Problems with none ascii characters in Entra external ID when collecting custom user attributes during sign-up

Question

Problems with none ascii characters in Entra external ID when collecting custom user attributes during sign-up

Bardia Jedi 0

Hi we are implementing oidc federation from hydra to our identity provider, where we use Swedish eid provider BankID.

The user flow and experience works great and without any issues, however we are running in to bug that could be stop the project.

The Issue is when we are collecting custom user attributes.

In cases where the Users name contains Swedish characters such as ÅÄÖ, the values that are sent to the form are send with html encoding (Å Å), So in case of test user "Åke Götesson" as display name the value in the text field is "Åke Götesson". This match the data received from page request as well:

{
    "name": "displayName",
    "value": "\u0026#197;ke G\u0026#246;tesson",
    "label": "Display Name",
    "type": "text",
    "editable": true,
    "options": {
        "regEx": "^.*"
    }
}

The major problem is that when the form is submitted the values send are still html encode, causing the server to reject the request. Update the values manually works but because we are using an eid service we'd like to make sure that personal data is preserved.

1 answer

Your answer

Answer 1

David Broggy 6,531 MVP Volunteer Moderator

Hi Bardia,

Entra supports inline azure functions, have you considered that?

Option A: Response Interceptor

BankID → Hydra → Azure Function → Client

Option B: Request Processor

BankID → Azure Function → Hydra → Client

Some references:

API Connectors Overview - https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/active-directory-b2c/api-connectors-overview

Secure APIs for API Connectors - https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/entra/external-id/self-service-sign-up-secure-api-connector

Add API Connectors to Sign-up Flows -

https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/active-directory/external-identities/self-service-sign-up-add-api-connector

Token Enrichment with API Connectors -

https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/active-directory-b2c/add-api-connector-token-enrichment

Bardia Jedi 0 Reputation points

2025-08-06T09:28:55.8+00:00

Do mean Custom extensions, if so I have tested it and when using setPrefillValues even with correct encoding the middleware runs html encoding givning me the same issues. At the moment my best curse of action is to create my own custom form.
Praveen Chivarla 105 Reputation points Microsoft External Staff Moderator

2025-08-26T12:35:53.1066667+00:00

Hi @Bardia Jedi,

Thank you for the response.

This issue happens because Entra External ID's built-in form automatically applies HTML encoding to the values, even after you use setPrefillValues in a custom extension. So even if you pass in the correct characters like Å, Ä, Ö, they get converted (e.g., Å becomes Å) before the form is shown or submitted.

In this case creating your own custom form is recommended. It gives you full control over how data is displayed and submitted and avoids this encoding problem. Using extensions or API connectors won't fully solve it, since the HTML encoding happens after your code runs.

Please let me know if this answers your question or if you need any further assistance.
Praveen Chivarla 105 Reputation points Microsoft External Staff Moderator

2025-08-27T11:12:50.4+00:00

Hi @Bardia Jedi,

Following up to see if the above answer was helpful. If this answers your query, do click Accept Answer and Yes for was this answer helpful. And, if you have any further query do let us know.
Praveen Chivarla 105 Reputation points Microsoft External Staff Moderator

2025-08-28T11:08:59.43+00:00

Hi @Bardia Jedi,

Following up to see if the above answer was helpful. If this answers your query, do click Accept Answer and Yes for was this answer helpful. And, if you have any further query do let us know.

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Problems with none ascii characters in Entra external ID when collecting custom user attributes during sign-up

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