Preferred Last Name

Brian Walker

Has anyone found a way to have the preferred last name displayed throughout the system if there is one entered in the “Preferred Last Name” field on the contact card?

When I go to Users > User Profile Settings > User Name Formats, I see the preferred name (which is the preferred first name) but don't see any options for the preferred last name.

Jessi Walters

@Brian Walker hi there! You're not missing anything; it's not available as a placeholder for User name format yet. In Q4, the Core team will be making updates to the User name format area. When it's released, you'll have a Preferred last name placeholder and unique name display settings for each product in Education Management.

Watch for our upcoming Product Update Briefings to learn more!

Lauren Marcus Eisenberg

@Jessi Walters Has this been implemented yet? Until now, we haven't needed to use preferred last name, but we may in the near future. I want to understand its limitations.

Brian Gray

@Lauren Marcus Eisenberg - Preferred Last Name is now available in the name formats, so it can be used. However, I discovered a couple of days ago that it is not applied correctly in some places. In particular, a course roster page doesn't show the preferred last name - even though it shows the preferred first name as expected. The Gradebook does not show the preferred last name.

I'm still doing a little testing on that before submitting a case.

The Preferred Last Name is available in SKY lists and in API calls (User by role, User Extended by role, User Extended by ID).

Lauren Marcus Eisenberg

@Brian Gray Thanks for this affirmation. @Jessi Walters I hope the developers are fixing this and robustly testing it throughout the system.

Brian Gray

@Lauren Marcus Eisenberg - I finally had some time to look at this question again. The Preferred last name is displayed in the places that Core > Users > User profile settings > user name formats says it will be displayed:

The problem (for me) is that the class roster and gradebook aren't on that list yet, so only the Last name value is shown in those places.

Lauren Marcus Eisenberg

@Brian Gray Of course, this week we had reason to added a student's preferred last name and I see that the preferred last name is not appearing in the roster. @Jessi Walters Any idea when this will be implemented?

Michael Morrissette

Hi @Lauren Marcus Eisenberg - I don't have any specific timelines that I can relay at the moment, but we are looking into updating high-impact areas first, like the various rosters. As these areas are updated, we'll be sure to have these included in the What's New once they are to be released.