Single sign-on and LMS integration

SimChat can connect to your existing login and learning systems, so learners and staff don't need a separate SimChat password.

Single sign-on (SSO)

With SSO, your users sign in to SimChat through your organisation's own identity provider, using the credentials they already have. SimChat supports SAML 2.0 and OpenID Connect (OIDC), which between them cover practically every identity provider - Microsoft Entra ID, Okta, Google Workspace and the rest.

Benefits:

• Users sign in with their existing institutional account
• No separate SimChat password to manage or reset
• Access follows your normal joiner and leaver processes
• Your own security policies, including MFA, apply to SimChat automatically

LMS integration

SimChat supports LTI 1.3, the standard used by learning management systems such as Moodle, Canvas and Blackboard. Once it's set up, you add SimChat to a course in your LMS and learners launch straight into it from there, already signed in.

LTI also supports gradebook sync, so scores from assessment scenarios can flow back into your LMS.

How people get the right role

When someone arrives through SSO or your LMS for the first time, SimChat creates their account automatically. Their SimChat role comes from a role mapping agreed during setup:

• Students are mapped to the learner role and can start practising straight away
• Staff are usually held in a pending approval queue. Administrators see them on the Staff page and approve each person with the right role - viewer, assessor, author, cohort lead, assistant administrator or administrator - and, for cohort-scoped roles, the cohorts they'll staff. The person is emailed when they're approved

This means you never have to decide in advance which staff member gets which permissions. Your identity system says who is staff; you decide their exact role in SimChat. See Understanding roles in SimChat.

Enrolling learners into cohorts from LMS courses

With LMS integration you can link a SimChat cohort to one or more of your LMS courses - when creating or editing the cohort, under Linked LMS courses. Learners who launch SimChat from a linked course are added to that cohort automatically, so cohort-restricted scenarios simply work, with no invite links needed.

Because access flows down a cohort tree, a learner enrolled into a sub-cohort this way also picks up anything assigned to its parent cohorts. See Creating and managing cohorts.

Setting it up

Because SSO and LMS integration depend on your own systems, we configure them with you rather than through a self-service screen.

To get started, contact the SimChat team. We'll tell you exactly what's needed, which is usually:

• For SSO - the details of your SAML or OIDC identity provider. We'll share SimChat's in return
• For LMS - the LTI 1.3 connection details for your LMS, plus how your LMS reports who is a student and who is staff, so we can set up the role mapping above

It's best to arrange this as part of your rollout. See Preparing to deploy SimChat.

Updated on: 07/09/2026