There are many ways to login to your Salesforce instance, using Google, Facebook, Linked, Twitter and even from other Salesforce Organization. I am sure many of readers has multiple Salesforce instances and its hard to remember password of each. We can connect every Salesforce instances and login using only one. In this post we will see, how we can login to one Salesforce from other using built in Authentication provider from Salesforce.
Throughout this article I will use term “service provider Salesforce instance” for Organization where I need to go after login and “Authentication Provider instance” which will authenticate user and will act as source organization for login.
Enable MyDomain
First step to start with Authentication Provider is to setup my domain in your “service provider Salesforce instance“. This step is important so that it will display all available Authentication provider for that Salesforce instance.
Create Connected app
If you want to login from Facebook, LinkedIn or any other web application, you need to inform Salesforce that those applications are legitimate and this is very important piece of OAuth2. One of major difference between OAuth1 and OAuth2 is that OAuth2 provides scope where you can set what specific permission this Connected App will need.
Connected App also has “Consumer Key” and “Consumer Secret” which is equivalent to “username” and “password” for that App.
Other important setting, connected app has “Callback URL“. This is the URL where “Authentication Provider instance” should return after providing access. Even if somehow “Consumer Key” and “Consumer Secret” is compromised, it will return to Callback URL which is your application.
In this post we need “service provider Salesforce instance” to be logged in from “Authentication Provider instance“. So “Authentication Provider instance” should be able to identify that request is coming from “service provider Salesforce instance“. Therefore Connected App needs to be created in “service provider Salesforce instance” (SP).
To create Connected App in “service provider Salesforce instance“, Navigate to “Setup | Build | Create | Apps | Connected Apps” and click on New. Provide All information except “Callback URL”. We will comeback again on this step later to provide Callback URL.
Once you save this Connected app, it will provide “Consumer Key” and “Consumer Secret”, we need this information in next step.
Create Authorization Provider
Its time to create Authorization Provider in “Authentication provider Salesforce instance (IDP)”.
Navigate to “Setup | Administer | Security Controls | Auth. Providers | Create New”.
Select “Salesforce” as provider Type.
We need to provide “Consumer Key” and “Consumer Secret” created in previous step. Also one important setting is “Default Scope“, it should have value as “refresh_token full”. “refresh_token” and “full” should be separated by space. Authorize Endpoint URL should be something like “https://AuthenticationProviderinstance/services/oauth2/authorize” and Token Endpoint URL “https://AuthenticationProviderinstance/services/oauth2/token“.
Click on “Automatically create a registration handler template”, it will generate one apex class, in my case auto generated apex class name is “AutocreatedRegHandler1432826053915”. Then Select User who should be used to execute this Apex class when user tries to login.
Set Callback URL in Connected App
Once you save “Auth. Provider” in previous step, it will provide you list of URL as shown in below image. Copy Callback URL and edit Connected App we created in service provider Salesforce instance and set this URL.
you can even test your application using “Test-Only initialization URL”, however in our case we need to modify our Apex class, so need to wait.
Create field in User Object
We are almost there, but we have one problem to address. When someone tries to login from “Authentication Provider instance”, how we will match which user from “Authentication Provider instance” matched with user in “service provider Salesforce instance” ? We will need to create one field on User object which will save username of other Salesforce instance. In this case, I have created field “Other Salesforce Org Username”. Once field is created, populate every user record so that we should be able to match them.
Update Auto generated Registration Handler Apex class
Replace content of Apex class by below code, in our case class name is “AutocreatedRegHandler1432826053915”.
/**
* @Author : Jitendra Zaa
* @Date : 5/29/2015
* @Description : Match User from Other Salesforce instance with this Salesforce.
*
**/
global class AutocreatedRegHandler1432826053915 implements Auth.RegistrationHandler{
/**
* This method is used to match existing user, If not find then we can create new User.
* This method will be executed only first time so that Salesforce can relate two users
*/
global User createUser(Id portalId, Auth.UserData data){
User u = [SELECT ID FROM User Where Other_Salesforce_Org_Username__c = : data.username];
return u;
}
/**
* Once Users are related, after that whenever user will return, this method wil be executed.
* If needed, we can perform any information needed.
* In this blog , we are not going to perform any operation in this method.
*/
global void updateUser(Id userId, Id portalId, Auth.UserData data){
//No Operation
}
}
As you can see, this class implements interface “Auth.RegistrationHandler” which has contract for two methods named “createUser” and “updateUser”, other piece of code is commented to explain.
Add Salesforce button on Login Page
Navigate to “Setup | Administer | Domain Management | My Domain | Authentication Configuration | Edit”.
This page will provide, list of all Authentication providers like LinkedIn, Facebook, Google, In our case Salesforce.
Now logout and navigate to Login page specific to your instance and you should be able to see all Authentication provider buttons for your instance. Pleas note that, Authentication provider button will not appear on “https://login.salesforce.com” page, it has to be Mydomain login URL.
This is sample of Login page, how it will look like.
HI Jitendra,
Can you please brief me out 1 thing, how my authentication provider instance will authenticate my other / target instance becaus every configuration which you have discussed here is for target/ current org. I am not able to get how this will allow me to login via other org into current org?
