Single Sign On For Thinkific

Thinkific provides a platform that allows businesses or people to use their existing resources and knowledge to create and deliver online courses. Companies/People usually have an existing application/site where student credentials are already stored. Thinkific allows its users to use their existing credentials to log in to their Thinkific platform using JWT (JSON Web Token). An interface needs to be created on the existing site that can generate that JWT token and log students into Thinkific using their existing credentials. miniOrange has a solution to this problem.

Challenge

Thinkific users want a continuous and seamless access to their portal through their existing accounts. They don't wish for their students to have a separate set of credentials for logging in to Thinkific. Thinkific provides a way for its users to allow their students to log in to the platform seamlessly. But, an interface needs to be created which would allow this.

Solution

miniOrange provides an integrated solution where a logged in user's existing session can be used to log the users into Thinkific by creating a valid JSON Web Token ( JWT ). Thinkific user is relieved from maintaining separate user credentials for its students.

As a result, miniOrange Single Sign-On (SSO) solution is implemented by installing miniOrange IDP plugin. Thinkific users can now login into Thinkific platform using their existing credentials.

Prerequisite:

Obtain the following information from Thinkific.

• Login to your Thinkific, go to Settings. Click on Code & analytics.
• Navigate to API.



• You can find the API Key ( Shared Secret ) here.
  
• Also, Obtain the Subdomain from here and replace the URL next.
• JWT Endpoint URL: Example : https://{Subdomain}.thinkific.com/api/sso/v2/sso/jwt?jwt=

Step by step guide to set up Thinkific as SP and miniOrange as IDP :

Step 1:Configure External IDP in miniOrange

• To login to Thinkific through the existing Application, go to Identity Provider tab in the left hand navigation menu.



• Here you can configure any Identity Provider of your Choice.e.g: Okta, Azure AD
• Note: you need to Send first_name and last_name as configure attributes



• To setup Azure AD as Identity provider Click Here.
• Also, to have a look over other Identity Provider Setup with miniOrange Click Here.

Step 1: Choose Your User Directory

1.1: Setup AD as User Directory

1. Login to miniOrange dashboard from the Admin Console.
2. From the left side menu, click on User Stores >> Add User Store.



3. Select User Store type as AD/LDAP.



1. STORE LDAP CONFIGURATION IN MINIORANGE: Choose this option if you want to keep your configuration in miniOrange. If active directory is behind a firewall, you will need to open the firewall to allow incoming requests to your AD.
2. STORE LDAP CONFIGURATION ON PREMISE: Choose this option if you want to keep your configuration in your premise and only allow access to AD inside premises. You will have to download and install miniOrange gateway in your premise.




4. Enter LDAP Display Name and LDAP Identifier name.
5. Select Directory Type as Active Directory.
6. Enter the LDAP Server URL or IP Address against LDAP Server URL field.
7. Click on Test Connection button to verify if you have made a successful connection with your LDAP server.



8. In Active Directory, go to the properties of user containers/OU's and search for Distinguished Name attribute.



9. Enter the valid Bind account Password.
10. Click on Test Bind Account Credentials button to verify your LDAP Bind credentials for LDAP connection.



11. Search Base is the location in the directory where the search for a user begins. You will get this from the same place you got your Distinguished name.



12. Select a suitable Search filter from the drop down menu. To use custom Search Filter select "Custom Search Filter" option and customize it accordingly.



13. You can also configure following options while setting up AD. Enable Activate LDAP in order to authenticate users from AD/LDAP. Click on the Save button to add user store.




Here's the list of the attributes and what it does when we enable it. You can enable/disable accordingly.

Attribute	Description
Activate LDAP	All user authentications will be done with LDAP credentials if you Activate it
Sync users in miniOrange	Users will be created in miniOrange after authentication with LDAP
Backup Authentication	If LDAP credentials fail then user will be authenticated through miniOrange
Allow users to change password	This allows your users to change their password. It updates the new credentials in your LDAP server
Enable administrator login	On enabling this, your miniOrange Administrator login authenticates using your LDAP server
Show IdP to users	If you enable this option, this IdP will be visible to users
Send Configured Attributes	If you enable this option, then only the attributes configured below will be sent in attributes at the time of login



14. Click on Save. After this, it will show you the list of User stores. Click on Test Configuration to check whether you have enter valid details. For that, it will ask for username and password.



15. On Successful connection with LDAP Server, a success message is shown.
16. Click on Test Attribute Mapping.



17. Enter a valid Username. Then, click on Test. Mapped Attributes corresponding to the user are fetched.



18. After successful Attribute Mapping Configuration, go back to the ldap configuration and enable Activate LDAP in order to authenticate users from AD/LDAP.

Refer our guide to setup LDAPS on windows server.




1.2: Setup miniOrange as a User Store

1. Log in to miniOrange dashboard from the Admin Console.
2. There are 3 ways to setup miniOrange as an Identity Source

1.2.1 Create User in miniOrange

1.2.2 Bulk Upload Users

1.2.3 Self User Registration




1.2.1 Create User in miniOrange

• Click on Users >> Add User.



• Here, fill the user details without the password and then click on the Create User button.



• After successful user creation a notification message "An end user is added successfully" will be displayed at the top of the dashboard.



• Click on On Boarding Status tab. Check the email, with the registered e-mail id and select action Send Activation Mail with Password Reset Link from Select Action dropdown list and then click on Apply button.



• Now, Open your email id. Open the mail you get from miniOrange and then click on the link to set your account password.
• On the next screen, enter the password and confirm password and then click on the Single Sign-On (SSO) reset password button.




• Now, you can log in into miniOrange account by entering your credentials.



1.2.2 Bulk Upload Users in miniOrange via Uploading CSV File.

• Navigate to Users >> User List. Click on Add User button.



• In Bulk User Registration Download sample csv format from our console and edit this csv file according to the instructions.



• To bulk upload users, choose the file make sure it is in comma separated .csv file format then click on Upload.



• After uploading the csv file successfully, you will see a success message with a link.
• Click on that link you will see list of users to send activation mail. Select users to send activation mail and click on Send Activation Mail. An activation mail will be sent to the selected users.



1.2.3 Self User Registration

• miniOrange self user registration allows end users to register themselves using customized registration form. miniOrange admin users can customize the registration form by adding more custom fields accodring to their choice. Learn More

Step 2: Configure Thinkific Application in miniOrange

• Login to miniOrange Admin Console.
• Go to Apps >> Manage Apps. Click on Add Application button.



• Select JWT App.Click on Thinkific.







• In Add Apps tab enter the values and click on Save.

  Custom Application Name	Choose appropriate name according to your choice.
  Description	Add appropriate description according to your choice.
  Redirect-URL	JWT Endpoint fetched from JWT in the previous step.

• To configure App secret go to Edit against your configured app, Apps>>Select your app>>Edit






App Secret	The API Token fetched from Thinkific dashboard
Signature Algorithm	Choose HS256

• Click on Save
• Now, You can access Thinkific Account Using IDP credentials through the Single-sign-on URL as shown in image above.

Step 3: Thinkific Login

• Lets say you have configured miniOrange as userstore.
• So after accessing the Single sign on URL , you will be asked for miniOrange crediantials.



• And on entering the valid credentials, Click on sign in and you will redirected sucessfully to Thinkificfic.