SOP for Alias Creation (Name change)

In the case of an official name change recognized by the People Team and deemed acceptable by IT leadership:

Standard format for email aliases in the case of legal name change for reason of marriage or other legally approved convention shall be the following:

firstname.lastname@acvauctions/acvrc.com

The format firstname.lastname@ is used to avoid future issues with a new hire that may have the same name as an existing user’s alias and to ensure that email delivery is unaffected for any current or future users.

Deviation from this SOP will be a rare exception.

Rationalle:

Our onboarding process begins with the creation of a unique user principal name (UPN) for each user. The standard method chosen by corporate/people team is the first initial of the user’s first name followed by their last name in accordance with our email naming SOP. (Example John Smith = jsmith = jsmith@acvauctions.com) Once the UPN is assigned, no other user can be assigned the same UPN. In the case of the automation being presented a duplicate UPN creation, it will default to the first two letters of the first name followed by the last name (Example: Jake Smith = jasmith = jasmith@acvauctions/acvrc.com). This continues for each matching letter of a corresponding name. If the full name is a complete match, a number will be appended to the end of the UPN beginning with 1 and continuing suit. (Example: We hire multiple John Smiths: when johnsmith@acvauctions/acvrc.com is taken, the next John Smith would be given the UPN of johnsmith1@acvauctions/acvrc.com, then johnsmith2, etc.)

No system currently in use at ACV has the ability to parse Google/Gmail for aliases, only the user’s primary email address. 

If a user is given an alias in standard format, eventually it will cause issues with a new hire’s UPN creation and access assignments. 

Example. Joanne Jones changes their name upon marriage to Joanne Smith. If we were to give them the alias of josmith@acvauctions/acvrc.com, and we then hire a second John Smith (or Joe Smith), the UPN created for John/Joe would be josmith@acvauctions/acvrc.com. Because Okta can’t parse Gmail for aliases, it will not know that the address is currently being used as an alias and will assign John/Joe the UPN of josmith. A Google account is automatically created by Okta using the generated UPN, josmith. The account creation will fail because Google does know that josmith@acvauctions/acvrc is being used as an alias and will not create the account as a primary, however, their UPN will still show as josmith@acvauctions/acvrc.com and will be distributed to the user’s team for communication purposes. This will lead to Joanne receiving all email intended for John/Joe.