Hi Sachin, I have updated this article to make it more clear, If you want you can check this article as well – https://www.jitendrazaa.com/blog/salesforce/salesforce-to-salesforce-integration-using-canvas/
Thank you!!
Hi,
We are trying to implement SSO using Facebook credentials. When we use the SSO URL, it redirects us to the FB login screen, where when we enter our credentials, it gives an error. Screenshot attached. Do you have any idea how to resolve it?
When I check the debug logs, it is inserting the contact, inserting the user, but then fails with this error, giving no other information in the debug log.
Any suggestions welcome 🙂
Hi Sumit, Can you please attach screenshot ?
Hi,
I am calling the method on the page and I am getting the Html code there. Any suggestion ?
Hi,
I want to know the way to modify SAML response before sending to SP to add the permission set name assigned to the user for the connected app to connect with SP.
I found that it can be done using ConnectedAppPlugIn class. Please help with some sample.
Thanks
Sanjeev
Any Suggestions?
You cannot intercept SAML reponse before reaching to SP, Handshaking of certificate / Authentication will fail. IP needs to have this permission. If you give some thoughts around security, its not possible.
I have done everything you explained and in the end when I click on the button I am getting logged in to the same org rather that getting logged in to a different(expected) org. Can you please help where probably I could have done mistake? Where should the auth provider should be created?
Hi Jitendra Zaa,
I have done all your steps but finally i get this error…
We can’t log you in because of the following error. For more information, contact your Salesforce administrator.
CSRF: No CSRF cookie
We can’t log you in because of the following error. For more information, contact your Salesforce administrator.
CSRF: CSRF mismatch: Cookie 24420330048643426601489835138143-3899016716802188792, request -19060066950583086001489835731663-8855758307183285335
How to fix?
Pls help anyone…
Hi Jitendra,
I’m trying to do the authentication from a form through php and once the authentication is complete, I’m trying to post the form info to salesforce. Since I have to provide callback url, the control is going to callbackurl instead of the calling form/php. Do you know how I can solve this issue so I still can have the form information to post in the callback url or to go back to calling form/php instead of callback url?
Confusing…
The blog is not at all clear what should be done in what Org.
I assume (but haven’t yet tried)
Create Connected app = “service provider Salesforce instance”
Create Authorization Provider = “Authentication Provider instance”
Set Callback URL in Connected App = “service provider Salesforce instance”
Create field in User Object = “Authentication Provider instance”
Update Auto generated Registration Handler Apex class = “Authentication Provider instance”
Add Salesforce button on Login Page = “service provider Salesforce instance”
Can you update the blog to make this easier to follow, or at least confirm by above assumptions?
Hi Ian,
Throughout this article I have used term “service provider Salesforce instance” for Organization where I need to go after login and “Authentication Provider instance” which will authenticate user and will act as source organization for login. Made some text bold , let me know if it helps.
I feel something is not correct.
When adding the “Salesforce button on Login Page” system will show all the Auth Provider list. Since we have created Auth. Provider in another org, this Org will not show that option.
Hi Jitendra,
Thank you for the detailed steps. I’m trying to set up a Salesforce based SSO for a community. I.e. a user with a Salesforce account on any org should be able to login to my community. While I’ve followed your steps to set up the SSO, from the login screen on the community, when I select “SSO Provider” button, I am taken to a page that shows me an error message:
error=redirect_uri_mismatch&error_description=redirect_uri%20must%20match%20configuration
Upon reading up, it is said that the redirect URL defined in the connected app sometimes takes a while to propagate across all the Salesforce instances and so this error could occur. It’s been more than 24 hours but I still run into the same error. Do you know of any other reason why this error could occur? Thanks.
Hii Jitendra
I’m getting an error saying
“We can’t log you in because of the following error. For more information, contact your Salesforce administrator.
REGISTRATION_HANDLER_ERROR: List has no rows for assignment to SObject”
when i’m trying to login using REST.
Awaiting response,
Mithilesh
Any update on REGISTRATION_HANDLER_ERROR? Please let us know.
Hi Jitendra,
I have followed all the mentioned steps, when i try to login i get the below error
We can’t log you in because of the following error. For more information, contact your Salesforce administrator.
NO_ACCESS: Unable to find a user
Please let me if i am missing anything here.
Thank you very much!
Krishna
I followed the steps, also replaced the client Id with my consumer key but getting the following error:
error=invalid_client_id&error_description=client%20identifier%20invalid
Hi Jitendra,
Thanks for the post. Is there any blog post for the below scenario
Embed external web application in a custom tab. Once clicked on this custom tab the user should be automatically logged in and show this external web application with in this custom tab.
If you can guide with some of your inputs or link to any of your blog post would be really helpful.
Thanks, Sai
Thanks Jitendra, this is helpful !
Hi Jitendra,
I have implemented the Identity provider using the steps given above, but I end-up with an error and now I am unable to login to my developer org. I am getting the following error.
“Unable to Access Page
The value of the “state” parameter contains a character that is not allowed or the value exceeds the maximum allowed length. Remove the character from the parameter value or reduce the value length and resubmit. If the error still persists, report it to our Customer Support team. Provide the URL of the page you were requesting as well as any other related information. ”
This error occurred when I logged out and logged in to org.
Could you please help me resolving the issue.
Thanks in advance,
–Pranay