1 About the Office 365 Connector
Oracle Identity Governance is a centralized identity management solution that provides self service, compliance, provisioning and password management services for applications residing on-premise or on the Cloud. Oracle Identity Governance connectors are used to integrate Oracle identity Governance with the external identity-aware applications.
Note:
In this guide, the connector that is deployed using the Applications option on the Manage tab of Identity Self Service is referred to as an AOB application. The connector that is deployed using the Manage Connector option in Oracle Identity System Administration is referred to as a CI-based connector (Connector Installer-based connector).Application onboarding is the process of registering or associating an application with Oracle Identity Governance and making that application available for provisioning and reconciliation of user information.
The following topics provide a high-level overview of the Office 365 connector:
1.1 Certified Components
These are the software components and their versions required for installing and using the Office 365 connector.
Table 1-1 Certified Components
| Component | Requirement for AOB Application | Requirement for CI-Based Connector |
|---|---|---|
|
Oracle Identity Governance or Oracle Identity Manager |
You can use any one of the following releases:
|
You can use one of the following releases of Oracle Identity Governance or Oracle Identity Manager:
|
|
Oracle Identity Governance or Oracle Identity Manager JDK |
JDK 1.8 and later |
JDK 1.8 and later |
|
Target systems |
Microsoft Office 365 Enterprise Editions |
Microsoft Office 365 Enterprise Editions |
|
Connector Server |
11.1.2.1.0 and later |
11.1.2.1.0 and later |
|
Connector Server JDK |
JDK 1.8 and later |
JDK 1.8 and later |
|
Target API version |
Azure Active Directory (AD) Graph API 1.6 | Azure Active Directory (AD) Graph API 1.6 |
1.2 Usage Recommendation
These are the recommendations for the Office 365 connector version that you can deploy and use depending on the Oracle Identity Governance or Oracle Identity Manager version that you are using.
-
If you are using Oracle Identity Governance 12c (12.2.1.3.0), then use the latest 12.2.1.x version of this connector. Deploy the connector using the Applications option on the Manage tab of Identity Self Service.
-
If you are using any of the Oracle Identity Manager releases listed in the “Requirement for CI-Based Connector” column in Table 1-1, then use the 11.1.x version of the Office 365 connector. If you want to use the 12.2.1.x version of this connector, then you can install and use it only in the CI-based mode. If you want to use the AOB application, then you must upgrade to Oracle Identity Governance release 12.2.1.3.0.
Note:
If you are using the latest 12.2.1.x version of the Office 365 connector in the CI-based mode, then see Oracle Identity Manager Connector Guide for Office 365, Release 11.1.1 for complete details on connector deployment, usage, and customization.1.3 Certified Languages
These are the languages that the connector supports.
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Arabic
-
Chinese (Simplified)
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Chinese (Traditional)
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Czech
-
Danish
-
Dutch
-
English
-
Finnish
-
French
-
French (Canadian)
-
German
-
Greek
-
Hebrew
-
Hungarian
-
Italian
-
Japanese
-
Korean
-
Norwegian
-
Polish
-
Portuguese
-
Portuguese (Brazilian)
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Romanian
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Russian
-
Slovak
-
Spanish
-
Swedish
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Thai
-
Turkish
1.4 Supported Connector Operations
These are the list of operations that the connector supports for your target system.
Table 1-2 Supported Connector Operations
| Operation | Supported |
|---|---|
|
User Management |
|
|
Create user |
Yes |
|
Update user |
Yes |
|
Delete user |
Yes |
|
Reset Password |
Yes |
| Role Grant Management | |
|
Assign and Revoke Roles |
Yes |
|
License Grant Management |
|
|
Grant and Revoke Licences |
Yes |
| Group Management | |
|
Add, Update, and Remove Groups |
Yes |
Note:
- The Office 365 connector supports the following two groups:
- Office 365 Groups
- Security Groups
- All connector artifacts required for managing groups as an object (for example groups attribute mappings, reconciliation rules, jobs, and so on) are not visible in the Applications UI in Identity Self Service. However, all the required information is available in the predefined application templates of the connector installation package. For more information about the artifacts related to groups, see Connector Objects Used for Groups Management.
1.5 Connector Architecture
The Office 365 connector is implemented by using the Identity Connector Framework (ICF).
The ICF is a component that is required in order to use Identity Connector. ICF provides basic reconciliation and provisioning operations that are common to all Oracle Identity Governance connectors. In addition, ICF provides common features that developers would otherwise need to implement on their own, such as, buffering, time outs, and filtering. ICF is distributed together with Oracle Identity Governance. Therefore, you do not need to configure or modify ICF.
