How do we merge duplicate users following integration with SSO in MS Azure

[Rob C]

We have just moved to single sign on for servicenow for our users. In doing this we have different usernames on the Azure accounts which use the email address not our original AD usernames. We now have duplicated users in ServiceNow and need a way to merge the users together and then subsequently avoid creating new users on update.

thanks in advance

[Jeff Currier]

You need to find a field upon which to coalesce.   This would be a field in AD and ServiceNow which is unique to a userID.  It could be an employee number, SSN, or other unique identifier.  Ideally it isn't something that could change like a list name when someone gets married.  If you coalesce, then you will get no new duplicates and updates in AD will update records in ServiceNow.  Then you just need to decide which to keep of the existing duplicates in ServiceNow  

[Jeff Currier]

Re-reading my response, I should have said you want to coalesce on an attribute in Azure and ServiceNow.  If that same attribute exists in AD and was already sync'd with SN that could be helpful too.  I don't think you want to merge the users.  I think you want to use the previous user accounts as they have history where the new duplicate does not.  So if you get the coalesce correct, deactivate the new duplicate from Azure so that only the original remains.  The original should now get sync updates from Azure.

[Rob C]

Thanks for the responses. We are will need to coalesce on email which I agree is not ideal as it could changed but the there aren't any other fields we can use. I'll let you know how it goes and thanks for the advice.

[Rob C]

Am I right that we cannot have 2 user records in ServiceNow with the same user ID? The import that was done originally didn't make the change of user ID to the original records so we can't update the original accounts with all the history to have the new user ID as it now exists on the new imports from Azure.

The new accounts now will have their own more recent history too. So can we link the accounts somehow so that the user logs into the new Azure imported account and can see their history from their original local account (different user ID but same email and name etc.)?