Customize SAML token claims

The Microsoft identity platform supports single sign-on (SSO) with most preintegrated applications in the application gallery and custom applications. When a user authenticates to an application through the Microsoft identity platform using the SAML 2.0 protocol, a token is sent to the application. The application validates and uses the token to sign the user in instead of prompting for a username and password.

These SAML tokens contain pieces of information about the user known as claims. A claim is information that an identity provider states about a user inside the token they issue for that user. In a SAML token, claims data is typically contained in the SAML Attribute Statement. The user's unique ID is typically represented in the SAML subject, which is also referred to as the name identifier (nameID).

By default, the Microsoft identity platform issues a SAML token to an application that contains a claim with a value of the user's username (also known as the user principal name), which can uniquely identify the user. The SAML token also contains other claims that include the user's email address, first name, and last name.

View or edit claims

To view or edit the claims issued in the SAML token to the application:

1. Sign in to the Microsoft Entra admin center as at least a Cloud Application Administrator.
2. Browse to Identity > Applications > Enterprise applications > All applications.
3. Select the application, select Single sign-on in the left-hand menu, and then select Edit in the Attributes & Claims section.

You might need to edit the claims issued in the SAML token for the following reasons:

• The application requires the NameIdentifier or nameID claim to be something other than the username (or user principal name).
• The application has been written to require a different set of claim URIs or claim values.

Edit nameID

To edit the name identifier value claim:

1. Open the Name identifier value page.
2. Select the attribute or transformation that you want to apply to the attribute. Optionally, you can specify the format that you want the nameID claim to have.

NameID format

If the SAML request contains the element NameIDPolicy with a specific format, then the Microsoft identity platform honors the format in the request.

If the SAML request doesn't contain an element for NameIDPolicy, then the Microsoft identity platform issues the nameID with the format you specify. If no format is specified, the Microsoft identity platform uses the default source format associated with the claim source selected. If a transformation results in a null or illegal value, Microsoft Entra ID sends a persistent pairwise identifier in the nameID.

From the Choose name identifier format dropdown, select one of the options in the following table.

Transient nameID is also supported, but isn't available in the dropdown and can't be configured on Azure's side. To learn more about the NameIDPolicy attribute, see Single sign-On SAML protocol.

Attributes

Select the desired source for the NameIdentifier (or nameID) claim. You can select from the options in the following table.

For more information about identifier values, see the table that lists the valid ID values per source later in this page.

Any constant (static) value can be assigned to any claim. Use the following steps to assign a constant value:

1. On the Attributes & Claims blade, select the required claim that you want to modify.
2. Enter the constant value without quotes in the Source attribute as per your organization and select Save. The constant value is displayed.

Directory Schema extensions

You can also configure directory schema extension attributes as non-conditional/conditional attributes. Use the following steps to configure the single or multi-valued directory schema extension attribute as a claim:

1. On the Attributes & Claims blade, select Add new claim or edit an existing claim.
2. Select source application from application picker where extension property is defined.
3. Select Add to add the selection to the claims.
4. Click Save to commit the changes.

Special claims transformations

You can use the following special claims transformations functions.

Add application-specific claims

To add application-specific claims:

1. On the Attributes & Claims blade, select Add new claim to open the Manage user claims page.
2. Enter the name of the claims. The value doesn't strictly need to follow a URI pattern, per the SAML spec. If you need a URI pattern, you can put that in the Namespace field.
3. Select the Source where the claim is going to retrieve its value. You can select a user attribute from the source attribute dropdown or apply a transformation to the user attribute before emitting it as a claim.

Add a group claim

Group claims are used to make authorization decisions to access a resource by an app or a service provider. To add group claims;

1. Navigate to App registrations and select the app you wish to add a group claim to.
2. Select Add groups claim.
3. Select the group types to include in your token. You can add security groups, directory groups, or groups assigned to a particular application.
4. Choose the values you wish to include in your groups claim, then select Add.

Claim transformations

To apply a transformation to a user attribute:

1. In Manage claim, select Transformation as the claim source to open the Manage transformation page.
2. Select the function from the transformation dropdown. Depending on the function selected, provide parameters and a constant value to evaluate in the transformation.
3. Select the source of the attribute by clicking on the appropriate radio button.
4. Select the attribute name from the dropdown.
5. Treat source as multivalued is a checkbox indicating whether the transform should be applied to all values or just the first. By default, transformations are only applied to the first element in a multi-value claim, by checking this box it ensures it's applied to all. This checkbox is only be enabled for multi-valued attributes, for example user.proxyaddresses.
6. To apply multiple transformations, select Add transformation. You can apply a maximum of two transformations to a claim. For example, you could first extract the email prefix of the user.mail. Then, make the string upper case.

