In our last blog, we looked at why scattered logins quietly cost membership organisations more than they appear to, and how Microsoft Entra External ID can bring identity back into one place. This time, we’re getting practical.
Over the past year, Professional Advantage has helped one of its Upbeat clients, a small peak membership body for HR professionals, move its member sign-in from WordPress to Microsoft Entra External ID. Here’s what the project involved, and what it might mean for your own organisation.
Starting with the member experience
For most members, signing in is a brief moment they want to get over with quickly, so that’s where we started.
This membership-based organisation’s new sign-in uses email and a one-time passcode. Members enter their email address, receive a code, and they’re in. There’s no password to remember, reset or reuse on another site. Because the code goes to the member’s inbox, sign-in also confirms they can access that mailbox, adding a layer of verification within the identity platform itself.
Members who’d rather skip the code can use an existing Google or Microsoft account instead. Either way, there’s nothing new to set up and nothing new to forget.
Familiar from the first click
A simpler sign-in only works if members trust the page it lives on. An identity platform shouldn’t feel like a separate website, so we customised the Entra External ID sign-in and sign-up pages to carry this membership-based organisation’s look and feel. The one-time passcode emails got the same treatment. The code arrives in a message that’s clearly from this organisation, and their members know straight away it’s safe to use.
Guarded behind the scenes
That trust needs backing up. Your sign-in page is the front door to member data, so we placed Azure Web Application Firewall and Cloudflare in front of the platform. Malicious traffic is filtered out well before it reaches a member’s account, and members never see it.
The right path for every member
Not everyone arrives at that front door in the same position. A brand-new member and a member of ten years need quite different journeys, so we built custom workflows for each. New members are guided through sign-up without friction, and existing members are recognised and carried across smoothly.
Moving 30,000 members without the drama
Those existing members raise the question we hear most: what happens to everyone already in the system?
For this client, we developed a custom WordPress plugin to help move around 30,000 users from the old identity platform to the new one. When done in stages, with those workflows handling the careful work in the background, a migration at this scale becomes a project plan rather than a leap of faith. Members carry on with their day.
Once members are in, the benefits extend beyond this client’s website. With identity now in its own layer, other applications can rely on it, so we developed SAML and OAuth applications that let members sign in once and move between this client’s connected systems without meeting another login screen.
Keeping Upbeat and sign-in in step
Single sign-on works best when the sign-in knows who your members really are. This organisation manages its membership on Upbeat, our association management software built on Microsoft Dynamics 365, so we set up a sync from Upbeat into Entra External ID. The membership record stays the source of truth, and the sign-in follows it.
In practice, that means a member who joins, renews, or updates their details in Upbeat doesn’t need to be re-entered anywhere else. Their identity stays aligned with their membership, and AHRI’s team keeps managing members in the one place they already work.
It also shows why this pairing suits associations. Upbeat brings renewals, events, CPD tracking, communications, and the member portal together on a single Microsoft platform. Entra External ID gives it all a single, modern front door. Because both sit within the Microsoft ecosystem, they connect without the heavy custom plumbing that usually comes with integrating a membership system with an identity provider.
What this could mean for your members
The project with this membership-based organisation shows what’s possible when identity is treated as its own layer rather than a website feature. Members get a simpler, safer way in. Your team spends less time on password resets. And your next portal, app, or AI idea can build on identity that’s already been solved.
If you’re thinking about moving member logins out of WordPress or another platform, or you want to see how Entra External ID could work alongside Upbeat, get in touch with our team and we’ll help you map out the path forward.
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