Customer Portal and Okta

[Julian Haines]

Good day,

I am trying to setup Jira Cloud with Okta for customers using the portal, I have setup the SAML in Jira and Okta but its not working.

If I log into okta directly using a test customer with a user name, password etc it works, but if I try and login via the Jira Portal link with my email & password etc it says I can't login.

If I log into Okta first with username and password etc, and then go the portal and login it works.

Something about logging into Okta first makes the portal login work.

I have checked my settings many times and lost as to what to try next.

[Mary Jennings]

Hi,

First, ensure that SP-Initiated Login is enabled in your Okta app settings. Jira Cloud typically supports both SP-initiated (from Jira) and IdP-initiated (from Okta) authentication, and misconfigurations here can cause login failures.

Next, confirm that the SAML assertions (email, username, and attributes) are correctly passed. Jira requires proper mapping of user identities between Okta and Atlassian accounts, and missing attributes in the SAML response can prevent logins. You should also test the SAML response using Okta’s SAML debugger or browser tools to inspect what’s being sent when logging in through Jira.

If errors appear or expected attributes are missing, it indicates a misconfiguration. If Just-In-Time (JIT) not enabled, Jira might not recognize users unless they are already in Atlassian, causing authentication failures.