asked on

Username Best Practices

OK...I have a dumb question but I can't find the answer anywhere on the site. What are the best practices for creating a Username policy? I have seen first initial and last name done quite a bit but our company has many people with the same first initial and last name. I was thinking of doing FirstName.LastName but I wasn't sure if the "." was a good idea or not. Maybe I should do FirstNameLastName.

I guess I am just intrested in what others are doing...

rhandels

Hey,

You haven;t seen it because there is no ground rule for naming convention..
Normally, i would suggest <first initial>.<lats name>, but as you stated in your questeion, if you have multiple users allready that would have the same user name, i'd go for <first name>.<llast name>. I would always go for the dot in the middle because you'll have a distintion between your first and last name..

Still, it is always your call what you would liek to do.. Keep in mind that the usernam will almost always result in the e-mail address. So using things like j.doe and j2.doe when using initials isn;t "really fun".. :)

leegclystvale

I use surname followed by first letter of forename so SMITHD is Dave Smith. If there are 2 or more people with this name a 2 is added to SMITHD2
Works ok for me and the users

Mike Kline

We also use first.lastname
If there is a conflict we will use Frist.midlleinitial.lastname
If that doesn't work then we append with a number like lee does.
Thanks
Mike

ASKER CERTIFIED SOLUTION

Kerem ERSOY

membership

This solution is only available to members.

To access this solution, you must be a member of Experts Exchange.

Start Free Trial

PDiddyHix

ASKER

So are you saying that if I want my e-mail alias to be FirstName.LastName, then I should use the same for my Usernames? I thought there is a way to seperate the two if desired. Also, is there any hard in having a "." in the username? That is my main concern.

rhandels

Hey,

Yes there is an option to split both username and e-mail address, but normally, if you are as lazy as every admin your best shot is to go for the same username as e-mail address. Also, this will make things easier for you regarding logins and e-mail addresses for users.. They will be able to remember both much easier when login and e-mail address are the same...

Kerem ERSOY

In fact I like to use the same for loginname and e-mail alias. In this yway when you define a suer you define the e-mail. As rhandels told it is a good practice otherwise yo need to define user and add an alias for the e-mail.