Duo Single Sign-On for Workday

To apply Duo MFA policies to non-SSO Workday logins via authentication policy rules, refer to the Workday instructions.

Overview

As business applications move from on-premises to cloud hosted solutions, users experience password fatigue due to disparate logons for different applications. Single sign-on (SSO) technologies seek to unify identities across systems and reduce the number of different credentials a user has to remember or input to gain access to resources.

While SSO is convenient for users, it presents new security challenges. If a user's primary password is compromised, attackers may be able to gain access to multiple resources. In addition, as sensitive information makes its way to cloud-hosted services it is even more important to secure access by implementing two-factor authentication and zero-trust policies.

About Duo Single Sign-On

Duo Single Sign-On is our cloud-hosted SSO product which layers Duo's strong authentication and flexible policy engine on top of Workday logins. Duo Single Sign-On acts as an identity provider (IdP), authenticating your users using existing on-premises Active Directory (AD) or another SSO IdP. Duo SSO prompts users for two-factor authentication and performs endpoint assessment and verification before permitting access to Workday.

Duo Single Sign-On is available in Duo Premier, Duo Advantage, and Duo Essentials plans, which also include the ability to define policies that enforce unique controls for each individual SSO application. For example, you can require that Salesforce users complete two-factor authentication at every login, but only once every seven days when accessing Workday. Duo checks the user, device, and network against an application's policy before allowing access to the application.

Configure Single Sign-On

Before configuring Workday with Duo SSO using Security Assertion Markup Language (SAML) 2.0 authentication you'll first need to enable Duo Single Sign-On for your Duo account and configure a working authentication source.

Once you have your SSO authentication source working, continue to the next step of creating the Workday application in Duo.

Create the Workday Application in Duo

1. Log on to the Duo Admin Panel and navigate to Applications → Protect an Application.

2. Locate the entry for Workday with a protection type of "2FA with SSO hosted by Duo (Single Sign-On)" in the applications list. Click Protect to the far-right to start configuring Workday. See Protecting Applications for more information about protecting applications in Duo and additional application options. You'll need the information on the Workday page under Metadata later.

3. Enter your Workday Tenant URL used when logging into your company's Workday Tenant as the Workday Tenant URL. For example, if your Workday Tenant URL is https://myworkday.com/abc then enter myworkday.com/abc.

4. Workday uses the Username attribute when authenticating. We've mapped the <Username> bridge attribute to Duo Single Sign-On supported authentication source attributes as follows:

   Bridge Attribute	Active Directory	SAML IdP
   <Username>	sAMAccountName	Username

   If you are using a non-standard username attribute for your authentication source, check the Custom attributes box and enter the name of the attribute you wish to use instead.

   

5. You can adjust additional settings for your new SAML application at this time — like changing the application's name from the default value.

6. Scroll to the bottom of the page and click the Save button. Leave this page open as you'll need this information later.

Duo Universal Prompt

The Duo Universal Prompt provides a simplified and accessible Duo login experience for web-based applications, offering a redesigned visual interface with security and usability enhancements.

Universal Prompt	Traditional Prompt

We've already updated the Duo Workday application hosted in Duo's service to support the Universal Prompt, so there's no action required on your part to update the application itself. If you created your Workday application before March 2024, you can activate the Universal Prompt experience for users from the Duo Admin Panel. Workday applications created after March 2024 have the Universal Prompt activated by default.

If you created your Workday application before March 2024, it's a good idea to read the Universal Prompt Update Guide for more information, about the update process and the new login experience for users, before you activate the Universal Prompt for your application.

Activate Universal Prompt

Activation of the Universal Prompt is a per-application change. Activating it for one application does not change the login experience for your other Duo applications.

The "Universal Prompt" area of the application details page shows that this application is "Ready to activate", with these activation control options:

• Show traditional prompt: Your users experience Duo's traditional prompt via redirect when logging in to this application.
• Show new Universal Prompt: (Default) Your users experience the Universal Prompt via redirect when logging in to this application.

The application's Universal Prompt status shows "Activation complete" here and on the Universal Prompt Update Progress report.

Should you ever want to roll back to the traditional prompt, you can return to this setting and change it back to Show traditional prompt. However, this will still deliver the Duo prompt via redirect, not in an iframe. Keep in mind that support for the traditional Duo prompt ended for the majority of applications in March 2024.

Universal Update Progress

Click the See Update Progress link to view the Universal Prompt Update Progress report. This report shows the update availability and migration progress for all your Duo applications. You can also activate the new prompt experience for multiple supported applications from the report page instead of visiting the individual details pages for each application.

Enable Workday SSO

Add the Duo Single Sign-On as a new single sign-on provider for Workday.

1. Log into your Workday tenant as a Security Administrator.

2. In the upper-left hand corner type Edit Tenant Setup - Security into the search bar. Select the option from the drop-down.

3. On the "Edit Tenant Setup - Security" scroll down to the SAML Setup section.

4. Check the box next to Enable SAML Authentication.

5. Click the + icon under "SAML Identity Providers". A new set of text fields should appear.

6. In the field under Identity Provider Name type Duo SSO.

7. Copy the Issuer from the Duo Admin Panel Metadata section and paste it into the Workday Issuer field.

   Example: https://sso-abc1def2.sso.duosecurity.com/saml2/sp/DIABC123678901234567/metadata

8. Click the field under x509 Certificate and select Create x509 Public Key from the drop-down. You'll be taken to a new page.

