What is a Guest User?
A guest user is an Microsoft Entra ID Business-to-Business account which is utilized to provide seamless collaboration between the Microsoft Cloud organizations.
For more context and details check out Microsoft’s document on the topic, What is guest user access in Microsoft Entra ID B2B?
Can I create, update and delete Guest user objects with Directory Sync?
Yes, Directory Sync provides create, update and delete capabilities to keep your multiple identities, objects and properties in sync for short-term and long-term integration needs.
There are two (2) new additional options to create users in a target cloud directory, highlighted below. The image shows the Template wizard where you may manage how users are created.
Figure 1: Example Template Wizard - Create New Users – Guest Options
What does the Guest User option do?
The Guest User option (see figure 1) will create a user object with the type of Guest within the destination directory configured in the workflow. This user’s password will be set and managed within the target directory management controls. This user’s UPN, Display Name and email address will be constructed based on the template mapping controls configured within the workflow.
What does the Guest Invite option do?
The Guest Invite option (see figure 1) will create a user object with the type of Guest within the destination directory configured in the workflow and immediately send an invitation to the source email user account. This user’s UPN will be constructed automatically by Microsoft to meet their requirements for B2B functionality. This user’s password will not be set and will continue to be managed from the source directory management tools and administrators. All other attributes set during creation will be determined by the template mapping controls configured within the workflow.
Can I send an invitation later if I didn’t send one during creation?
Yes, Microsoft provides numerous methods for managing invitations. For more details, see the Microsoft Entra ID B2B documentation.
Can I match to an existing Guest user and update it?
Yes, Directory Sync can match and update existing Guest user types in Active Directory and Microsoft Entra ID.
What is the recommend matching attribute for Guest Users?
To match a source user object to a target Guest user object can sometimes be challenging because depending on the type of target Guest user object, there may not be a readily available attribute or property that can be used for an exact match to ensure an accurate match.
How to identify unique attributes for Matching to Guest Users
Before synchronization, you must first decide how to derive the matching attribute pairs between the source user object and target guest object. In other words, what parameters in your environment are unique to your external collaborators? Determine a parameter that distinguishes these external collaborators from members of your own organization.
A common approach to resolve this is to:
- Designate an unused attribute (for example, extensionAttribute1) to use as the source attribute that will match to a unique identifier attribute, such as email, in the target.
- Next construct the value for that attribute from other source properties, to create a unique identifier that will be found in the target. For example, use the email address of the source user to construct the extensionAttribute1 value as Source Local Part @ Target Domain.
Can I create a local user, so it is ready to be synchronized up to Microsoft Entra ID as a Guest?
Yes, Directory Sync supports the creation of local user objects for this purpose. Simply configure the template mappings to set the attribute value of the predetermined attributed which will be used by Microsoft Entra Connect to set the UserType = Guest in the cloud object. If you are using a different method within Microsoft Entra Connect, adjust your mapping rules to fit your needs.
You can use Microsoft Entra Connect to sync the accounts to the cloud as Microsoft Entra B2B users (that is, users with UserType = Guest). This enables your users to access cloud resources using the same credentials as their local accounts, without giving them more access than they require.
For more information about How to grant local users access to cloud apps read this Microsoft article on the topic.
For details on How to enable synchronization of UserType for Microsoft Entra Connect then please read this Microsoft document.
Additional Information
How To Use Guest Users in Directory Sync
What is guest user access in Microsoft Entra ID B2B?
Microsoft Entra ID B2B best practices
Microsoft Entra ID B2B documentation
Properties of an Microsoft Entra ID B2B collaboration user
Quickstart: Add guest users to your directory in the Azure portal
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