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Use Case 7: Identity Provider Discovery Profile

In Use Case 7, several companies, such as smcompany.com contract health benefits from ahealthco.com. Ahealthco.com wants to determine which company users are coming from so it can send the user back to the correct company to log on.

The following illustration shows a network where Identity Provider Discovery Profile is used.

When a user arrives at ahealthco.com, this health provider wants to determine which site to send the user so the user can log on. For User1, smcompany.com is the company where this user logs on, smcompany.com is set in the common domain cookie. For another user, cacompany.com is another Identity Provider at which a user can authenticate. Then, cacompany.com is set in the common domain cookie at ahealthco.com.

A prior business agreement between the sites in this network is established so that all sites in the network interact with the Identity Provider Discovery service.