User naming convention
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Just trying to get some feedback on a really useless non issue. So it's being thrown around at my new company that using numbers in the SAM account name for duplicate names makes some users feel "unimportant" or like a clone of another user. From my limited experience with scripting it makes more sense to drop the # in the name so I can easily cleanup AD. eg. John Smith (jsmith) James Smith (jsmith1). It's easy (at least to me) to append a 1 or 2 in Powershell while searching for users in AD to manipulate settings. However it seems like too much work to have to ask HR to add the middle name in the Excel report they produce. Just so I can change my code to reflect that middle initial if, in the case there is a duplicate name, that the valid user isn't changed or removed. I'm getting the opportunity to make the decision in how this plays out, but I seem to be getting some flak because I want to do it the most logical way I can think of for growth when it comes to automating this process. My question to all of you is three part.
- Does anyone else thinks this matters from an end users standpoint? (I've asked and have gotten mixed results)
- Am I wrong to push my thoughts for growth and automation, despite what others may think of their "cloned" username including management?
- Is there already some BP that I'm missing?
My gut tells me to standup for my opinion and push the #'s in the case of duplicates. What do you all think?
-The Count
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@Count-Chocula said in User naming convention:
- Does anyone else thinks this matters from an end users standpoint? (I've asked and have gotten mixed results)
I've seen that a few times with very common names like Hans Müller or John Smith. Users actually may feel uncomfortable, but this is even more annoying when it comes to the mail address than to their username. It's odd to tell a user that his new mail address will be [email protected]. There's no real solution except for adding a department, like [email protected] or even a mail subdomain like [email protected]. Adding middle names may actually help.
- Am I wrong to push my thoughts for growth and automation, despite what others may think of their "cloned" username including management?
- Is there already some BP that I'm missing?
My gut tells me to standup for my opinion and push the #'s in the case of duplicates. What do you all think?
What else could you do? Maybe give everyone a generated name made from random alphas (AWESOME\rkvzhs), but this will introduce a whole new problem: "Hey, Kelly here from XXX. Uhm, you know, I forgot my username again?"
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There are always exceptions to the rule in IT. IT itself can be an exception to the rule when you 'go by the book' and it doesn't work. Best you can do is follow the rule until such time as you have to deviate.
You can use a variate of the FirstLast in a number of different ways:
- GJacob
- GeJacob
- G.Jacob
- G1Jacob
- etc
Set the standard. Don't cave in, and adapt when needed. My preference is keep it simple,
- GJacob
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We're first name + last initial at my org, so your examples would be:
jamess
johnsTwo "johns" users such as John Smith and John Snyder would then be:
johns
johnsnAssuming John Smith was the first "johns" employed.
Etc.
I think that numbers in a name aren't the most professional looking solution. Finding an alternative to distinguish them might be worthwhile.
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We also use first name's initial and last name
So: John Smith would be jsmith
Jill Smith would then be jsmith1
And so on.
It's a matter of practicality, unless management wants to start having people log in as john.smith and jill.smith or worse yet
john.f.smith and jill.d.smith
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We use the numbers here. firstname.lastname.... firstname.lastname1, firstname.lastname2...etc.
We set the Display Name to use middle names or Middle Initials if the user requests it.
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@DustinB3403 said in User naming convention:
We also use first name's initial and last name
So: John Smith would be jsmith
Jill Smith would then be jsmith1
And so on.
It's a matter of practicality, unless management wants to start having people log in as john.smith and jill.smith or worse yet
john.f.smith and jill.d.smith
I don't really think that's a bad convention we use a combination of last,first,initial. I know my wife's company does last.first@x.
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@coliver said in User naming convention:
@DustinB3403 said in User naming convention:
We also use first name's initial and last name
So: John Smith would be jsmith
Jill Smith would then be jsmith1
And so on.
It's a matter of practicality, unless management wants to start having people log in as john.smith and jill.smith or worse yet
john.f.smith and jill.d.smith
I don't really think that's a bad convention we use a combination of last,first,initial. I know my wife's company does last.first@x.
It's not bad, if you are starting new, but to make those changes across an already running org would upset a lot of people.
What I hate more is people who's given name is "David" but they go by their middle name, or some other crap. Sorry your parents named you this, and your tax info has this on it, so you are "david" when it comes to AD.
Suck it up sissy!
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@thwr said in User naming convention:
@Count-Chocula said in User naming convention:
- Does anyone else thinks this matters from an end users standpoint? (I've asked and have gotten mixed results)
I've seen that a few times with very common names like Hans Müller or John Smith. Users actually may feel uncomfortable, but this is even more annoying when it comes to the mail address than to their username. It's odd to tell a user that his new mail address will be [email protected]. There's no real solution except for adding a department, like [email protected] or even a mail subdomain like [email protected]. Adding middle names may actually help.
- Am I wrong to push my thoughts for growth and automation, despite what others may think of their "cloned" username including management?
- Is there already some BP that I'm missing?
My gut tells me to standup for my opinion and push the #'s in the case of duplicates. What do you all think?
What else could you do? Maybe give everyone a generated name made from random alphas (AWESOME\rkvzhs), but this will introduce a whole new problem: "Hey, Kelly here from XXX. Uhm, you know, I forgot my username again?"
This is why I always tell companies to use my full name. There is almost never a problem if they do that. I think that all companies, of any size, need a human involved at this point. Names like jsmith3 are impersonal and unfair. It means that jsmith (which could be john smith, josh smith, jay smith, jorge smith, javier smith, jarl smith, Jonathan smith, jacob smith, jane smith, jill smith, janet smith, jerry smith, janelle smith, and so on and on) could be reasonably one of the first people in the company but get a shitty email while some new hire that will only stay a month gets a sweet pristine name just for not having a common name or initial.