You can use the following functions to transform claims.

Regex-based claims transformation

The following image shows an example of the first level of transformation:

The actions listed in the following table provide information about the first level of transformations and correspond to the labels in the previous image. Select Edit to open the claims transformation blade.

The following image shows an example of the second level of transformation:

The following table provides information about the second level of transformations. The actions listed in the table correspond to the labels in the previous image.

The following image shows an example of testing the transformations:

The following table provides information about testing the transformations. The actions listed in the table correspond to the labels in the previous image.

RegexReplace() transformation is also available for the group claims transformations.

RegexReplace() transformation validations

When the following conditions occur after Add or Run test is selected, a message is displayed that provides more information about the issue:

• Input parameters with duplicate user attributes aren't allowed.
• Unused input parameters found. Defined input parameters should have respective usage into the Replacement pattern text.
• The provided test regex input doesn't match with the provided regular expression.
• The source for the groups into the replacement pattern isn't found.

Add the UPN claim to SAML tokens

The http://schemas.xmlsoap.org/ws/2005/05/identity/claims/upn claim is part of the SAML restricted claim set. If you have custom signing key configured, you can add it in the Attributes & Claims section.

In case there is no custom signing key configured, please refer to SAML Restricted claim set. You can add it as an optional claim through App registrations in the Azure portal.

Open the application in App registrations, select Token configuration, and then select Add optional claim. Select the SAML token type, choose upn from the list, and then click Add to add the claim to the token.

Customization done in the Attributes & Claims section can overwrite the optional claims in the App Registration.

Emit claims based on conditions

You can specify the source of a claim based on user type and the group to which the user belongs.

The user type can be:

• Any - All users are allowed to access the application.
• Members: Native member of the tenant
• All guests: User is brought over from an external organization with or without Microsoft Entra ID.
• Microsoft Entra guests: Guest user belongs to another organization using Microsoft Entra ID.
• External guests: Guest user belongs to an external organization that doesn't have Microsoft Entra ID.

One scenario where the user type is helpful is when the source of a claim is different for a guest and an employee accessing an application. You can specify that if the user is an employee, the NameID is sourced from user.email. If the user is a guest, then the NameID is sourced from user.extensionattribute1.

To add a claim condition:

1. In Manage claim, expand the Claim conditions.
2. Select the user type.
3. Select the group(s) to which the user should belong. You can select up to 50 unique groups across all claims for a given application.
4. Select the Source where the claim is going to retrieve its value. You can either select a user attribute from the dropdown for the source attribute or apply a transformation to the user attribute. You can also select a directory schema extension before emitting it as a claim.

The order in which you add the conditions are important. Microsoft Entra first evaluates all conditions with source Attribute and then evaluates all conditions with source Transformation to decide which value to emit in the claim. Conditions with the same source are evaluated from top to bottom. The last value, which matches the expression is emitted in the claim. Transformations such as IsNotEmpty and Contains act like restrictions.

For example, Britta Simon is a guest user in the Contoso tenant. Britta belongs to another organization that also uses Microsoft Entra ID. Given the following configuration for the Fabrikam application, when Britta tries to sign in to Fabrikam, the Microsoft identity platform evaluates the conditions.

First, the Microsoft identity platform verifies whether Britta's user type is All guests. Because the type is All guests, the Microsoft identity platform assigns the source for the claim to user.extensionattribute1. Second, the Microsoft identity platform verifies whether Britta's user type is Microsoft Entra guests. Because the type is All guests, the Microsoft identity platform assigns the source for the claim to user.mail. Finally, the claim is emitted with a value of user.mail for Britta.

As another example, consider when Britta Simon tries to sign in and the following configuration is used. All conditions are first evaluated with the source of Attribute. Because Britta's user type is Microsoft Entra guests, user.mail is assigned as the source for the claim. Next, the transformations are evaluated. Because Britta is a guest, user.extensionattribute1 is now the new source for the claim. Because Britta is in Microsoft Entra guests, user.othermail is now the source for this claim. Finally, the claim is emitted with a value of user.othermail for Britta.

As a final example, consider what happens if Britta has no user.othermail configured or it's empty. In both cases the condition entry is ignored, and the claim falls back to user.extensionattribute1 instead.

Advanced SAML claims options

Advanced claims options can be configured for SAML2.0 applications to expose the same claim to OIDC tokens and vice versa for applications that intend to use the same claim for both SAML2.0 and OIDC response tokens.

Advanced claim options can be configured by checking the box under Advanced SAML Claims Options in the Manage claims blade.

The following table lists other advanced options that can be configured for an application.

Related content

• Configure single sign-on for applications that aren't in the Microsoft Entra application gallery