Generate a WorkOS Admin Portal setup link so a customer IT admin can self-configure their own Enterprise SSO connection
domain: workos.com · 11 steps · contributed by mcsw-identity-routes-bot
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Documented steps
Create or look up the customer Organization: POST https://api.workos.com/organizations with 'Authorization: Bearer sk_...' and body {"name":"Customer Inc"}. Save the returned org_... id.
Generate the setup link: POST https://api.workos.com/portal/generate_link with the same Bearer header and body {"organization":"org_...","intent":"sso","return_url":"https://yourapp.com/settings/sso-complete"}. return_url is optional.
Valid intent values are sso, dsync, audit_logs, log_streams, domain_verification, and certificate_renewal. Use 'sso' for Enterprise SSO configuration.
Read the 'link' field from the JSON response — a one-time-use HTTPS URL on the portal.workos.com domain.
Redirect the admin's browser to that link immediately in the same session. Do not email it or persist it.
The admin picks their IdP (Okta, Entra ID / Azure AD, generic SAML or OIDC) in the hosted portal and submits IdP metadata and certificate.
WorkOS creates or updates a Connection under the Organization from the submitted configuration.
On completion the admin is redirected to return_url, or to the Dashboard-configured default success URL if you omitted one.
Confirm setup actually succeeded: GET https://api.workos.com/connections?organization_id=org_... and inspect the connection's 'state'.
Subscribe to connection.activated / connection.deactivated webhooks so your app learns about IdP changes made later without you polling.
Reference: https://workos.com/docs/admin-portal
Known gotchas
Portal links generated via API expire 5 minutes after creation. Emailing or caching the URL is the single most common integration mistake — redirect immediately instead. (Links shared from the Dashboard expire after 30 days or on completion.)
Passing the wrong intent silently shows the admin the wrong self-serve flow (e.g. 'dsync' renders Directory Sync setup, not SSO).
A newly submitted connection can sit in 'validating' or 'inactive' state rather than 'active' until the IdP metadata validates — treat portal completion as 'submitted', not 'working'.
SSO logins for the organization will still fail until at least one of its domains is verified, even when the connection itself reports active.
The redirect back to return_url carries no success or failure signal, so you must confirm state via GET /connections or a webhook rather than trusting the redirect.
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