Microsoft Entra External ID Reviews

We are a Microsoft Partner providing consultancy services for Power Automate implementations to our customers. We work with the entire Azure stack, including Azure AD and other Microsoft products, to facilitate a transition to cloud-based infrastructures.

Microsoft Entra External ID is more secure, offering a secure environment. It is crucial for hybrid environments, especially for integrating existing on-site infrastructures with cloud-based Active Directory, such as in Office 365 implementations. The solution's ability to handle large datasets and identify outliers effectively enhances security data processing.

Microsoft should normalize, simplify, and uniformly communicate pricing structures across products. More stability in the platform, fewer changes to authentication mechanisms, and increased integration across platforms to improve usability and security infrastructure are needed.

The scalability of compute performance is good. However, end-user workloads experience increased latency in a cloud environment compared to on-premises resources.

Microsoft technical support can be slow as they tend to validate the entire environment before proposing a solution, which can be frustrating.

Neutral

Clients have been using Active Directory for a long time, which creates confusion and challenges when transitioning to cloud-based environments like Microsoft Entra External ID.

Microsoft's pricing is complex and difficult to fathom due to a range of different licensing options. The transition toward cloud-based subscription pricing involves various configurations and conditions that make it hard to evaluate the cost to customers.

Clients typically migrate from Microsoft infrastructure. Other cloud providers have their own directory infrastructures, but they generally face similar general issues.

I rate Microsoft Entra External ID a seven out of ten. Latency is a consideration when sourcing computing resources remotely, impacting performance compared to on-premises solutions.

Hybrid Cloud

Microsoft Azure

It is for Office 365, and then for Exchange server. It's for the Entra, and then to link up with Okta.

My company, as well as my customers, use it. 

It is easy to onboard users and it's easy to manage.

The security controls in Entra ID are quite okay because they integrate for ID authentication. We need that; they're secure. If it's not integrated with another solution, meaning that it's not secure, it's okay. It's quite secure for me because you're all integrated.

There's room for improvement in synchronization times. It takes around 50 minutes to synchronize with the local AD. We need faster synchronization, ideally within 30 minutes. Any profile or password changes should be reflected quickly.

The only issue has been regarding the synchronization only. But everything else is quite okay for me. There haven't been any issues. It's not a client of my customer. 

The issue regarding synchronization is that their staff, when they create a profile during onboarding, or when they want to change their password, sometimes there's a problem with the synchronization in the office.

I would like to see faster synchronization.

It's new for me; it has been around four months.

It's good. There's a quite good response. They respond to the issues and create a ticket.

Positive

I'm a system engineer, so I work with many solutions like, VMware. My employer uses Microsoft Exchange, Azure, and Azure 365.

It integrates quite well with existing IT infrastructure. We use Azure platform to integrate with Entra, leveraging both B2B and our private cloud.

I also integrated it with third-party tools like OKTA. It integrated well.

It's quite easy to manage and monitor. Overall, I would rate it a seven out of ten. 

Entra ID is quite acceptable because other solutions are quite similar. But since this Entra ID is for a hybrid environment, I see the link with both the external and the internal. So we need that synchronization to be improved.

I am using Microsoft Entra External ID to manage our applications, access, and everything related to our backend.

Microsoft Entra External ID has helped manage all our applications, access, and backend systems effectively.

The single sign-on access is the most useful feature we use. Additionally, Microsoft Entra External ID supports our AI-driven security measures well, allowing us to manage everything effectively.

I would like to see a more detailed alert system that provides a summary of why alerts are generated, who is generating them, and the reasons behind it.

I have been using Microsoft Entra External ID for three to four years.

As of now, everything related to stability is okay with Microsoft Entra External ID.

Microsoft Entra External ID is scalable, which makes it useful for larger companies.

Technical support is good. The documentation is very thorough, reducing the need for support. However, when needed, their support is adequate. Their response time could be improved.

