Account Naming Strategy

[caffrey]

Had a quick search and I'm sure this has been asked before

 

We're a relatively small school, and since before my time staff accounts are usually identified by lowercase (e.g. jdoe) and student accounts have uppercase surnames (e.g. jBELL) of course this isn't perfect especially with common names like smith (e.g. you can end up with asmith, alSMITH (student has same first initial so you take the first two letters and so on)). This also presents issues with emails when staff aren't being attentive when sending and some confidential emails could potentially go to a student account or go to the wrong student.

 

So how do you do it ? Especially phasing in a new naming scheme - it would eventually phase itself out over a number of years I guess. Do you have split email systems ? Can this be done with GSuite easily ?

 

Just throwing this out there as we've had a few issues recently and I'm thinking it's time I put some thought into the naming scheme

[ADMaster]

Email addresses are not case sensitive.

All of our students here are lastname firstname last four of ID number

Joe Blogs with ID 123987 would be blogsj3987

This provides no duplicates and sorted by last name when looking in AD.

I put all the students in OUs by year group so its easier to manage.

[caffrey]

The AD is structured fine, it's just the user accounts themselves, I was considering using Enrolment Number and Initials. As for the emails this isn't a problem as when you start typing to compose the names appear and it's obvious (to me) which are student or teacher accounts.

[angrycomputingteacher]

We just use first then second name. For both students and staff. It's probably not the best tho.

[jmak]

I use year of admission in the usernames and email addresses for students​ (i.e. any who joined this year end in 17) and the rest is made up from the first few letters of their first and surname. In a small school you can get away with four letters and two numbers without many duplicates - the large secondary my kids go to uses six letters. Staff have first initial and surname, so it's easy to identify whether an account is staff or student.

[mukz]

We just use first then second name. For both students and staff. It's probably not the best tho.

 

We do this. Moving to adding the intake year at the end now. JBloggs17

[caffrey]

I suppose trying to make anything foolproof is difficult, this only cropped up as a teacher accidentally left a student off a sports fixture invitation, which coincidentally we have had issues with email before and the parent is one of those parents and of course IT was blamed..

 

I'm starting to like the idea of initials and admission number, although it just seems a bit impersonal - plus it would effect things like safeguarding reports and such

[Bedders]

For staff, we had FirstInitial.Surname so J.Bloggs.

For students we had SurnameFirstname so BloggsJoe.

Duplicates got a number added to the end (so 2 for the new person, then 3 if a third person with the same name joined...).

 

Staff and Student Exchange Lists were separate, so you had to choose from a drop-down (when you were in the 'To' dialogue box). Defaulted to Staff List for staff and Student List for students.

 

Here at this business we have about 100 employees, so it's less of an issue - we use the first 6 letters of the Surname, then the first initial of the first name. For example Joe Bloggs would be BloggsJ, but Jane Blogger would be BloggeJ. Can produce some amusing results

[JonThompson]

For students we use YoE First initial and then surname e.g. 17jbloggs for duplicates the second student gets full first name then surname. After that it's middle initials or numbers.

 

For staff we use first initial then surname. e.g. jsmith

 

We put all surnames in capitals in both AD and display name to distinguish as we have several people with surnames that could be first names, though our display names for staff emails are very unique!

[GrumbleDook]

YoE gives approx age ... not really something you want to give out.

[jmak]

YoE gives approx age ... not really something you want to give out.

Hadn't thought of that 😳

 

I don't *think* it's a massive issue for us as they aren't used externally and they are all 7 or under so obviously vulnerable people.

 

Is it a major issue for secondaries? Certainly a good number use that approach. I can't imagine any of the pupils using their school email for anything that's not school related anyway.

[forkies]

Staff is first initial dot surname. J.bloggs

Students are first four digits of surname first initial then 3 numbers. Blogj001 and it counts upwards for new users with same names.

Display name is first name last name then username. Office field has their year group. OU for each year group and security/dist groups.

We also put all student photos into AD so staff can distinguish between for emails, students use gmail so don't see photos.

[caffrey]

No right or wrong way to do it.

 

Other ideas I thought of but not available as far as I know, in GMail autosuggestions when you start typing - Have the OU's in a different colour or have a description after the username eg jdoe@ (Student) . To be fair I don't know what else I can do to fix what is not really a problem

[jhothersall]

We do the year they start and then name so I was at secondary "00jameshothersall" It makes life easier when deleteing local profiles (Oh did on XP). It makes it easier on staff with email addresses too.

[jthompson]

YoE gives approx age ... not really something you want to give out.

 

I feel bad that I'd never even considered that!

 

Ours are YoE Firstsname Surname (e.g. 17JosephBloggs). Having the number at the front rather than the back has been useful for us for matching rules, picking them out in lists, not confusing them with staff, etc. We don't get too many duplicates, but we do have to truncate quite a few.

 

I've also had to labour the point with staff that they should use the address book rather than assuming all users follow the standard pattern.

[GrumbleDook]

I feel bad that I'd never even considered that!

 

Ours are YoE Firstsname Surname (e.g. 17JosephBloggs). Having the number at the front rather than the back has been useful for us for matching rules, picking them out in lists, not confusing them with staff, etc. We don't get too many duplicates, but we do have to truncate quite a few.

 

I've also had to labour the point with staff that they should use the address book rather than assuming all users follow the standard pattern.

 

So if the child uses the email account to sign up to something then they give their approx age and full name.

[caffrey]

I've spoke to Google about this, they suggested I submit a feature request to say but company name after the name on the auto complete. A workaround they suggested was using the profile picture (something we don't really use) And use a block of colour for each to differentiate

[jthompson]

So if the child uses the email account to sign up to something then they give their approx age and full name.

 

Yes. And their school, of course.

 

I guess any number could instead be applied to a cohort, rather than the actual year of entry. I'd really not want to lose some kind of cohort component in their usernames.

 

My reluctance to use the admission number to achieve unicity is grounded purely in the fact that lots of users will find it harder to remember. That's perhaps worth reconsidering!

[GrumbleDook]

Yes. And their school, of course.

 

I guess any number could instead be applied to a cohort, rather than the actual year of entry. I'd really not want to lose some kind of cohort component in their usernames.

 

My reluctance to use the admission number to achieve unicity is grounded purely in the fact that lots of users will find it harder to remember. That's perhaps worth reconsidering!

 

I worked in a school for 5 1/2 years where they used admissions number and it worked well ... they only thing I would have changed is that the admissions numbers were based on year of entry ... not my choice as it was in use well before I started there.

[caffrey]

Came to a solution, downloaded GAM, worked out how to use GAM. Changed all the student profile pics to a green version of the school logo, changed leavers to a black and white version. Now when selecting from the auto suggestions you can see at a glance which are students (I'm yet to change staff)

We can only do so much!

[Dave_O]

Use admission number as email address always unique can only be linked to student if you have access to MIS

[forkies]

We have to create pre admission accounts because they want the student to use the computers before they start (on a transition day) so couldn't use admission numbers as they don't yet get assigned.