Figure 1-1 shows the architecture of the Office 365 connector.
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Identity reconciliation
Identity reconciliation is also known as authoritative or trusted source reconciliation. In this mode, the Office 365 application is used as the trusted source and users are directly created and modified on Oracle Identity Governance. During reconciliation, a scheduled task invokes an ICF operation. ICF inturn invokes a search operation on the Office 365 Identity Connector Bundle and then the bundle calls Office 365 API for Reconciliation operation. The API extracts user records that match the reconciliation criteria and hands them over through the bundle and ICF back to the scheduled task, which brings the records to Oracle Identity Governance.
Each user record fetched from the target system is compared with existing OIM Users. If a match is found between the target system record and the OIM User, then the OIM User attributes are updated with changes made to the target system record. If no match is found, then the target system record is used to create an OIM User.
-
Account management
Account management is also known as target resource management. In this mode, the target system is used as a target resource and the connector enables the following operations:
-
Provisioning
Provisioning involves creating, updating, or deleting users on the target system through Oracle Identity Governance. During provisioning, the Adapters invoke ICF operation, ICF inturn invokes create operation on the Office 365 Identity Connector Bundle and then the bundle calls the target system API (Microsoft Azure Active Directory (AD) Graph API) for provisioning operations. The API on the target system accepts provisioning data from the bundle, carries out the required operation on the target system, and returns the response from the target system back to the bundle, which passes it to the adapters.
-
Target resource reconciliation
During reconciliation, a scheduled task invokes an ICF operation. ICF inturn invokes a search operation on the Office 365 Identity Connector Bundle and then the bundle calls Office 365 API for Reconciliation operation. The API extracts user records that match the reconciliation criteria and hands them over through the bundle and ICF back to the scheduled task, which brings the records to Oracle Identity Governance.
Each record fetched from the target system is compared with Office 365 resources that are already provisioned to OIM Users. If a match is found, then the update made to the Office 365 record from the target system is copied to the Office 365 resource in Oracle Identity Governance. If no match is found, then the userPrincipalName of the record is compared with the User Login of each OIM User. If a match is found, then data in the target system record is used to provision an Office 365 resource to the OIM User.
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The Office 365 Identity Connector Bundle communicates with the Microsoft Azure Active Directory Graph API using the HTTPS protocol. The Microsoft Azure Active Directory Graph API provides programmatic access to Azure Active Directory through REST API endpoints. Apps can use the Microsoft Azure Active Directory Graph API to perform create, read, update, and delete (CRUD) operations on directory data and directory objects, such as users, groups.
See Also:
Understanding the Identity Connector Framework in Oracle Fusion Middleware Developing and Customizing Applications for Oracle Identity Governance for more information about ICF
1.6 Use Cases Supported by the Connector
The Office 365 connector is used to integrate Oracle Identity Governance with Office 365 to ensure that all Office 365 accounts are created, updated, and deactivated on an integrated cycle with the rest of the identity-aware applications in your enterprise. The Office 365 connector supports management of identities for Cloud Identity, Synchronized Identity, and Federated Identity models of Office 365. In a typical IT scenario, an organization using Oracle Identity Governance wants to manage accounts, groups, roles and licenses across Office 365 Cloud Service.
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Office 365 User Management
An organization using Office 365 wants to integrate with Oracle Identity Governance to manage identities. The organization wants to manage its user identities by creating them in the target system using Oracle Identity Governance. The organization also wants to synchronize user identity changes performed directly in the target system with Oracle Identity Governance. In such a scenario, a quick and an easy way is to install the Office 365 connector and configure it with your target system by providing connection information.
To create a new user in the target system, fill in and submit the OIM process form to trigger the provisioning operation. The connector executes the CreateOp operation against your target system and the user is created on successful execution of the operation. Similarly, operations like delete and update can be performed.
To search or retrieve the user identities, you must run a scheduled task from Oracle Identity Governance. The connector will run the corresponding SearchOp against the user identities in the target system and fetch all the changes to Oracle Identity Governance.
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Office 365 Group Management
An organization has a number of Office 365 Security Groups allowing its users to set up new groups, manage memberships, and delete groups. The organization now wants to know the list of groups that have not been recently accessed or who have inactive members. In such a scenario, you can use the Office 365 connector to highlight the usage trend for groups. By using the Office 365 connector, you can leverage the reporting capabilities of Oracle Identity Governance to track any operations (such as create, update, delete) performed on groups and changes made in their memberships .
