Why SSO matters for LMS platforms
Learners who have to manage a separate LMS password will either reuse weak passwords or spend disproportionate time on password resets. SSO eliminates this by allowing learners to authenticate with their existing corporate credentials — the same account they use for email, Teams, or the HR system.
For administrators, SSO also enables automatic provisioning — new users appear in the LMS when they join the organisation and are deprovisioned when they leave, without manual admin work.
SAML 2.0
SAML is the most common enterprise SSO standard. It is used by corporate identity providers (IdPs) like Microsoft Active Directory Federation Services, Azure AD, Okta, and Google Workspace.
How it works: when a user visits your LMS and clicks sign in, they are redirected to your identity provider. After successful authentication, the IdP sends a signed XML assertion back to the LMS confirming who the user is and what attributes they have (name, email, role). The LMS creates or updates the learner account based on this assertion.
To enable SAML, your IT team needs to provide: the IdP metadata XML, the SSO endpoint URL, and the signing certificate.
OAuth 2.0 / OIDC
OpenID Connect (OIDC) is the modern alternative to SAML — used by Google, Microsoft (via Azure AD), GitHub, and most SaaS identity providers. It is simpler to implement and better suited to REST-based architectures.
The flow: the user is redirected to the authorisation server (Google, Azure AD, etc.), authenticates, and is redirected back to your LMS with an authorisation code. The LMS exchanges this for an ID token containing the user's identity claims.
LDAP / Active Directory
For on-premise deployments without a cloud identity provider, direct LDAP integration allows the LMS to authenticate users against your Active Directory. This is simpler than SAML or OIDC but requires network connectivity between the LMS server and your AD domain controllers.
What your IT team needs to provide
- For SAML: IdP metadata XML or SAML endpoint URL and signing certificate
- For OIDC: Client ID, Client Secret, and the discovery document URL
- For LDAP: AD server hostname, bind credentials, and the base DN for user searches