How do I safely update/ change the User ID of a User record?

[iamkurt]

My user table is a hot mess right now and there are duplicates lying around. If you are curious to read my investigate thesis, I have attached a PDF doc herewith, to understand where I am coming from, but my basic question is the one in the subject above - how can I change the User ID of a user record without breaking anything in the system? How do I ensure that all the records referenced by the User ID are updated?

[Dr Atul G- LNG]

Hi @iamkurt 

From the pdf, i can see there is no governance followed at the time of user creation and that is causing the issue. In this case you need to verify each user and their role and group and then remove the unrequired users. It is manual activity.

[YahyaDouniali]

Changing the UserID in ServiceNow won’t break the system, changing UserID will update all activity streams with the new user name. So, historical records will reflect the new name.

For your Okta issue, I would stick with the first solution and simply fix the userID (Class user); in my previous experience, for similar cases, I had to also make sure that the userID and Okta username are aligned in addition to other few details.. for your case you can refer to an existing account working properly as example OR reach out to your Okta Admins for more information about the implementation.

For your searching for Jane Doe issue, make sure to clean up the users table by merging duplicates, identify which one is being used (Last login), and keep only one active account per class (manual efforts) + double check reference qualifier for Assigned To field (Dictionary) default is based on itil role, if that's the case for you just make sure that inactive/duplicate accounts don't have support groups assigned (set a business rule to clear groups assignment for inactive account if needed) this should fix the issue.

Finally, try to determine the root cause, the source of creation for these wrong/duplicate entries and find a way to prevent this issue in the first place. Hints for permanent solution : Leverage automations and/or integrations (e.g. UserID generated automatically based on FirstName and LastName), avoid manual creations for users table and if really necessary setup a record producer and limit its access to a small number of people (e.g. Servicenow Admins, Service Desk etc...)

Regards,