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How to build SAML SSO with WorkOS, Okta, and Ruby

Maria Paktiti
January 14, 2025

Step-by-step tutorial that walks you through the necessary steps to add SSO to your app using SAML, Okta, Ruby, and WorkOS.

If you’re building a website or web app for enterprise use, supporting Single Sign-On (SSO) is essential.

In this tutorial, we will go through all the steps required to implement SAML SSO using Okta as the identity provider, Ruby as the programming language, and WorkOS as the authentication middleware (aka authorization server).

We will walk you through two different implementations: one that uses AuthKit, a customizable login box powered by WorkOS and Radix, or another where you build your own login box.

While going through this tutorial, please remember that some things might get outdated as products evolve. Dashboards change, and new SDK versions are released every week. If while you follow this tutorial, something is not working for you, please refer to these docs for the most up-to-date guidance:

Prerequisites

To follow this tutorial, you will need the following:

  • An Okta account (with access to the admin dashboard).
  • A WorkOS account.
  • A Ruby app.

Step 1: Install the SDK

Add the WorkOS Ruby SDK to your app:

	
gem install workos

If you're using Bundler to manage your application's gems, add the WorkOS gem to your Gemfile:

  
source 'https://rubygems.org'

gem 'workos'

Step 2: Set secrets

To make calls to WorkOS, you must authenticate using the WorkOS API key and client ID. Copy these values from the WorkOS dashboard.

Store the values as managed secrets and pass them to the SDK either as environment variables or directly in your app’s configuration.

Environment variables example:

	
WORKOS_API_KEY='sk_example_123456789'
WORKOS_CLIENT_ID='client_123456789'

For more info on how to handle secrets safely see Best practices for secrets management.

Step 3: Configure the Okta connection

At WorkOS, SSO connections are enabled and configured at the organization level. An organization is a collection of users that also acts as a container for enterprise features (like SSO). By enabling an SSO connection for a specific organization, you enable the feature for all users who are members of this organization. This way, you can enable features like forcing all users that use a specific email domain to use a specific SSO connection. For more information on organizations and how to use them, see Model your B2B SaaS with organizations.

First, we will configure Okta SSO at the WorkOS dashboard, and then we will move on to the Okta admin dashboard to finish the configuration.

WorkOS configuration

  1. Go to the WorkOS dashboard and select Organizations in the left-hand nav.
  2. Pick (or create) the organization for which you’d like to configure an Okta connection.
  3. Select “Configure manually” under the “Single Sign-On” section.
  4. Pick “Okta” from the dropdown list and click “Create Connection”.

To create an Okta connection, you need the following information:

  • ACS URL: An Assertion Consumer Service URL (ACS URL) is an endpoint where an identity provider posts SAML responses (i.e., where the authentication response will be sent after the user is authenticated).
  • SP Entity ID: A Service Provider (SP) Entity ID is a URI used to identify the issuer of a SAML request, response, or assertion. In this case, the entity ID is used to communicate that WorkOS will be performing SAML requests to the organization’s Okta instance.
  • IdP Metadata URL: An Identity Provider Metadata (IdP Metadata) is the URL or XML file containing all of the metadata relevant to a specific identity provider. It includes attributes used by a service provider to route SAML messages, which minimizes the possibility of a rogue identity provider orchestrating a man-in-the-middle attack. Normally, this information will come from the organization’s IT Management team when they set up your application’s SAML 2.0 configuration in their Okta admin dashboard.

WorkOS provides the ACS URL and the SP Entity ID. Right after you create a new Okta connection you can see the values in the “Service Provider Details” section. We will use these values soon.

Okta configuration

To configure the connection on Okta’s side, follow these steps:

  1. Log in to Okta and go to the admin dashboard.
  2. Go to “Applications” and if your application is already created, select it from the list of applications, otherwise create a new one.
  3. Input the ACS URL from your WorkOS dashboard as the “Single Sign-On URL” and the SP Entity ID as the “Audience URI (SP Entity ID)”.
  4. Scroll down to the “Attribute Statements” section and use the “Add Another” button to add the following key-value pairs.‍
    • id → user.id
    • email → user.email
    • firstName → user.firstName
    • lastName → user.lastName‍
  5. Add users and/or groups to the Okta app.
  6. Click on the “Sign On” tab of the SAML app, click the “Actions” dropdown for the correct certificate and select “View IdP Metadata”. A separate tab will open. Copy the link in the browser.
  7. Back in the WorkOS dashboard, click on “Edit Configuration” in the “Identity Provider Configuration” section of the Connection. Input the Metadata URL and click “Save Metadata Configuration”. Your connection will then be linked and good to go!

