Activating Using a Corporate Account

Starting with Parallels Desktop 18, the 'Activation using corporate account' (sometimes referred to as SSO activation) option became available.

This option works best for medium- and enterprise-size organizations that have an identity provider (e.g., Entra ID from Microsoft) and rely on it to automate application license management routines. With SCIM integration (optional), licenses from contractors and people who left the company and were removed from the identity provider directory will be automatically revoked. There is also an option to automatically revoke licenses from people who have not used the product for a long time.

Note: Starting in late fall 2024, Parallels Desktop for Mac Enterprise Edition will allow you to mix per-device and SSO licenses as you see fit. This will enable you to retain permanent Parallels Desktop licenses on some of your company's Macs while allocating the rest dynamically as needed.

The license key is also not used in this scenario, so there are fewer chances of misuse.

Attention: This option is incompatible with using Parallels Desktop for Mac Business or Enterprise Edition in the so-called Single Application Mode. To learn more, read the respective administrator guides that you can find on our Documentation page.

There are three major steps to enable this option:

1. This option works only if you purchased a special license type. Please check your license certificate for details and contact your sales representative if you have questions. Note that the minimum purchase for this license type is 50 licenses, and it is not available as an online purchase from parallels.com.

2. The IT team must set up integration between your identity provider (Entra ID, Okta, Ping Identity, or others) and Parallels My Account using the Configuring the Single Sign-On integration chapter from our Parallels Desktop for Mac Enterprise Edition Administrator's Guide. If there is no guide for your identity provider, it is recommended that you follow the one for Entra ID.

3. To provide your employees with the best user experience, use the deployment capabilities described in the guide or simply share this link with users: https://parallels.com/directdownload/pd?experience=sso.