SSO Access for Internal employee regardless of license

Michael Thigpen

Hello! Looking for some insights to how we can set up SSO for all internal employees regardless of SS license to minimize extra passwords. I'm hopefully you have some good news that will allow us to utilize Okta for all employees and not just license users. Presently only works for licensed users, but trying to see if we are missing a configuration that if people are only contributors but have a internal email address, we can still use Okta for login and avoid as stated above having employees tracking another password to view and collaborator. This is only for internal employees.

Genevieve P.

Hi @Michael Thigpen

Yes, unlicensed users can use SSO to log in to Smartsheet. Two settings to check if your users are unable to use SSO:

• Ensure that these emails have a profile in your organization's IdP (Identity Provider)
• Ensure these users are added to your organization's Smartsheet plan (they can be free members within the account, see: Account-Level User Types for Multi-User Plans.)

This article has more information: SAML Frequently Asked Questions and Common Errors.

Cheers!

Genevieve

tracy.duhamel

This was a helpful question and answer, although it left me with a follow up question for better understanding. Would I be correct that the suggested set up would be that we have to add all unlicensed users to SmartSheet first, before giving access to SSO? What if we have users that do not use Smartsheet. If they are not set up in Smartsheet would they be blocked from being logged in, or would it automatically create an account in Smartsheet for the user. If an account is auto-created would it default to licensed?

Genevieve P.

Hi @tracy.duhamel

These questions depend on how you have you account set up!

If you have Auto Provisioning enabled, then yes, your employees will be automatically added to your Smartsheet plan when they sign in for the first time. With Auto Provisioning, you can decide if this means they get a license or or if they're added as a Free member, see: https://help.smartsheet.com/learning-track/system-admin/user-auto-provisioning

It sounds like this would be the best option for your account, if you're on an Enterprise plan.

Cheers,
Genevieve