I think having humans who get involved and do logical things makes the most sense. It's a bad thing to automate.
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We have two Mikes in our small organization which is a pain. @Mike-Ralston was in first and got "mike" in all of the systems. @Mike-Davis was in second and opted for "mdavis".
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@crustachio said in User naming convention:
I think that numbers in a name aren't the most professional looking solution. Finding an alternative to distinguish them might be worthwhile.
I agree. Those work find for factory workers, but people needing to communicate with the outside world you should try to find an alternative to.
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I guess I'll pile on - numbers do seem rather mechanical, impersonal.
I wish I would have though considered using email address for domain logons when we changed FQDN.... it does work, but users don't use it.
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@scottalanmiller said in User naming convention:
@thwr said in User naming convention:
@Count-Chocula said in User naming convention:
- Does anyone else thinks this matters from an end users standpoint? (I've asked and have gotten mixed results)
I've seen that a few times with very common names like Hans Müller or John Smith. Users actually may feel uncomfortable, but this is even more annoying when it comes to the mail address than to their username. It's odd to tell a user that his new mail address will be [email protected]. There's no real solution except for adding a department, like [email protected] or even a mail subdomain like [email protected]. Adding middle names may actually help.
- Am I wrong to push my thoughts for growth and automation, despite what others may think of their "cloned" username including management?
- Is there already some BP that I'm missing?
My gut tells me to standup for my opinion and push the #'s in the case of duplicates. What do you all think?
What else could you do? Maybe give everyone a generated name made from random alphas (AWESOME\rkvzhs), but this will introduce a whole new problem: "Hey, Kelly here from XXX. Uhm, you know, I forgot my username again?"
This is why I always tell companies to use my full name. There is almost never a problem if they do that. I think that all companies, of any size, need a human involved at this point. Names like jsmith3 are impersonal and unfair. It means that jsmith (which could be john smith, josh smith, jay smith, jorge smith, javier smith, jarl smith, Jonathan smith, jacob smith, jane smith, jill smith, janet smith, jerry smith, janelle smith, and so on and on) could be reasonably one of the first people in the company but get a shitty email while some new hire that will only stay a month gets a sweet pristine name just for not having a common name or initial.
I think having humans who get involved and do logical things makes the most sense. It's a bad thing to automate.
If it wasn't for the fact that they have NEVER moved disabled users and there's 261 of them I find that at least automating the first time is going to be required. I don't have time to manually track down all of them. I just started with this company so lot's of things to improve. Going forward I'm creating a process for termed users that we would have time to manually deal with. So following that logic I think I'll just use the middle initial and won't worry about automating the entire process just the first run.
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@Count-Chocula said in User naming convention:
If it wasn't for the fact that they have NEVER moved disabled users and there's 261 of them....
Maybe start with cleaning that up
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@scottalanmiller said in User naming convention:
@Count-Chocula said in User naming convention:
If it wasn't for the fact that they have NEVER moved disabled users and there's 261 of them....
Maybe start with cleaning that up
That's the goal! Next I'm moving to GP. Right now they have a logon script that installs every printer on the network. This is going to be a great place to grow I think.
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@Count-Chocula said in User naming convention:
@scottalanmiller said in User naming convention:
@Count-Chocula said in User naming convention:
If it wasn't for the fact that they have NEVER moved disabled users and there's 261 of them....
Maybe start with cleaning that up
That's the goal! Next I'm moving to GP. Right now they have a logon script that installs every printer on the network. This is going to be a great place to grow I think.
Logon scripts eh? GPP for the win.
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@Dashrender said in User naming convention:
@Count-Chocula said in User naming convention:
@scottalanmiller said in User naming convention:
@Count-Chocula said in User naming convention:
If it wasn't for the fact that they have NEVER moved disabled users and there's 261 of them....
Maybe start with cleaning that up
That's the goal! Next I'm moving to GP. Right now they have a logon script that installs every printer on the network. This is going to be a great place to grow I think.
Logon scripts eh? GPP for the win.
I plan on implementing this for the printers and shares. It's been a busy two weeks trying to learn position, policy, and people. My ultimate goal is to rid this network of the logon script and filter the access to security groups. If this is either too much work, or the wrong approach please let me know.
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@Count-Chocula said in User naming convention:
@Dashrender said in User naming convention:
@Count-Chocula said in User naming convention:
@scottalanmiller said in User naming convention:
@Count-Chocula said in User naming convention:
If it wasn't for the fact that they have NEVER moved disabled users and there's 261 of them....
Maybe start with cleaning that up
That's the goal! Next I'm moving to GP. Right now they have a logon script that installs every printer on the network. This is going to be a great place to grow I think.
Logon scripts eh? GPP for the win.
I plan on implementing this for the printers and shares. It's been a busy two weeks trying to learn position, policy, and people. My ultimate goal is to rid this network of the logon script and filter the access to security groups. If this is either too much work, or the wrong approach please let me know.
Sounds like you're on the correct path to me.
Don't get me wrong, Logon scripts aren't bad - they can be insanely powerful, they just aren't the typical modern way to manage most things on Windows machine these days...
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To have a powerful login script, it becomes pretty complicated though - compared to how easy it is to do in Group Policy.
As far as the original topic, I agree with using email address as login names. I would also make the usernames "guessable". That way if you know one employees email address is firstname.lastname you have a chance at guessing another employee's email address. Let's face it, spammers are going to get it anyways, so you might as well make it easy on your clients.
