Best way to deal with Prefered names

[Nicole_k]

Hi All,

We often have international staff or people with abbreviated names that use prefered names(Such as Matt for Matthew)

Currently our active directory stores the legal first and last name fields individually but the prefered name is the display name(single field for both first and last name).

I can see in ServiceNow that the name field on the sys_user table is calculated using the first and last name.

I can always create a preferred name field and add this be a searchable attribute on reference fields. Which is great to find a user but the display field is set to name and to modify this, the notifications and other display areas such as profile to refer to the prefered name I feel will become both tedious and bad practice.

How do you deal with prefered names? 

[Tanaji Patil]

I agree with you and would stick to name field as display value and add preferred name in another field if required (just for reference).

-Tanaji
Please mark response correct/helpful if applicable

[Francisco Mejia]

Hi @Nicole_k did you ever find a great solution to this issue. We at our organization are currently working on this same issue but are at a loss. Any tips would be greatly appreciated.

[guneetkaur_11]

Hi @Francisco Mejia Is there a way to fix the issue described above?"

[jonathonbarton]

This was pretty high up in internet search results mid-2023, and I think it's going to get more attention in the future, as California has a (new?) law that *requires* businesses to use Preferred Names in IT systems.
Some of the many examples I've seen in the past that ServiceNow doesn't handle very well with the OOB solution, especially when fed "legal" names from systems that require legal names (like SAP) whether direct from the source or via an intermediary that has a "preferred name" field like Active Directory or Okta....

1. William David Jones = Will Jones
2. William David Jones = W. David Jones
3. William David Jones = David Jones
4. William David Jones = Davey Jones
5. William David Jones and William Adam Jones = William D. Jones and William A. Jones

The CA Requirement suggests that the new Best Practice may be to create new fields:
u_legal_first_name
u_legal_last_name
u_legal_name (which is a concatenation just like the OOB fields today)

...and then populate First Name, Last Name and (concat'd) Name fields with data that traces the source back to whichever system supplies the (user-editable) Preferred Name.

Thoughts?