1 Topic by robin.jones

  • robin.jones
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  • Registered: 24-06-2011
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Topic: Shared email addresses

Hi all,

we've got a number of observers that are couples or are sharing a house and that use the same email address. Because email addresses are set as being unique in indicia, we are unable to import or add a second person sharing an existing email. It is possible to set the email as the same at the database level, but there will still be an error if editing a person's details in an indicia form. Is there already an optional setting for the system to alter this behaviour?

Because the uniqueness of the email address is tested by the warehouse at submission time I think that any change would need to be in the warehouse.

Has anyone else come up against this as an issue and found a solution?

cheers

Robin

Robin Jones
IT Manager: Species Conservation
Wildfowl & Wetlands Trust

robin.jones's Website

2 Reply by Jim Bacon

  • Jim Bacon
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Re: Shared email addresses

Hi Robin

Because peoples names are very definitely not unique, Indicia makes use of the uniqueness of email addresses to prevent the creation of duplicate accounts and to join up the records that a user might submit through several different Indicia-driven websites. I'm not sure this is something that would be good to change as a degree of chaos might result.

I'm not clear from your question if you are dealing with real people or an existing dataset you want to import.

If you are dealing with real people they could consider the following:
- share an Indicia account but not be necessarily able to distinguish one person's records from the other.
- create an email account for the sake of separate registration with Indicia but then forward all email from that new account to the joint account.
- best of all, use an email alias if your email provider allows this
    e.g. https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/help/12407/microsoft-account-manage-aliases
           https://support.google.com/mail/answer/12096?hl=en

On the other hand, if you are dealing with a data import or you were setting up a survey where you were aware that the person logged in and inputting data is not necessarily the recorder then you could ensure that the recorder name is stored in some other field of the database, either a custom sample attribute or the core sample:recorder_names field.

Jim Bacon.

3 Reply by robin.jones

  • robin.jones
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Re: Shared email addresses

Thanks Jim,

I appreciate  that email has been usefully used as a unique identifier. I had thought that a combination of email and first/last names would be a solution, but unfortunately the fact that variations in the way that  first names are entered does make using a unique email address the best solution.

It is rare these days for people to not have their own personal email, but we do have  a few cases in our current system of people that observe in their own right but currently share an email address.  We wouldn’t want to presume to lump their records together. It seems to be a reasonable that a unique email is provided in order create a user account, but it is more difficult to impose this for person records that aren’t linked to a user, since this information will often come from another observer.

Your suggestion of using an attribute instead for the email_address that will be used for contacting the observer may lead to a solution. We already have an attribute set up to hold an “alternative email address”, so all I need to do is create another tickbox attribute called  “use alternative email” and take this into account for any reports showing email address and then I’m sorted. I can allocate a unique invalid email for the main email field in order to make the person record valid.

Cheers

Robin

Robin Jones
IT Manager: Species Conservation
Wildfowl & Wetlands Trust

robin.jones's Website

4 Reply by Jim Bacon

  • Jim Bacon
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Re: Shared email addresses

Hi Robin

It sounds like you are stuck with this two-people-one-email situation and can't get out of it.

How are these people entering records? Typically we have a client website (usually Drupal) which users register with and log in to in order to submit records. They register on the client website with an email address and that creates a corresponding account on the warehouse. That couldn't work with a phoney email address so I am a bit uncomfortable about your idea.

Also, I note that if you have a custom email attribute already, there is a system function that you can assign of type 'email address' which might be used to influence report outputs. Not a feature I am all that knowledgeable about.

Jim.

5 Reply by robin.jones

  • robin.jones
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Re: Shared email addresses

Hi Jim,

the system function idea is worth looking at - I have to admit that I've never been very clear about when to make use of it.
We are only partially through the process of getting our observers online, so it is likely that it will be a while before the "shared email" observers are converted. In the meantime we will be receiving paper or electronic records and adding them ourselves, or they may be part of a regional group and their organiser will enter them.

As far as I can tell, if the person with the valid email address registers for an online account they should be successful and have access to their records. If the person with the invalid email tries to register using the valid email, they will fail to register and will need to contact us. At this point we would insist that they have a unique valid email for themselves in order to register for their online account. Does that make sense?

Robin

Robin Jones
IT Manager: Species Conservation
Wildfowl & Wetlands Trust

robin.jones's Website

6 Reply by DaveSlade

  • DaveSlade
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Re: Shared email addresses

I would (and have) encourage people to get their own email addresses. In the case of a bereavement a shared email address can be an unnecessary trauma.

Dave Slade
Senior IT & Records Officer,
15 Talbot Road, Talbot Green, Pontyclun, CF72 8AD
www.sewbrec.org.uk, www.sewbrecord.org.uk