows an Identity Provider to communicate user and group information to an application.

For example:

Employee joins company
        ↓
Added to company directory
        ↓
SCIM provisioning
        ↓
User created in SaaS

When the employee leaves:

Employee leaves company
        ↓
Account disabled in IdP
        ↓
SCIM deprovisioning
        ↓
Access removed from SaaS

This allows enterprise customers to automate onboarding and offboarding.

SSO vs SCIM

These two concepts are often confused.

SSO

SSO answers:

“How does this user authenticate?”

SCIM

SCIM answers:

“Which users should exist in this application, and what happens when they change?”

A mature enterprise identity integration may therefore include both:

             Enterprise Identity
                     │
          ┌──────────┴──────────┐
          │                     │
         SSO                   SCIM
          │                     │
 Authentication          User lifecycle
          │                     │
     SAML / OIDC       Provision / Deprovision

What is User Provisioning?

User provisioning is the process of creating and managing user accounts automatically.

Without automated provisioning:

Enterprise Admin
      ↓
Creates user manually
      ↓
Your SaaS

With provisioning:

Enterprise IdP
      ↓
Provisioning
      ↓
Your SaaS
      ↓
User account created

This becomes particularly useful when an enterprise customer has hundreds or thousands of employees.

What is Just-In-Time (JIT) provisioning?

Another approach is Just-In-Time provisioning.

With JIT provisioning, a user account can be created when the user successfully authenticates for the first time.

For example:

User clicks "Sign in with SSO"
             ↓
Identity Provider authenticates user
             ↓
SaaS receives identity information
             ↓
No existing account?
             ↓
Create account automatically

JIT and SCIM solve related but different problems and can be used depending on the customer’s requirements.

What is Attribute Mapping?

Different Identity Providers may send different user attributes.

For example:

email
firstName
lastName
department
jobTitle
groups

Your SaaS may use different names internally.

An SSO integration therefore often needs attribute mapping.

Example:

IdP attribute        SaaS attribute

user.email       →   email
user.firstName   →   first_name
user.lastName    →   last_name
user.department  →   department

This allows your SaaS to normalize identity information from different providers.

What is Group Mapping?

Enterprise organizations already manage users through groups.

For example:

Engineering
Sales
Finance
Support
Administrators

An enterprise customer may want those groups to control access to your SaaS.

For example:

Engineering
     ↓
Application access

Administrators
     ↓
Admin access

This is commonly referred to as group mapping.

What is Role Mapping?

Your SaaS may have its own authorization model.

For example:

Admin
Manager
Member
Viewer

The enterprise customer may use different groups.

You can map them:

Enterprise Group          SaaS Role

Company-Admins       →    Admin

Company-Managers     →    Manager

Company-Employees    →    Member

This is known as group-to-role mapping or role mapping.

Multi-Tenant Enterprise SSO

B2B SaaS applications are usually multi-tenant.

This means that each customer can have its own organization and identity configuration.

For example:

              Your SaaS
                  │
       ┌──────────┼──────────┐
       │          │          │
    Company A  Company B  Company C
       │          │          │
      Okta      Entra      Google

Each organization may have:

• its own Identity Provider
• its own SSO configuration
• its own domain
• its own users
• its own groups
• its own roles

This makes enterprise SSO significantly more complex than implementing SSO for a single organization.

How does an Enterprise SSO integration work?

A typical architecture can look like this:

                    Your SaaS
                       │
                       ▼
                  SSOBridge
                       │
        ┌──────────────┼──────────────┐
        │              │              │
       SAML           OIDC           SCIM
        │              │              │
        ▼              ▼              ▼
      Okta           Entra          Directory
        │              │              │
        └──────────────┴──────────────┘

The SaaS application integrates with one SSO layer.

The SSO layer handles the differences between enterprise Identity Providers.

This can significantly reduce the amount of IdP-specific code maintained inside the SaaS itself.

Build Enterprise SSO yourself or use an SSO solution?

There are two common approaches.

Build it yourself

Your engineering team implements and maintains:

• SAML
• OIDC
• SCIM
• IdP configuration
• certificates
• metadata
• user provisioning
• deprovisioning
• group mapping
• role mapping
• security edge cases
• multiple customer configurations

This gives you complete control, but it also creates a significant ongoing engineering responsibility.

Use an SSO integration layer

Your application integrates with one service.

The service handles the connection to multiple Identity Providers.

Your SaaS
    │
    │ One integration
    ▼
SSO Integration Layer
    │
    ├── Okta
    ├── Microsoft Entra ID
    ├── Google
    ├── Auth0
    ├── Keycloak
    └── Other IdPs

The choice depends on your architecture, engineering resources, security requirements and product roadmap.

