Changing Usernames

[sherrie]

I'm probably missing something really obvious but how can a user change their own username?

[VarunGrazitti]

This can be done inside the settings, amid you have given the permissions for the users to change their username.

[Fellsteruk]

That right you need to grant the ability to change user name in permissions but I wouldn't suggest it as a default for everyone as you may struggle to keep track of people especially any "difficult" people you may have.

[Fellsteruk]

Just to add. Once they have the permission they change it with their own settings page in the same place you would change it for them as admin.

[sherrie]

Thank you @VarunGrazitti & @Fellsteruk, do you know where in settings they should be able to change it? I've clicked through what I thought was every part of their settings and don't see the ability to change it anywhere.

[JasonHill · Accepted solution]

@sherrie

Once you have given users the ability to change their own username (in the backend) they will be able to change it via My Settings/Personal Profile/Login

If that tab is not appearing for you, then this functionality might have been removed for your community and you will need to log a support ticket to reinstate it. 

Note that there are also SSO implications - if your community uses a single sign on then the process above does not apply.

Jason

[sherrie]

Aha. SSO is the problem then. Thanks @JasonHill!

Do you know if there's a way to change it in the admin even if using SSO?

The story behind this is a user created a username with CALL####### (their number). Which is the most ridiculous self-promotion I've yet to see. 😉 

[JasonHill]

@sherrie

You will need to find someone internally who has knowledge of your SSO implication - its going to be unique to your organisation.

If a username is only changed on the Lithium side, not on your CRM, the next time the user logs in it will just revert to their old username.

Good luck,

Jason

[sherrie]

Okay, thanks for the tip @JasonHill!

[Fellsteruk]

Hi,

If your just looking to mitigate use of phone numbers in user names you could change the criteria for usernames to limit the number of "numbers" or apply a (regex) filter to the username content filters. All that said im not sure how these works with SSO but may be worth investigating. 

[sherrie]

Just to follow up here, it appears any rules set in Lithium for username moderation do not carry over to SSO.

[ryanj64]

Hi All,
Just spoke with, one of our PM's for Lithium. If you go under Moderator Tools > Edit Users> you should be able to change the user name of even an SSO user.

[JasonHill]

@ryanj64

This can serve as a temporary measure, but you will find that with an SSO implementation if a username is only changed on the Lithium side, not on your CRM, the next time the user logs in it will just revert to their old username.

Jason

[tdieds]

We've got SSO implemented across our community and I've successfully changed user names with @ryanj64's instructions. Not a temporary measure. Perhaps this was due to a recent Lithium version update. At any rate, it holds. Very useful feature.

Also interesting for me to discover that user names can include spaces (I had been using an underscore between words).