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Resolving the Full Name Attribute for AD

Novell Cool Solutions: Tip
By Geoffrey Carman

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Posted: 12 Aug 2004 		 

Here's a tip on solving the Full Name attribute issue with Microsoft Active Directory. It was sent in by on e of our readers, Geoffrey Carman. Remember, we give T-shirts for tips, so keep those contributions rolling in!

The Problem

eDirectory's mandatory attributes on a user object are CN and Surname. Active Directory, however, requires a Full Name attribute in order to create an object. So if you create a user in eDirectory, it will not seem to sync with AD.

The Solution

Here are the steps to follow:

  1. Create a Creation Policy rule on the Subscriber channel to concatenate the eDirectory Given Name and Surname attributes.
  2. Use a space between the names.
  3. Send them out to the destination as Full Name.

I've included a sample XML rule to demonstrate this. You can load it into Policy Builder to see the choices I made.

Sample XML Rule
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<policy>
  <rule>
    <description>Create Full Name from Given Name and Surname</description>
    <conditions>
      <and>
        <if-attr name="Full Name" op="not-available"/>
      </and>
    </conditions>
    <actions>
      <do-add-dest-attr-value class-name="User" name="Full Name">
        <arg-value type="string">
          <token-attr name="Given Name"/>
          <token-text xml:space="preserve"  xmlns:xml="http://www.w3.org/XML/1998/namespace"> </token-text>
          <token-attr name="Surname"/>
        </arg-value>
      </do-add-dest-attr-value>
    </actions>
  </rule>
</policy>


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