SCIM vs Microsoft Gallery (SOAP) – Recommended Approach for Entra ID Provisioning?

Puneet Hegde1
Tera Guru

Hi Everyone,

We are currently implementing user provisioning from Microsoft Entra ID into ServiceNow and would like to validate the recommended integration pattern.

As part of our review, we have identified two approaches:

  1. Using the Microsoft ServiceNow Gallery application in Entra ID, which provisions users via SOAP APIs.

  2. Enabling the ServiceNow SCIM v2 plugin and configuring a Non-Gallery Enterprise Application in Entra ID to provision users via SCIM APIs.

From an architectural and long-term support perspective, we would appreciate guidance on the following:

  • Which approach is recommended by ServiceNow for enterprise environments?

  • Is the SOAP-based Gallery application considered a legacy model, or is it still strategically supported?

  • Are there security, performance, or scalability advantages to using SCIM over SOAP?

  • Are there any known limitations when using SCIM with Entra ID (Non-Gallery app configuration)?

Our objective is to adopt a future-proof and best-practice approach before moving to production.

Any insights from those who have implemented this in enterprise environments would be greatly appreciated.

Thank you in advance.

Puneet

1 REPLY 1

paulciarfel
Tera Contributor

This may help with your review - see the comment from January 23 from JayS56800927307

https://www.servicenow.com/community/developer-blog/scim-provisioning-from-microsoft-entra-id/ba-p/2...

Current Supported Approach (Recommended)

To ensure stable and supported user provisioning:

 

 Do NOT create a custom SCIM application in Microsoft Entra ID for ServiceNow provisioning

 Use the Microsoft Entra ID Gallery Application for ServiceNow

  • This connector uses SOAP-based provisioning
  • It is stable, fully supported, and recommended by Microsoft

Reference:

  • SOAP-Based ServiceNow Provisioning (available in the Microsoft Entra ID App Gallery)