Use federated authentication with Microsoft Entra ID in Apple Business Essentials

In Apple Business Essentials, you can link to Microsoft Entra ID using federated authentication to allow users to sign in to Apple devices with their Microsoft Entra ID user name (generally their email address) and password.

As a result, your users can leverage their Microsoft Entra ID credentials as Managed Apple Accounts. They can then use those credentials to sign in to their assigned iPhone, iPad, or Mac, and even to iCloud on the web.

Microsoft Entra ID is the identity provider (IdP) that authenticates the user for Apple Business Essentials and issues authentication tokens. This authentication supports certificate authentication and two-factor authentication (2FA).

Before you begin

Before you link to Microsoft Entra ID, consider the following:

You must lock and turn on domain capture before you can federate. See Lock a domain.
Federated authentication requires that a user’s userPrincipalName (UPN) match their email address. userPrincipalName aliases and Alternate IDs aren’t supported.
For existing users with an email address in the federated domain, their Managed Apple Account is automatically changed to match that email address.
User accounts with the role of Administrator or People Manager can’t sign in using federated authentication; they can only manage the federation process.
When the Microsoft Entra ID connection has expired, federation and syncing user accounts with Microsoft Entra ID stops. You must reconnect to Microsoft Entra ID to continue using federation and syncing.

Federated authentication process

This process involves three main steps:

Configure federated authentication.
Test federated authentication with a single Microsoft Entra ID user account.
Turn on federated authentication.

Step 1: Configure federated authentication

The first step is to establish a trust relationship between Microsoft Entra ID and Apple Business Essentials.

Note: After you complete this step, users can’t create new personal Apple Accounts on the domain you configure. This could affect other Apple services your users access. See Transfer Apple services when federating.

In Apple Business Essentials, sign in with a user that has the role of Administrator or People Manager.
Select your name at the bottom of the sidebar, select Preferences , select Managed Apple Accounts , then select Get Started under “User sign in and directory sync.”
Select Microsoft Entra ID, then select Continue.
Select “Sign in with Microsoft,” enter a Microsoft Entra ID Global Administrator user name, then select Next.
Enter the password for the account, then select Sign In.
Carefully read the application agreement, select “Consent on behalf of your organization,” then select Accept.
You are consenting to Microsoft giving Apple access to information found in Microsoft Entra ID.
If necessary, review the verified and conflicted domains.
Select Done.

In some cases you may not be able to sign in to your domain. Here are some common reasons:

The user name or password from the account in step 4 is incorrect.

Step 2: Test authentication with a single Microsoft Entra ID user account

Important: The federated authentication test also changes your default Managed Apple Account format.

You can test the federated authentication connection after you’ve performed the following tasks:

The check for user name conflicts is complete.
The Managed Apple Account default format is updated.

After you successfully link Apple Business Essentials to Microsoft Entra ID, you can change the role of a user account to another role. For example, you may want to change the role of a user account to a Staff role.

Note: User accounts with the role of Administrator or People Manager can’t sign in using federated authentication; they can only manage the federation process.

Select Federate next to the domain you want to federate.
Select “Sign in to Microsoft Entra ID Portal,” enter a Microsoft Entra ID user name of an account that exists in the domain, then select Next.
Enter the password for the account, select Sign In, select Done, then select Done.