Follow these steps to connect your Microsoft Entra ID tenant and begin syncing users, groups, and usage data into Substly.
Prerequisites
Before you begin, make sure:
You have administrator access to your Microsoft 365 tenant.
You know which users or groups you'd like to sync to Substly.
How to install the integration
Log in to Substly as an admin.
Go to Integrations & Imports > Microsoft Entra ID.
Click Activate and sign in with your Microsoft 365 administrator credentials.
Grant the required permissions (see Permissions article for details).
Choose which users and/or groups to sync.
The search bar in the Groups tab is prefilled with the word "employees"
Confirm and start the sync process.
Choosing which groups and users to sync
Once you've granted access and reached the sync setup screen, you'll see two tabs: Groups and Users.
Groups tab
The search bar is pre-filled with the word
employee, which filters and shows groups containing "employee" or "employees".If no groups appear, try clearing the filter or entering another search term.
⚠️ If your organization has a large number of groups, clearing the search filter may take some time to load all available options.
Pro tip: If you sync users via a group, any users added to that group in Microsoft Entra ID later will automatically be added to Substly—no manual updates required.
Users tab
If your organization doesn’t actively work with groups in Entra ID, go to the Users tab.
From there, you can select individual users to sync directly, without relying on group structures.
You can also filter the view by Organizational Units, Status, or Groups to simplify bulk adding.
Syncing individually or in bulk
Use the checkboxes on the left to select individual users or groups.
To select everything shown on the page, click the checkbox at the top of the list.
As you make selections, the sync status will update from Not synced to To be synced.
Once your selections are complete, click Next to continue the setup process.
You can update or remove synced users/groups at any time from the integration settings.
What happens after installation?
Substly will immediately begin syncing your selected users and groups, along with all the services used by the chosen users.
The first time you set up the sync, it may take up to 24 hours for all data to be displayed in Substly.
Substly will automatically keep your selected users and groups in sync (new data is synced daily).
Usage monitoring will be enabled for users who log into SaaS tools via SSO using their Microsoft work email.
You can return to this screen at any time to add/remove groups or disconnect the integration.
To further enhance your monitoring capabilities, we recommend installing the Substly Extension as well. While the Entra ID integration allows monitoring based on SSO logins, the Substly Extension detects usage of cloud-based SaaS tools even when users don’t log in via SSO.
The Microsoft Entra ID integration, used in conjunction with the Substly Extension, provides a more comprehensive view of your SaaS landscape and helps identify additional shadow IT risks or underutilized services.
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