Enterprise Identity & Access Management Platform  ·  View 12 of 27  ·  Runtime

Workforce SSO & Conditional Access

One employee sign-in, including the parts that usually do not happen.

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Employee
Employee
Application
Application
Entra ID
Entra ID
Conditional Access
Conditional Access
Intune device state
Intune device state
FIDO2 passkey
FIDO2 passkey
Log Analytics
Log Analytics
1. open application
1. open application
2. 302 /authorize — OIDC + PKCE
2. 302 /authorize — OIDC + PKCE
3. evaluate existing session (PRT)
3. evaluate existing session (PRT)
4. evaluate policies: user, app, risk
4. evaluate policies: user, app, risk
5. device compliance state
5. device compliance state
6. compliant, Entra-joined
6. compliant, Entra-joined
7. grant: phishing-resistant MFA
7. grant: phishing-resistant MFA
8. WebAuthn challenge
8. WebAuthn challenge
9. signed assertion
9. signed assertion
10. authorization code
10. authorization code
11. code + verifier -> /token
11. code + verifier -> /token
12. id_token + access_token (CAE)
12. id_token + access_token (CAE)
13. session established
13. session established
14. sign-in log + CA result
14. sign-in log + CA result
15. CAE event: session revoked
15. CAE event: session revoked
Workforce SSO & Conditional Access — one sign-in
Workforce SSO & Conditional Access — one sign-in
Steps 8 and 9 are skipped when the session already meets the required authentication strength, which covers roughly 71% of sign-ins. Step 15 is the leaver path: revocation reaches CAE-aware resources in about a minute rather than waiting an hour for token expiry.
Steps 8 and 9 are skipped when the session already meets the required authentication strength, which covers roughly 71% of sign-ins. Step 15 is the leaver path: revocation reaches CAE-aware resources in about a minute rather than waiting an hour for token expiry.
v 1.0 · owner Data & AI Global Practice · date 2026-08
v 1.0 · owner Data & AI Global Practice · date 2026-08
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What the flow proves

  • Conditional Access is evaluated before a token is issued, so an application that never implemented device compliance still enforces it.
  • Roughly 71% of sign-ins are silent: an existing primary refresh token already meets the required authentication strength, and steps 8 and 9 are skipped. The design is tuned for that path, not the cold one.
  • Step 15 is the leaver story. Continuous Access Evaluation carries revocation to CAE-aware resources in about a minute, instead of waiting up to an hour for the access token to expire.

Authentication choices

  • Passkeys and FIDO2 keys are the default method; the Authenticator app is the fallback and SMS is disabled entirely. Phishing-resistant is a requirement for administrators and the target for everyone.
  • Access tokens live one hour and refresh tokens ninety days with CAE enabled. Shorter access tokens were rejected: they multiply STS load without improving revocation, which CAE already handles.
  • Temporary Access Pass covers onboarding and key replacement, which removes the last legitimate reason for a helpdesk password reset.

Risks

  • CAE is not supported by every resource provider. Non-CAE resources keep the full one-hour token lifetime, and that residual is accepted and recorded.
  • Device compliance depends on Intune being available. A compliance-evaluation outage would fail closed for policies that require it — the break-glass path in view 26 exists partly for this.
  • MFA fatigue attacks are handled by number matching plus the Sentinel detection in view 22, not by user training alone.