Now that BlazerIDs are autogenerated for newcomers to campus, UAB IT has enhanced duplicate identity record detection, saving multiple hours across varying departments.  

Starting in 2020, the campus moved to auto-assignment for usernames, but a side-effect was duplicated identities popping over across departments dealing with credentials. Things like a simple typo or the timing of adding a person into the system can cause duplicate identities.  

Departments such as Human Resources and Student Affairs could spend hours resolving duplicate BlazerID issues and lose the time needed to focus on other projects. At the end of May, there were two dozen duplicate identity records that the UAB IT’s identity management team had detected.  

“In early October 2021, we updated the auto-assignment logic so it attempts to determine if another person in the directory with the same or similar name and date of birth already has a BlazerID,” said Landy Manderson, senior technology architect.  

If the system detects a duplicate, the account is locked and the team is notified of the issue. Manderson said that sometimes it is another person; they found that a lot of twins attend the university together and often get flagged for having similar information.  

The new enhancement has almost completely eliminated the need for Human Resources to manually clear out duplicate IDs after they've been found. Now, about once a week, the Identity Management team is able to notify HR and Student Affairs about any problematic data the team has flagged.