Users: External Identifiers (Winter '21 Release)

Product/Library Releases & New Features Winter '21 Release
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To support the implementation of External Authorization on Answers experiences, we have added enhancements to the user management system to allow for the management of external identities.

This includes the ability to:

  • View, add, delete, and update External Identities with Yext Users via the Knowledge API.
  • View External Identities with Yext Users in the User Management UI.
  • Fire an event when a user’s External Identities change, so that downstream systems can make changes accordingly.

Below is more detail about each of these updates:

Update External Identifies via the Knowledge API
For anyone who manages users via the API — you can now update external identifiers via the API for more details visit our Knowledge API Documentation.

View External Identities in the User Management UI
For users implementing External Auth, you will now see an External Identities section on user profiles within your account.

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Fire an event when a user’s External Identities change
When using External Auth the permissions stored in External Identities dictate what the user should have access to in your Answers experience. This update enables us to ensure that when changes are made to the external identities associated with a user, that those updates are fed into your Answers configuration and other relevant systems so what they have access to is always aligned with permission updates.

For more information on External Auth, visit our Set Up Answers with External Authorization guide.

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Is this only related to SAML single sign on?

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Hi Laura,

This is related to configuring External Authorization on Answers experiences. The External Identities that are listed in a user’s profile in Yext dictate what the user should have access to in your Answers experience.

For more details on this, I recommend checking out our Set Up Answers with External Authorization guide. Step 2 of this guide also walks through an overview of the External Authorization options.

Configuring SAML SSO (for the ability to give your users access to Yext via an existing platform) is a different process, and if you’d like to learn more about that I recommend checking out our Configure SAML SSO guide.

1 Like
4

Thanks for the clarification and extra information.