Duo Single Sign-On for Smartsheet

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 Smartsheet 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 Smartsheet.

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 Smartsheet. Duo checks the user, device, and network against an application's policy before allowing access to the application.

Configure Single Sign-On

Before configuring Smartsheet 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 Smartsheet application in Duo.

Create the Smartsheet Application in Duo

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

2. Locate the entry for Smartsheet 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 Smartsheet. See Protecting Applications for more information about protecting applications in Duo and additional application options. You'll need the information on the Smartsheet page under Downloads later.

3. Smartsheet uses different mapped attributes when authenticating for Plan Level or Domain Level.

   Smartsheet - Plan Level uses the Mail attribute when authenticating. We've mapped the <Email Address> bridge attribute to Duo Single Sign-On supported authentication source attributes as follows:

   Bridge Attribute	Active Directory	SAML IdP
   <Email Address>	mail	Email

   Smartsheet - Domain Level uses the Mail attribute, First name attribute,and Last name attribute when authenticating. We've mapped the bridge attributes to Duo Single Sign-On supported authentication source attributes as follows:

   Bridge Attribute	Active Directory	SAML IdP
   <Email Address>	mail	Email
   <First Name>	givenName	FirstName
   <Last Name>	sn	LastName

4. If you are using non-standard attributes for your authentication source, check the Custom attributes box and enter the name of the attributes 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, enabling self-service, or assigning a group policy.

6. Keep the Duo Admin Panel tab open. You will come back to it 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

The Duo Smartsheet application supports the Universal Prompt by default, so there's no additional action required on your part to start using the newest authentication experience.

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. Universal Prompt is already activated for new Smartsheet applications at creation.

The "Universal Prompt" area of the application details page shows that this application's status is "Activation complete", 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" both here and on the Universal Prompt Update Progress report.

For the time being, you may change this setting to Show traditional prompt to use the legacy experience. Keep in mind that support for the traditional Duo prompt ended for the majority of applications in March 2024. This option will be removed in the future.

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 Smartsheet for SSO

You can enable Smartsheet at the plan level or domain level.

Enable Plan-Level SSO for Smartsheet

1. Log into the Smartsheet Admin Center as an administrator.

2. In the upper left corner of the page, click the menu icon and navigate to Settings → Authentication.

3. Click Manage federated SSO options.

4. Next to the "Authentication" section, click Edit.

5. On the "Authentication" page next to SAML, click not configured. The "SAML Administration" pop-up window opens.

6. Click Add IdP. The "Add IdP" pop-up window opens.

7. Enter a unique name for your identity provider into the IdP Nickname field.

8. Return to the Duo Admin Panel. Under "Downloads", click Download XML.

9. Open the XML metadata file in a text editor (like Notepad). Copy the entire contents of the file and paste the XML file text into the Smartsheet IdP Metadata field.

   

10. Click Save. The "Edit IdP" pop-up window opens.

11. Click Activate. A pop-up window notification appears. Close the pop-up window notification.

12. Copy the SSO URL.

    

13. Return to the Duo Admin Panel. Under "Service Provider", click the SSO Configuration Type drop-down menu and select Plan Level.

14. In the Duo Admin Panel, paste the SSO URL you copied from Smartsheet earlier into the SSO URL field.

15. Click the Region TLD and select your region TLD.

    

16. Scroll to the bottom of the page and click Save.

17. Return to Smartsheet. Close the "Edit IdP" pop-up window, and then close the "SAML Administration" pop-up window.

18. On the "Authentication" page, click the SAML checkbox.

19. Click Save.

Enable Domain-Level SSO for Smartsheet

1. Log into the Smartsheet Admin Center as an administrator.

2. In the upper left corner of the page, click the menu icon and then navigate to Settings → Authentication. The "Authentication" page opens.

3. In the left menu sidebar, click SAML Identity Provider (IdP).

4. Click Add a SAML IdP. The "Choose SAML IdP" page opens.

5. In the "Other IdP (Customize)" tile, click Configure. The "Configure SAML IdP" page opens.

6. Copy the Assertion Consumer Service (ACS) URL.

7. Return to the Duo Admin Panel. Under "Service Provider", click the SSO Configuration Type drop-down menu and select Domain Level.

8. Paste the ACS URL you copied from Smartsheet earlier into the Duo Admin Panel Assertion Consumer Service (ACS) URL field.

9. Return to Smartsheet. Copy the Audience Restriction (Entity ID) and paste it into the Duo Admin Panel Audience Restriction (Entity ID) field.

   Note: You will populate the SSO URL field in the Duo Admin Panel at a later step.

   

10. In the Duo Admin Panel, scroll down to the bottom of the page and click Save.

11. Return to Smartsheet. In the bottom right corner of the "Configure SAML IdP" page, click Next.

12. Return to the Duo Admin Panel. Under "Metadata", copy the SAML IdP Metadata XML URL and paste it into the Smartsheet XML URL (recommended) field.

    

13. In Smartsheet, enter a unique name for your identity provider into the Name SAML IdP field.

14. Click Save & Next. The "Verify IdP Connection" page opens.

15. Click Verify connection to be redirected to Duo Single Sign-On to test the connection.

16. After the test passes, click the I have successfully verified the connection checkbox.

17. Click Save & Next. The "Assign domains & SSO URL" page opens.

18. Click the Assign domains to SAML IdP drop-down menu and select your domain.

19. Copy the SSO URL and paste it into the Duo Admin Panel SSO URL field.

    

20. In the Duo Admin Panel, scroll down to the bottom of the page and click Save.

21. Return to Smartsheet. Click Save & Next and then click Finish.

22. In Smartsheet, under "SAML Identity Provider (IdP)", click the Applies To: drop-down menu in your identity provider tile and select your domain.

Learn more about plan-level SSO for Smartsheet at Smartsheet Help & Learning.

Learn more about domain-level SSO for Smartsheet at Smartsheet Help & Learning.

Using SSO

You can log on to Smartsheet by navigating to your Smartsheet SSO URL.

If you configured plan-level SSO for Smartsheet, enter your email address and click Continue. Click Company Login to be redirected to Duo Single Sign-On to begin authentication.

If you configured domain-level SSO for Smartsheet, enter your email address and click Continue. Click Sign in with your company account to be redirected 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 Smartsheet to complete the login process.

* Universal Prompt experience shown.

You can also log into Smartsheet using Duo Central, our cloud-hosted portal which allows users to access all of their applications in one spot. Link to Smartsheet 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 Smartsheet.

Congratulations! Your Smartsheet 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.

Enforce SSO

You can require that all users sign into Smartsheet using Duo Single Sign-On if you configured SSO at the plan level. This option is not available for domain-level SSO.

1. Log into the Smartsheet Admin Center as an administrator.

2. In the upper left corner of the page, click the menu icon and navigate to Settings → Authentication.

3. Click Manage federated SSO options.

4. Next to the "Authentication" section, click Edit.

5. On the "Authentication" page, uncheck all options except for SAML.

6. Click Save.

Enable Remembered Devices

To minimize additional Duo two-factor prompts when switching between Smartsheet 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.