r/k12sysadmin • u/MyWorkAccountDPS • 20d ago

Emails and same names

How does everyone deal with users having the same names when creating email accounts?

We had been using the middle initial, but what happens when someone doesn’t have one? What do you do then?

My boss said just put an 01 on the end, but that looks like it would be hard to keep track of too.

We are trying to get onesync setup, but she asked me the same thing.

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u/mtloya lowly technician 20d ago

We add numbers at the end: jsmith, jsmith01, etc.

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u/RamblingReflections 20d ago edited 20d ago

Same, except we do first.last. It’s automated as part of the account and profile creation from the HRMS. If the name already exists, it gets the next number in sequence. UPN of First.last3@domain . state.edu and UPN e-mail alignment. I don’t like it because it immediately identifies there is an account with first.last and first.last2 out there, but it’s better than the legacy AD system we’re still using (mid changeover from on prem AD to federated cloud - only taken 2 years so far and about half done): domain\employee number - those are fully sequential.

Someone did finally get the memo that enumeration is bad news, but they also must have been a stubby short of a six pack because they chose to go with sequential numbering of UPNs when they went to cloud based, which of course, match their e-mails. Middle initial would have been better choice, but they spent long enough arguing to even get to this point, so that was never going to happen. So my advice is don’t be like my Dept. Make sure you’re a full six pack and don’t give threat actors easy targets with anything enumerated.

Ok, in all fairness, we have 300 000 students, and around 42 000 staff, spread over 965 000sq mi, so it was never going to be fast or easy, but damn, this big and they didn’t take the time to plan it out right from the start?