A method is presented in which federated domains interact to complete transactions within a federated environment. A point-of-contact server within a domain relies upon a trust service to manage trust relationships. An administrative user can build a federation relationship between a first service provider and a second service provider, which includes a trust relationship between the first service provider and the second service provider and a selection of federation-related operations, i.e. federation functionality. During configuration of the federation relationship, a file is dynamically generated based on the selection of federation functionality for the federation relationship. The file is exported to the second service provider, which provides additional configuration information by inserting it into the file. The modified file is imported at the first service provider from the second service provider, and the additional configuration information are extracted for subsequent use in federated transactions.