For more detailed steps and screenshots follow the Okta SAML integration guide.

Step 4: Configure a redirect URI

A redirect URI is the endpoint where the users are redirected after they sign in. We’ll create this endpoint in a bit. For the time being we need to add the URI in the Redirects section of the WorkOS dashboard.

While wildcards in your URIs can be used in the staging environment, they and query parameters cannot be used in production. When users sign out of their application, they will be redirected to your app’s homepage, which is configured in the same dashboard area.

Step 5: Set up the frontend

We are ready to start adding code. In this tutorial we will use React in the frontend but you can use the framework you prefer.

To set up the frontend create a simple page with login and logout links. Create a new React app if you don’t have one already, and add the following code to your App.js:

	
export default function App() {
  return (
    <div className="App">
      <h1>SSO example</h1>
      <p>
        <a href="/login">Sign in</a>
      </p>
      <p>
        <a href="/logout">Sign out</a>
      </p>
    </div>
  );
}

Step 6: Set up the backend

The authentication process happens in two steps. First, we will start the authentication process by redirecting the user to the identity provider. After the user authenticates, they will be redirected back to the app which will finalize the process by getting the user’s profile an an access token.

At this point you have to decide whether you will use AuthKit, a customizable login box powered by WorkOS and Radix, or build your own login box. Depending on the choice you will use a different API:

SSO with AuthKit

Initiate login

When the user clicks “Sign in”, we need to start the authentication process. We will use the  authorization_url  method to generate the authorization URL where the user will be redirected to authenticate. For this tutorial we’ll be using the sinatra web server for Ruby.

Add the following code to server.rb:

	
require "dotenv/load"
require "workos"
require "sinatra"

WorkOS.configure do |config|
  config.key = ENV["WORKOS_API_KEY"]
end

get "/login" do
  authorization_url = WorkOS::UserManagement.authorization_url(
    provider: "authkit",
    client_id: ENV["WORKOS_CLIENT_ID"],
    redirect_uri: "http://localhost:4567/callback"
  )

  redirect authorization_url
end

After the user authenticates, WorkOS redirects them to the redirect_uri including in the query string the authorization code. The URL would look like this:

	
https://your-app.com/callback?code=g0FGFmNjVmOWIkTGf2PLk4FTYyFGU5

Your app needs to extract this code and exchange it for a token (in the next step).

Handle the callback

After the user successfully authenticates, WorkOS will generate a string (the authorization code) and send it back to the app as part of the Redirect URI. The app needs to extract that code and make another call to WorkOS in order to complete the authentication process by exchanging the authorization code for a token and user profile information.

Add the following code to server.rb:

	
get "/callback" do
  code = params["code"]

  begin
    auth_response = WorkOS::UserManagement.authenticate_with_code(
      client_id: client_id,
      code: code
    )

    # Use the information in auth_response for further business logic.

    redirect "/"
  rescue e
    puts e
    redirect "/login"
  end
end

The user has now successfully logged in with Okta SSO. This is what the response looks like:

	
{
  "user": {
    "object": "user",
    "id": "user_01E4ZCR3C56J083X43JQXF3JK5",
    "email": "marcelina.davis@example.com",
    "first_name": "Marcelina",
    "last_name": "Davis",
    "email_verified": true,
    "profile_picture_url": "https://workoscdn.com/images/v1/123abc",
    "created_at": "2021-06-25T19:07:33.155Z",
    "updated_at": "2021-06-25T19:07:33.155Z"
  },
  "organization_id": "org_01H945H0YD4F97JN9MATX7BYAG",
  "access_token": "eyJhb.nNzb19vaWRjX2tleV9.lc5Uk4yWVk5In0",
  "refresh_token": "yAjhKk123NLIjdrBdGZPf8pLIDvK",
  "impersonator": {
    "email": "admin@foocorp.com",
    "reason": "Investigating an issue with the customer's account."
  }
}

The user object can be used for further business login like personalizing the UI for the user.

The response also includes an access token and a refresh token. These two tokens can be used to manage the user’s session without asking them to authenticate all the time. The access token is short-lived and allows an application to access resources on a user’s behalf, while the refresh token, which lives a bit longer, can be used to get a new access token when that expires.