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Office 365 Admin Role Management
In large organizations, it may be necessary for an administrator to designate other employees to act as administrators to serve different functions. For example, you can set admin roles for your IT staff that can act as support agents to other employees, partners, customers and vendors. With the Office 365 connector, you can assign or revoke an Office 365 admin role to users as an entitlement, thus facilitating you to leverage the delegated administration capability of Office 365.
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Office 365 User License Management
Another scenario is one in which an organization is using Office 365 for business and manages user licenses as per the changing needs of the organization by assigning or unassigning licenses for users. What is needed is an effective way to keep track of all the licenses and user rights both in cloud and on-premise servers. In such a scenario, you can use the Office 365 connector to effectively track all user licenses. You can keep track of these license assignment changes by leveraging Oracle Identity Governance capability of auditing and reporting.
1.7 Connector Features
The features of the connector include support for connector server, full reconciliation, limited reconciliation, and reconciliation of deleted account data.
Table 1-3 Supported Connector Features Matrix
| Feature | AOB Application | CI-Based Connector |
|---|---|---|
|
Full reconciliation |
Yes |
Yes |
|
Incremental reconciliation |
Yes |
Yes |
| Limited reconciliation |
Yes |
Yes |
|
Delete reconciliation |
Yes |
Yes Note: Apply Patch O365.12.2.1.3.0B for delete reconciliation to work successfully. |
|
Support for authoritative source reconciliation |
Yes |
Yes |
|
Use connector server |
Yes |
Yes |
|
Transformation and validation of account data |
Yes |
Yes |
|
Perform connector operations in multiple domains |
Yes |
Yes |
|
Support for paging |
Yes |
Yes |
|
Test connection |
Yes |
No |
|
Reset password |
Yes |
Yes |
The following topics provide more information on the features of the AOB application:
1.7.1 Full Reconciliation and Incremental Reconciliation
You can perform full reconciliation to bring all existing user data from the target system to Oracle Identity Governance.
After the first full reconciliation run, you can configure your connector for incremental reconciliation if the target system contains an attribute that holds the timestamp at which an object is created or modified.
In incremental reconciliation, only records that are added or modified after the last reconciliation run are fetched into Oracle Identity Governance. During an incremental reconciliation run, the scheduled job fetches only target system records that are added or modified after the time-stamp stored in the Latest Token attribute of the scheduled job.
Note:
The connector supports incremental reconciliation if the target system contains an attribute that holds the timestamp at which an object is created or modified.You can perform a full reconciliation run at any time. See Performing Full Reconciliation and Incremental Reconciliation for more information about performing full and incremental reconciliation.
1.7.2 Limited Reconciliation
You can reconcile records from the target system based on a specified filter criterion. To limit or filter the records that are fetched into Oracle Identity Governance during a reconciliation run, you can specify the subset of added or modified target system records that must be reconciled.
You can set a reconciliation filter as the value of the Filter Suffix attribute of the user reconciliation scheduled job. The Filter Suffix attribute helps you to assign filters to the API based on which you get a filtered response from the target system.
For more information, see Performing Limited Reconciliation.
1.7.3 Reconciliation of Deleted Users
You can configure the connector for reconciling information about users deleted in the target system.
In target resource mode, if a user is deleted on the target system, then the corresponding user is revoked from Oracle Identity Governance.
See Performing Delete Reconciliation for more information about the scheduled job used for reconciling deleted users.
1.7.4 Support for the Connector Server
Connector Server is one of the features provided by ICF. By using one or more connector servers, the connector architecture permits your application to communicate with externally deployed bundles.
A Java connector server is useful when you do not wish to execute a Java connector bundle in the same VM as your application. It can be beneficial to run a Java connector on a different host for performance improvements.
For information about installing, configuring, and running the Connector Server, and then installing the connector in a Connector Server, see Using an Identity Connector Server in Oracle Fusion Middleware Developing and Customizing Applications for Oracle Identity Governance.
1.7.5 Transformation and Validation of Account Data
You can configure transformation and validation of account data that is brought into or sent from Oracle Identity Governance during reconciliation and provisioning operations by writing Groovy scripts while creating your application.
For more information, see Validation and Transformation of Provisioning and Reconciliation Attributes in Oracle Fusion Middleware Performing Self Service Tasks with Oracle Identity Governance.