Single Sign-On (SSO) Setup Process

You’ve decided to enable SSO for your program. What's next?

Note: If your institution has already set up SSO with Mentor Collective and you only need to enable SSO for your specific program, you will be able to skip a few of the following steps. Work with your Mentor Collective representative to determine the appropriate next steps.

SSO Setup Process Overview

For All Institutions:

1. Discuss your SSO implementation needs with your Mentor Representative, including:
   • Which user types (mentor, mentee, administrator) should have SSO enabled.
   • If any participant access groups will be created.
   • If any previous participant accounts will need to be mapped to SSO credentials. 
   • A designated contact for SSO login support.
2. Identify the IT contact person for SSO integrations at your institution, and share with your Mentor Collective representative.
   • If you aren’t sure who your contact person is, ask your Director of IT.
     
3. Your Mentor Collective representative will connect the IT contact person with Keisha Cassel, Product Technical Support Manager at Mentor Collective.
4. Your Institution IT contact and Mentor Collective Technical Support will confirm the institution is eligible for SSO. 
5. [allow for approximately 2 weeks] Your Institution IT contact and Mentor Collective Engineering set up SSO. 
6. Provide all required directory information for invited mentors and mentees.
   • First Name, Last Name, Email, Phone
   • Unique Identifier (Strongly Recommended)
     • This is the most important field for a stable SSO connection.
     • It should be a permanent, unique ID for each user (such as an Institutional ID).
     • This is the primary "source of truth" and will prevent duplicate accounts, even if a user's email changes.

For Institutions That Have Partnered with Mentor Collective in the Past:

In addition to the steps above, one additional step must be completed:

• Mentor Collective maps previous users’ accounts to SSO credentials.
• To do this, we may ask you to provide a file of your existing users with their email addresses and their corresponding unique identifier so we can retroactively map them in our system.
• Please allow for approximately 4 weeks to conduct this process. 

Once all steps have been completed, you can coordinate your participant recruitment with your Mentor Collective representative.

For a detailed, visual representation of the process, see below:

We encourage you to begin the SSO implementation process as soon as you and your Mentor Collective representative determine it is the right fit for your program. It is never “too early” to implement SSO for future programs, and the earlier we implement, the more likely we are to avoid any delays in future program launches.