How to navigate through AD B2C documentation

A way to get out the maze

Working with AD B2C means not working coding any more, but it is working with XML files, and the documentation of B2C is designed in a way that you may easily find yourself getting lost "thanks to" its cross-referencing mechanism: On every specific page you read, there are always links (if not want to say a bunch of them) to other pages.

Here is the current view of the documentation:

AD B2C Documentation Maze

If you are new to B2C and start from this page, you will get lost, for sure!

Because AD B2C is just policies defined in form of XML files, we need to understand the elements in the files.

Here is where you should start off with: on the left navigation pane, select Reference > Custom Policy Schema

Documentations of all elements in custom policy XML files

• The starting point of the documentation for all of the elements in the custom policies is here: https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/active-directory-b2c/trustframeworkpolicy. From this page, you will know, at the very top level, how the XML files are structured.
• After knowing the XML structure, you now can explore what are other elements:

  • BuildingBlocks: https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/active-directory-b2c/buildingblocks
  • ClaimsProviders: https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/active-directory-b2c/claimsproviders
  • UserJourneys: https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/active-directory-b2c/userjourneys
  • RelyingParty: https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/active-directory-b2c/userjourneys