Guidance & Experiences Migrating from Adobe IDs to Federated IDs (Google Workspace Integration)

Hello everyone,

We’re in the planning stages of migrating our organization’s Adobe users from AdobeIDs to Federated IDs and are looking for any recent insights or experiences from others who’ve gone through this process. We have a Google Workspace tenant with a dedicated domain, so we expect the switchover to be mostly one-to-one. Our plan is to use Federated IDs for staff members (who are all within their own OU in Google), and to continue managing Adobe IDs manually for users in other OUs (e.g., external users and students).

We’ve already had an expert session with an Adobe representative, who recommended the following general process for updating accounts:

1. Set up the Adobe Cloud app in Google Workspace.
2. Convert existing AdobeIDs to federated via CSV upload.
3. Configure and sync the directory.

That said, some of this information differs slightly from documentation and some forum posts we found from a few years ago- so we’re hoping to confirm what’s current and what may have changed.

Key Questions & Concerns:

1. Manual Management Post-Sync:
   Once the synced directory is set up, is it still possible to manually add users (e.g., one-off exceptions) without disrupting sync behavior? We’d like to handle provisioning for staff accounts and tie that to their Google account’s status, but our students opt-in manually for licenses, and that process is handled separately. Definitely want to make sure we can target users by OU and not disrupt manual processes.
2. End-User Involvement:
   We were told end users don’t need to take action during the migration, but this support article mentions manual migration being necessary for Document Cloud users. Has anyone encountered issues with in-progress Adobe Sign workflows during or after migration? We’re concerned about potential disruption, as our planned cutover may overlap with heavy Adobe Sign usage by our HR department. This video also indicates that users may need to manually migrate assets after the cutover: https://youtu.be/maCNRB7fpf8
3. Account Linking and Invitations:
   We understand that the email address acts as the primary identifier for accounts- does this mean users won’t receive a new invitation when their account becomes federated? (We’d like to confirm this to avoid confusion among our staff.)
4. Testing Approach:
   For those who’ve done this before- did you use a sandbox or test domain/OU to run end-to-end tests before the production cutover? If so, was it worth the setup time? We’d like to minimize risk to our user base and figure out the best testing strategy for us.
5. Unexpected Issues:
   Any “gotchas” you encountered post-migration? License reassignments or entitlements not carrying over properly, delays or sync errors between Google and Adobe Admin Console, etc.

We do plan to open a support case with Adobe once we’re ready to proceed, but we’d love to hear from others who’ve gone through this transition recently- what worked well, what you’d do differently, and any other advice you may have.

Thanks in advance for any insights you can share!