Brightspace username cannot have a ' in - has anyone got around this when creating accounts via API?
Hello,
We create all our birghtspace users using via API the "Create User" endpoint.
Our rule for setting the username is to use the individuals email address as their username
However we have a number of users that have email adresses such
s.o'neill@school,com
ho'leary@school.com
So these always get rejected via the Create Users. And again if we try to create them manually they also get rejected.
The only way we can currently find to get around this is to create all these indivdiuals manually so that there username excludes the ' but email address retains the '.
However this makes it difficult for course enrolments, as we do this in bulk via CSV and our pulling everyones email addresses off our CRM that needs to be enrolled into each course.
Which then gets a number of enrolments that fail because the email address doesn't match the username,
Is there any plans for D2L to update the system to allow for apostrophes in usernames? essentially matching the rules that are allowed for email addresses?
Is there an alternate mechanism to create these users so that their usernames have the apostrophe in? Ideally we want to be able to do it via API to avoid delays in account creation for our users, and reduce administration costs for the organisation.
Best Answer
-
seems like you're encountering issues due to the use of apostrophes in usernames when creating users via the D2L Brightspace API. Unfortunately, apostrophes in usernames are typically disallowed to avoid conflicts or errors in the system.
One potential workaround is to create a unique mapping between the email addresses and usernames by stripping out special characters like apostrophes before creating the user. This can be handled through a pre-processing step in your API or CSV operations, ensuring that usernames remain compatible with D2L’s restrictions while emails remain intact for communication purposes.
As for future updates to allow apostrophes, you would need to check directly with D2L support or their development roadmap.
Answers
-
@Christina.T.727 Hi Christina,
Thank you for reaching out to us on the Community site.
Currently, the Username field while creating a new user account does not support adding apostrophes.
I can see that you have already placed your comment and upvoted the below feature request,
{
Allow Special Characters in Username (Bring back the ') (D10021)
Direct link:
}
Regards,
Nik