9. On the "Create x509 Public Key" page type Duo SSO into the Name field.

10. In the Duo Admin Panel under "Downloads", click Copy certificate. Paste the copied certificate file text, including the -----BEGIN CERTIFICATE----- and -----END CERTIFICATE----- lines, into the field in Workday.

11. Click OK. You'll return to the Edit Tenant page.

    

12. Scroll back down to "SAML Setup" and you should now see Duo SSO listed under the "x509 Certificate" field.

13. In the "SAML Identity Providers" text fields scroll to the right to reveal more text fields.

14. Check the box under SP Initiated.

15. Copy the IdP SSO Service URL from the Duo Admin Panel Metadata section and paste it into the Workday IdP SSO Service URL field.

    Example: https://sso-abc1def2.sso.duosecurity.com/saml2/sp/DIABC123678901234567/sso

16. Click in the Used for Environments field. Select the environments you'd like to use SSO in.

    

17. Scroll down the page until you get to x509 Private Key Pair. If you already have a value in the x509 Private Key Pair field skip down to step 20. If not, continue these steps in order.

18. Click the text field next to x509 Private Key Pair. Select "Create x509 Private Key Pair" from the drop-down.

19. On the "Create x509 Private Key Pair" page type Workday SAML Key into the Name field and click OK. You'll return to the Edit Tenant page. Scroll back down to "SAML Setup".

    

20. Check the box next to Enable Mobile Browser SSO for Native Apps.

21. In the Service Provider ID field type the URL of your of Workday tenant. The format should be https://<workdayhost>/<tenantname>/login-saml.htmld.

    Example: If your Workday Tenant URL is https://myworkday.com/abc you would type https://myworkday.com/abc/login-saml.htmld into the Service Provider ID field.

22. Check the box next to Enable SP Initiated SAML Authentication (Will be Deprecated).

23. Check the box next to Do Not Deflate SP-initiated Authentication Request.

24. Check the box next to Always Require IdP Authentication and select ForceAuthn Only.

25. After you've entered all fields click OK.

    

Learn more about Workday SSO by visiting Workday Community.

Verify SSO

1. Open up a browser that is not logged into Workday. Go to https://<workdayhost>/<tenantname>/login-saml2.htmld.

   Example: If your Workday Tenant URL is https://myworkday.com/abc you would type https://myworkday.com/abc/login-saml2.htmld

2. Your browser will be automatically redirected to the Duo Single Sign-On login page. Enter your primary directory logon information, approve Duo two-factor authentication, and get redirected back to the Workday site after authenticating.

Enforcing Workday SSO

1. Return to your Workday tenant while logged into your security administrator account.

2. In the upper-left hand corner type Edit Tenant Setup - Security into the search bar. Select the option from the drop-down.

3. On the "Edit Tenant Setup - Security" scroll down to the Single Sign-on section.

4. Click the + icon under "Redirection URLs". A new set of text fields should appear.

5. Select Single URL for Redirect Type.

6. In the field under Login Redirect URL type https://<workdayhost>/<tenantname>/login-saml2.htmld.

   Example: If your Workday Tenant URL is https://myworkday.com/abc you would type https://myworkday.com/abc/login-saml2.htmld

7. In the "Redirection URLs" text fields scroll to the right to reveal more text fields.

8. In the field under Mobile App Login Redirect URL type same URL you used for step 6.

9. Scroll the In the field under Mobile Browser Login Redirect URL type same URL you used for step 6.

10. Click in the Environment field. Select the environment you'd like to use SSO enforcement in.

11. After you've entered all fields click OK.

    

Using SSO

You can log on to Workday by navigating to your Workday Tenant URL e.g. https://myworkday.com/abc. This redirects you to Duo Single Sign-On to begin authentication.

Active Directory Login

With Active Directory as the Duo SSO authentication source, enter the primary username (email address) on the Duo SSO login page and click or tap Next.

Enter the AD primary password and click or tap Log in to continue.

Enable Duo Passwordless to log in to Duo SSO backed by Active Directory authentication without entering a password in the future.

SAML Login

With another SAML identity provider as the Duo SSO authentication source, Duo SSO immediately redirects the login attempt to that SAML IdP for primary authentication. Users do not see the Duo SSO primary login screen.

Duo Authentication

Successful verification of your primary credentials by Active Directory or a SAML IdP redirects back to Duo. Complete Duo two-factor authentication when prompted and then you'll return to Workday to complete the login process.

* Universal Prompt experience shown.

You can also log into Workday using Duo Central, our cloud-hosted portal which allows users to access all of their applications in one spot. Link to Workday in Duo Central by adding it as an application tile. Once the tile has been added, log into Duo Central and click the tile for IdP-initiated authentication to Workday.

Congratulations! Your Workday users now authenticate using Duo Single Sign-On.

See the full user login experience, including expired password reset (available for Active Directory authentication sources) in the Duo End User Guide for SSO.

Enable Remembered Devices

To minimize additional Duo two-factor prompts when switching between Workday and your other Duo Single Sign-On SAML applications, be sure to apply a shared "Remembered Devices" policy to your SAML applications.

Troubleshooting

Need some help? Try searching our Knowledge Base articles or Community discussions. For further assistance, contact Support.