How to add Enterprise SSO to a SaaS application

A typical implementation involves several steps.

Step 1 — Identify your enterprise requirements

Determine whether your customers need:

• SAML
• OIDC
• SCIM
• JIT provisioning
• group mapping
• role mapping
• multiple organizations

Step 2 — Define your tenant model

Determine how each customer’s SSO configuration will be associated with its organization.

For example:

Organization
   │
   ├── Identity Provider
   ├── SSO configuration
   ├── Users
   └── Roles

Step 3 — Integrate your application

Your application connects to the SSO service through an API.

Step 4 — Configure the customer’s IdP

The enterprise administrator configures the connection in their Identity Provider.

Step 5 — Test authentication

Verify:

• login
• logout
• user attributes
• error handling
• certificate configuration
• redirects

Step 6 — Add provisioning if required

If the customer needs automated user lifecycle management, configure SCIM or another provisioning mechanism.

SSOBridge: Enterprise SSO for SaaS applications

SSOBridge is an Enterprise SSO integration layer designed for SaaS applications.

Instead of implementing individual integrations for every Identity Provider, your application can connect to SSOBridge and use a unified integration.

SSOBridge supports the enterprise identity layer around:

• SAML
• OIDC
• SCIM
• User provisioning
• User deprovisioning
• Attribute mapping
• Group mapping
• Role mapping

SSOBridge is designed for SaaS teams that already have an authentication system and want to add Enterprise SSO without rebuilding their authentication architecture.

One integration for Enterprise SSO

Instead of building:

Your SaaS
 ├── Okta integration
 ├── Entra integration
 ├── Google integration
 ├── Auth0 integration
 ├── Keycloak integration
 └── More integrations...

you can use:

Your SaaS
     │
     ▼
 SSOBridge
     │
 ├── Okta
 ├── Microsoft Entra ID
 ├── Google
 ├── Auth0
 └── Keycloak

The goal is simple:

Integrate Enterprise SSO once instead of maintaining multiple IdP-specific integrations.

Enterprise SSO FAQ

What is the best SSO solution for a SaaS?

The appropriate SSO solution depends on your existing authentication architecture, required protocols, Identity Providers, provisioning requirements and deployment model.

For a SaaS application that already has authentication and needs to add enterprise SSO, an SSO integration layer can avoid replacing the existing authentication system.

What is an Enterprise SSO provider?

An Enterprise SSO provider enables applications to authenticate users through enterprise Identity Providers using protocols such as SAML and OIDC.

Does Enterprise SSO support Okta?

Enterprise SSO solutions can integrate with Okta using protocols such as SAML or OIDC.

Does Enterprise SSO support Microsoft Entra ID?

Microsoft Entra ID can be used as an Identity Provider for enterprise applications through standards such as SAML and OIDC.

What is SAML SSO?

SAML SSO allows users to authenticate to an application using an external Identity Provider through SAML assertions.

What is OIDC SSO?

OIDC is an authentication protocol built on OAuth 2.0 that allows applications to authenticate users and receive identity information through tokens.

What is SCIM provisioning?

SCIM is a standard used to automate user and group provisioning and deprovisioning between identity systems and applications.

Do I need both SSO and SCIM?

They solve different problems. SSO handles authentication, while SCIM handles user lifecycle management.

Can Enterprise SSO work with multiple customers?

Yes. A multi-tenant SaaS can maintain separate SSO configurations for each customer organization.

Can I add Enterprise SSO without replacing my authentication system?

Depending on the architecture, an SSO integration layer can be added alongside an existing authentication system rather than requiring a complete authentication rewrite.

Enterprise SSO checklist

Before launching Enterprise SSO, make sure your SaaS can answer the following questions:

• Do we support SAML?
• Do we support OIDC?
• Can customers connect Okta?
• Can customers connect Microsoft Entra ID?
• Can customers connect Google Workspace?
• Do we support SCIM?
• Do we support user provisioning?
• Do we support user deprovisioning?
• Do we support JIT provisioning?
• Can we map user attributes?
• Can we map groups?
• Can we map groups to application roles?
• Can every tenant have its own IdP configuration?
• Can enterprise administrators configure their SSO connection?
• Can our application handle different enterprise IdPs without custom code for every customer?

If several answers are “no”, your SaaS may need an Enterprise SSO integration layer.

Add Enterprise SSO to your SaaS

Your enterprise customers should not require you to build a new identity integration every time they use a different Identity Provider.

SSOBridge provides a single integration layer for Enterprise SSO.

SAML. OIDC. SCIM. Provisioning. Attribute mapping. Role mapping.

One integration. Multiple Identity Providers.

[Get started with SSOBridge]