Both tokens should be handled and stored securely since if an attacker manages to obtain a user's token, they can impersonate the user and gain unauthorized access to protected resources. WorkOS SDKs use sealed sessions (i.e., sessions encrypted with a strong password) to keep tokens safe. For more information, see Handle the user session.

SSO without AuthKit

Initiate login

When the user clicks “Sign in”, we need to start the authentication process. We will use the sso.authorization_url method to generate the authorization URL where the user will be redirected to authenticate. For this tutorial we’ll be using the sinatra web server for Ruby.

Add the following code to server.rb:

	
require "sinatra"
require "workos"

CLIENT_ID = ENV["WORKOS_CLIENT_ID"]

get "/auth" do
  # Use the Test Organization ID to get started. Replace it with
  # the user’s real organization ID when you finish the integration.
  organization_id = "org_test_idp"

  # The callback URI WorkOS should redirect to after the authentication
  redirect_uri = "https://your-app.com/callback"

  authorization_url = WorkOS::SSO.authorization_url(
    client_id: CLIENT_ID,
    organization: organization_id,
    redirect_uri: redirect_uri
  )

  redirect authorization_url
end

After the user authenticates, WorkOS redirects them to the redirect_uri including in the query string the authorization code. The URL would look like this:

	
https://your-app.com/callback?code=g0FGFmNjVmOWIkTGf2PLk4FTYyFGU5

Your app needs to extract this code and exchange it for a token (in the next step).

Handle the callback

After the user successfully authenticates, WorkOS will generate a string (the authorization code) and send it back to the app as part of the Redirect URI. The app needs to extract that code and make another call to WorkOS in order to complete the authentication process by exchanging the authorization code for a token and user profile information.

Add the following code to server.rb:

	
require "sinatra"
require "workos"

CLIENT_ID = ENV["WORKOS_CLIENT_ID"]

get "/callback" do
  profile_and_token = WorkOS::SSO.profile_and_token(
    code: params["code"],
    client_id: CLIENT_ID
  )

  profile = profile_and_token.profile

  # Use the Test Organization ID to get started. Replace it with
  # the user’s real organization ID when you finish the integration.
  organization = "org_test_idp"

  # Validate that this profile belongs to the organization used for authentication
  if profile.organization_id != organization
    halt 401, "Unauthorized"
  end

  redirect "/"

  # Use the information in `profile` for further business logic.
end

The user has now successfully logged in with Okta SSO. This is what the response looks like:

	
{
  "access_token": "01DMEK0J53CVMC32CK5SE0KZ8Q",
  "profile": {
    "object": "profile",
    "id": "prof_01DMC79VCBZ0NY2099737PSVF1",
    "connection_id": "conn_01E4ZCR3C56J083X43JQXF3JK5",
    "connection_type": "OktaSAML",
    "organization_id": "org_01EHWNCE74X7JSDV0X3SZ3KJNY",
    "email": "todd@example.com",
    "first_name": "Todd",
    "last_name": "Rundgren",
    "idp_id": "00u1a0ufowBJlzPlk357",
    "role": { "slug": "admin" },
    "raw_attributes": {}
  }
}

The profile object can be used for further business login like personalizing the UI for the user.

Step 7: Test the connection

To confirm your Single Sign-On integration works correctly you can use the default Test Organization and active SSO connection you can find in the WorkOS dashboard.

To get started, go to the WorkOS dashboard and navigate to the Test SSO page. This page outlines a number of different SSO scenarios you can follow and provides all the necessary information to complete the tests.

  • Service provider-initiated SSO: The test simulates users initiating authentication from your sign-in page. In this scenario, the user enters their email in your app, gets redirected to the identity provider, and then is redirected back to your application. You can do this test with AuthKit or with standalone SSO.
  • Identity provider-initiated SSO: This test simulates users initiating authentication from their identity provider. It is a common login flow that developers forget to consider. In the scenario, users log in to the identity provider directly, select your application from their list of SSO-enabled apps, and are redirected to your application upon successful authentication.

Other options are guest email domain, which simulates users authenticating with an email domain different from the verified domain of the test organization, and error response, which simulates a generic error response from the user’s identity provider.

To run all these steps follow the on-screen instructions.

Next steps

You have now set up an SSO connection and successfully integrated it in your app. This is but the first step in your identity management journey. The next steps are handling the user’s session, implementing logout, adding social logins, implementing access control, provisioning users automatically, handling failed authentication events, and more. Stay tuned for follow up tutorials on all of these areas.

In the meanwhile here are some resources you might find useful:

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