Hello all. The latest change to Reftool is here. In response to difficulties observed while trying to locate certain users, we have implemented the ability to search for users by email alias.

Why is this helpful?

The most obvious use case for this feature is finding users who have an email which differs from their current name on record (such as a user who has undergone a name change and has retained their original email). Previously, email searches were limited to primary addresses, which could be an issue when all you had was an email with no apparent matching user (because the user provided an email other than their primary account). Compounding this issue further was the obvious inability to just search by name (if the only name you had was the email, and it differed from the name on record, a name search could return either nothing or the wrong person). Previously the solution was to try searching combinations of partial first and last names, hoping to shake out the correct account. With the new alias search, as long as the email is a valid address, it should be possible to find the associated account.

How do I use this feature?

To include email aliases in your search, you must first expand the ‘Advanced Options’ dialogue.

There should now be a new option to ‘Include Email Aliases’ next to the existing ‘CN User Type’ radio buttons.

Changing this option to ‘Yes’ will enable email searching by alias. You can now continue with your search as usual.

Why isn’t it working?

Have you specified that aliases should be included using the instructions above? Note that by default, this functionality is disabled and must be explicitly selected to be used. Rather than subjecting every email search to the performance hit incurred by scaling the list of potential matches by a factor of around 5x, it was decided to make this feature something you have to opt in to use. Basically, it’s there if you need it, but otherwise it should remain inactive and unnoticed. If you have enabled the feature and still don’t see results, please check that you do in fact have a valid email (i.e. free of typos, not an ONID email-only user making up a first.last account, not deleted, etc.).

Misc.

In addition to the above changes, this update also includes a minor adjustment to the previously-announced IT Pros reflector whereby Student IT workers no longer have their associated department listed under the reflector (i.e. it will appear as below).

As always, please feel free to contact me with any comments, questions or concerns.