Previous Topic: Operation Element

Next Topic: Parameter Element

How to Modify Attribute Descriptions

An attribute stores information about a user, group, or organization entity, such as a telephone number or address. An entity’s attributes determine its profile.

In the directory configuration file, attributes are described in ImsManagedObjectAttr elements. In the User Object, Group Object and Organization Object sections of the directory configuration file, you can do the following:

There is one ImsManagedObjectAttr element for each attribute in user, group, and organization profiles. For example, an ImsManagedObjectAttr element may describe a user ID.

An ImsManagedObjectAttr element resembles the following:

<ImsManagedObjectAttr 
 physicalname="tblUsers.id" 
 displayname="User Internal ID" 
 description="User Internal ID" 
 valuetype="Number" 
 required="false" 
 multivalued="false" 
 maxlength="0" 
 hidden="false" 
 permission="READONLY">

Note: When you are using an Oracle database, note the following when you configure managed object attributes:

The ImsManagedObjectAttr parameters are as follows.

Note: The parameters are optional unless otherwise specified.

physicalname

(Required)

Specifies the physical name of the attribute, and it must contain one of the following:

displayname

(Required)

Specifies a unique name for the attribute.

In the User Console, the display name appears in the list of attributes that are available to add to a task screen.

Note: Do not modify an attribute’s displayname in the directory configuration file (directory.xml). To change the name of the attribute on a task screen, you can specify a label for the attribute in the task screen definition. For more information, see the Administration Guide.

description

Provides the description of the attribute.

valuetype

Specifies the attribute’s data type. The valid values are as follows:

String

The value can be any string.

This is the default value.

Integer

The value must be an integer.

Note: Integer does not support decimal numbers.

Number

The value must be an integer. The number option supports decimal numbers.

Date

The value must parse to a valid date using the pattern:

MM/dd/yyyy

ISODate

The value must parse to a valid date using the pattern yyyy-MM-dd

UnicenterDate

The value must parse to a valid date using the pattern YYYYYYYDDD where:

YYYYYYY is a seven number representation for year beginning with three zeroes. For example: 0002008

DDD is the three number representation for the day beginning with zeroes, as needed. Valid values include 001 to 366.

When an attribute’s valuetype is incorrect, Identity Manager queries may fail.

To make sure that an attribute is stored correctly in the database, you can associate it with a validation rule.

required

Indicates whether a value must be specified for the attribute, as follows:

multi-valued

Indicates whether the attribute can have multiple values, as follows:

For example, the group membership attribute in a user profile is multi-valued to store the groups to which a user belongs.

To store multi-valued attributes in a delimited list instead of in a multi-row table, you must define the delimiter character in the delimiter parameter.

Make sure that the number of possible values and the length of each value that the column enables are sufficient.

Important! The Group Membership attribute in the User object definition must be multi-valued.

wellknown

Provides the name of the well-known attribute.

Well-known attributes have a specific meaning in CA Identity Manager.

Format: %ATTRIBUTENAME%

Note: When a custom operation is associated with an attribute, you must specify a well-known attribute.

maxlength

Determines the maximum size of the column.

permission

Indicates whether an attribute’s value can be modified in a task screen, as follows:

READONLY

The value is displayed but cannot be modified

WRITEONCE

The value cannot be modified once the object is created. For example, a user ID cannot be changed after the user is created

READWRITE

The value can be modified (default)

hidden

Indicates whether an attribute appears in the Identity Manager task screens, as follows:

Logical attributes use hidden attributes.

Note: For more information about logical attributes, see the Programming Guide for Java.

system

Indicates attributes that are used by CA Identity Manager only, and should not be modified by users in the User Console, as follows:

validationruleset

Associates a validation rule set with the attribute.

The validation rule set that you specify must be defined in a ValidationRuleSet element in the directory configuration file.

delimiter

Defines the character that separates values when multiple values are stored in a single column.

Important! The multivalued parameter must be set to true for the delimiter parameter to apply.

Note: To prevent displaying sensitive information, such as passwords or salaries, in the User Console, you can specify DataClassification parameters.