Neutral

There is room for improvement in AI technology for Microsoft Entra External ID, particularly in providing detailed alerts. I would recommend Microsoft Entra External ID to larger companies, but due to cost, not to smaller ones. From my perspective, I rate it seven out of ten.

Public Cloud

Microsoft Azure

We use Microsoft Entra External ID for cross-company collaboration by importing applications through enterprise applications. Most applications have APIs that easily connect to Azure. We generate a token, ID, and key, which we input into the application server to link them. This allows our AD users to connect to these applications.

The most beneficial feature for us is the ease of setup. With about five clicks, we can generate unique IDs and keys and set up in less than 30 minutes. We can also generate these for multiple years simultaneously, which is convenient.

In Azure, you can set up access rules. Just because an app is linked to Active Directory doesn’t mean everyone can access it automatically. You can make it so users have to give consent before getting access. You can also control which apps can connect to Active Directory. For Microsoft Exchange, we use multi-factor authentication to protect our information, which helps keep it secure by requiring more than just a password to log in.

Centralizing user management has positively impacted our operational costs and efficiency. We no longer need multiple systems to manage users, especially in our SaaS applications. This has improved turnaround time for user management tasks and streamlined our processes, making things more efficient.

We use the SaaS version, so there's no on-premises infrastructure. The integration is mainly done through setup, linking it to our domain and Active Directory.

Technical support needs improvement.

I have been working with the product for five years. 

The support is poor so that I would rate it a four out of ten. You can't always be sure your issues will be resolved. If they don't have a solution, they might leave it unresolved. It also takes a long time to get help. I had an issue where I was engaged with support for two months across five different locations, and sometimes, the support team wasn't knowledgeable enough or just left the issue unresolved. To make the most of Microsoft products, you need to have an in-house expert to manage things without relying on Microsoft support.

Neutral

To implement the solution, you will have to download it. 

We don't pay separately for Microsoft Entra External ID as it's part of our Microsoft Exchange subscription.

I'd recommend Entra External ID for medium to large companies (100+ staff), as it's great for managing complexity with more users. I wouldn't recommend it for companies with less than 50 staff. I rate it a nine out of ten. We haven't integrated it with third-party solutions beyond the external applications we connect.

We had a project to integrate our Active Directory, which was running on our site, and invite external collaborators, such as freelancers, to connect to our domain via an invitation. Additionally, we merged with another company, which involved integrating both domains. 

It's similar to using a Microsoft account to create accounts on other websites. We are also using Microsoft Entra to monitor which applications our guests are using. This allows us to filter, block, or adjust permissions for these applications as needed for our collaborators.

The problem with Microsoft products is that they often cater to enterprise-level needs, which can be too costly for medium-sized businesses. When you move beyond a small team and start growing, the cost and scope of enterprise-class products might not align with your needs. Finding something that’s a good fit between enterprise-grade solutions and those designed for small offices or home offices is challenging.

I have been using Microsoft Entra External ID for eight months.

The initial setup is complex, with many steps and screens. You need to configure settings in one menu and then navigate through multiple screens to find other options, making the process cumbersome. PowerShell commands could speed things up, but we mainly use the GUI for configuration. We had three people working on the project because our IT team is small. We had a field technician and a network administrator who also took on the role of project manager, and I managed the IT department as the overall manager.

Sometimes, it was frustrating because people had to learn how everything worked with Microsoft Entra External ID and the entire Microsoft suite. For instance, we started using SharePoint and Microsoft Teams, but the impact on productivity wasn’t as significant as we had hoped. 

It's quite expensive, especially as you grow and add more users. Initially, with a small number of people, the costs were manageable.

Based on what's available in the market, having another competitor or alternative product besides Microsoft would be great. For identity management, we tried using Jamf Cloud over two years ago. Google Identity is more suitable for smaller teams, around twenty people or fewer. It allows team members to log in with their email on their desktops and use their Google ID for websites. Google Identity seems to offer more login options compared to Microsoft.

Overall, I rate the solution as six to seven out of ten.