SAP Knowledge Base Article - Public

2214831 - Enabling Case‑Insensitive Usernames in SuccessFactors: FAQs and Common Issues

Symptom

  • Is there a way to enable or disable non-case-sensitive Usernames in SuccessFactors?
  • Are duplicate usernames (differing only by case) causing conflicts or preventing activation?
  • Does the system fail to synchronize username changes properly with connected systems like IAS or WorkZone?
  • Are the user accounts missing or merged incorrectly after synchronization?
  • Are technical or system users unaffected by changes to username case sensitivity?
  • How to make the Usernames in SuccessFactors non case sensitive?
  • Enable username case-insensitive in SuccessFactors
  • How to synchronize the changes to the other systems like IAS, WorkZone etc.? 
  • Frequently Asked Questions About Enabling Case-Insensitive Settings in SuccessFactors.

Image/data in this KBA is from SAP internal systems, sample data, or demo systems. Any resemblance to real data is purely coincidental.

Environment

SAP SuccessFactors HCM Suite

Resolution

Is it possible to enable/disable non-case-sensitive usernames in SuccessFactors?

Yes, it is possible to enable case-insensitive username in SuccessFactors, but once enabled, it is not possible to disable it.

For that, no duplicate usernames can exist in the instance. If there are duplicate usernames in the system an error message might appear upon attempting to enable the feature.

Note: Before 2H 2023 release (b2311 release) Single Sign-On was a mandatory pre-requisite that should be enabled in the instance otherwise this feature won't work. Starting 2H 2023 release (b2311 release) this is no more mandatory.

  

Prerequisites:

Before you enable the Enable Case-Insensitive Usernames option, check for duplicate usernames going to:

  1. Admin Center > Check Tool > System Health
  2. Filter Application for "User Account Management" > "go"
  3. Open the results for "There are no duplicate usernames in the case-insensitive mode. (DuplicatedUsernamesWithCaseInSensitive)":
  4. See the list of user accounts and employments with duplicate username in your tenant:
    • If you have duplicate usernames in employment, please use the Employee Import admin tool to fix the duplicates (as per KBA 2086718 - How to change user's information & create new users via Employee Import).
    • If there are duplicate login names in user accounts, please use the Manage Login Accounts admin tool and search for the affected user using either the login name or the username (Person ID) as indicated in the Check Tool to resolve.
  5. After all duplicate login names and usernames are fixed, re-run the check again to ensure no duplicate username case.
    If no duplicate username in the case-insensitive mode, proceed to enabling the feature.

 

How to Enable Username Case-Insensitive in SuccessFactors:

  1. Go to Admin Center > Company System and Logo Settings.
  2. Check "Enable Case-Insensitive Usernames".
    Note: After you enabled this admin option, this option will gray out, and you can’t disable it anymore.
  3. Save your changes.

 

How to synchronize the changes to other systems - like IAS, WorkZone, etc.?

Once Enable Case-Insensitive Usernames has been enabled you can proceed with synchronizing the changes to the other systems (like Identity Authentication service aka IAS, embedded SAP Analytics Cloud aka SAC, WorkZone, etc). 

As initially there were some duplicated usernames in the user source (SuccessFactors system) - Identity Provisioning system has mapped the accounts with duplicated usernames to just 1 account on the target systems. Due to that, there was a concurrency in the user update, so you cannot rely on consistency of the user data, which may imply in some users not being properly synced after enabling case-insensitive.

There are 2 ways to fix this and you can to choose one of them based on your specific case or requirements.

  • Option 1: Manually delete the corresponding accounts on the target systems and execute Resync job (full force sync) - which will ensure that all properties are correctly replicated to the newly created accounts on the target systems: Running and Scheduling Jobs (User Sync) | SAP Help Portal
    Note:
    • any data that was set initially by some of the users will be lost (like passwords or other specific attributes).
    • this option is not suitable in case of target systems where the users cannot be deleted manually (like embedded SAC), as in these cases the user provisioning mapping N to 1 will remains.
  • Option 2: Reset the SuccessFactors source system configuration in IPS (as is described here - Reset an Identity Provisioning System) and execute Resync job (full force sync) - here the user data of the existing accounts on the target systems (IAS, SAC, WorkZone etc.) will be preserved. So, they will be used by the users which usernames were not changed, and for those with changed usernames new accounts will be created.
    Note:
    • Due to the data inconsistency this may have some side effects on the targets.
    • in case of huge user population in SuccessFactors this can be long running process.

FAQ - Frequently Asked Questions:

1) No Duplicate Case-Insensitive Usernames Found, but Feature Still Cannot Be Enabled

Please review this KBA 3339626 and If you are still unable to find any duplicate records in your instance, please open a case with SAP Cloud Support Team under component LOD-SF-PLT and ask to check the database to see if any purged records exist with a duplicate username. Users purged via the DRTM tool can impact this feature enablement.

 

2) Are technical users such as TECHNICAL_USER_INBOX_CEF979F3 affected by the Case-Insensitive Username?

Technical users also known as ExtensionServiceUser are not normal users and do not get affected by the Case-Insensitive Username feature.

See Also

Keywords

Username case sensitive, Non-Case Sensitive, Duplicate username, PLA-5734, case-insensitive, username, TECHNICAL_USER_INBOX_CEF979F3, There are no duplicate usernames in the case-insensitive mode. (DuplicatedUsernamesWithCaseInSensitive), successfactors, IAS, user sync, check tool, , KBA , LOD-SF-PLT-IAS , Identity Authentication Services (IAS) With BizX , LOD-SF-PLT , Platform Foundational Capabilities , LOD-SF-SWZ , Digital Workplace Service in Work Zone Advanced edition , How To

Product

SAP SuccessFactors HCM Suite all versions