Use an Alias for Username

At my company we use NT usernames like "us0123456". When I create a workflow with a drop down to select an editor to send to, all the ids are the NT ids. This is very difficult for the user, as they might not know the person's NT id. Is there a way to use an alias in the drop down, so the user sees something like "John Smith" instead of "us0123456"?

Thanks.

Edited by TEA on 01/06/03 11:42 AM (server time).

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Migrateduser

If you create a mapping file that contains the map of your usernames to the fullnames you desire in the dropdown list, you can create the select list from the mapping file and set the "value" to the username for each entry while displaying the fullname. Just build the HTML for the select list in your perl section of your wft.

Dave Smith
Sr. Software Engineer
Nike, Inc.
(503) 671-4238
DavidH.Smith@nike.com

Johnny

Im not familar with NT but there must be an equivalent.

Under Solaris I grab the comments section under the password file aswell as the user ID. The comments section is normally reserved for the users full name which I assume is also avaible in NT from some API.

With both of these you can build a form select list with labels containing user Names and values containing user IDs.

You may be able to eliminate maintaining a mapping file that way.

Cheers

John
Sydney, Australia

Migrateduser

That's great assuming the full name is always entered into the comment field in the passwd file. You can't always depend on that.

Dave Smith
Sr. Software Engineer
Nike, Inc.
(503) 671-4238
DavidH.Smith@nike.com

Johnny

You're certainly right about that.

Its all about standards. Normally you would find standards in place for these things. You'd think user names would be found some where on the system... or hope atleast!!

John
Sydney, Australia

Hazzie

I have exactly the same problem. I am solving it by parsing the email_mappnig file for the proper name as our email address go <firstname>.<surname><a number if more than one of these names>@<company name>.co.uk and then palce that back in the select list of the workflow.
The light at the end of the tunnel for all this is that TS 6 should solve this whole problem in that they are changing the way people log in i.e. not tied to the NT User Name but a user name of your choice.

Hazzie
TS 5.5.2 on NT.

andrew_yeo

Gee...I just hope TS6 doesn't add more problems to the already huge lists of issues. Having a different logon name/password can be a big headache with users. I just wish a solution to bind the NT accounts with a "real" name....

Hazzie

You might want to take a look at the net.pm within $iwhome/iw-perl/site/lib/win32api/
That has a call you can make called GetUserInfo() it might be what your looking for. I have not been able to get it to work myself mind you.

Hazzie
TS 5.5.2 on NT.