Enabling Users to Use Their Preferred First Name

Schoology provides the ability to set up your user accounts so users can choose to display the first name of their choice, in place of or in addition to the first name that is automatically used in their accounts. This may be necessary for students who want to display a different first name, as opposed to the legal name imported from your Student Information System (SIS), wherever their name appears throughout Schoology.

Set Preferred First Name Permission

Providing this ability is a setting in the Users section of the Permissions area of User Management.

The permission is role-based, which means you can provide access for users on a role-specific basis. For example, giving only instructors in your organization the ability to change their names, or students and parents but not instructors.

To configure the permission for users in your Enterprise organization:

1. As a System Admin, click Tools from your home page.
2. Select User Management from the drop-down menu.
3. Click Permissions in the menu.
4. Adjust the Set preferred first name permission as desired.
5. Click Save permissions to apply your changes.

User Display of Set Preferred Name

When the Set preferred first name permission is enabled for users, they can change how their name displays from their personal Account Settings area.

1. Click the down-facing arrow in the top right corner of Schoology.
2. Select Settings from the drop-down menu.
3. Users can then enter the first name of their choice in the Preferred First Name box, and select whether to:
   • Replace First Name with Preferred Name: Only display the preferred name in all areas of Schoology.
   • Display both First Name and Preferred Name: Display the preferred first name throughout Schoology, but also include the First Name in parentheses.
4. Users must click Save Changes to apply the preferred name.
5. When selected, the Preferred First Name displays everywhere the user's name displays in Schoology, including official grade reports.

Including Preferred First Name when Importing Users

System Admins can include user Preferred First Names when importing users via the Import Users or Auto-Import areas.

Add the Preferred First Name column to your import file and enter the preferred name for any users.

In the Preferred Name Display section of the import file setup area, select whether to display the preferred name in place of, or in addition to, the user first names.

Select Override existing settings in Schoology to replace the current user setting in Schoology with the selection from the Preferred Name Display area.

If running a manual import of users, you must choose one of the Update existing records options in order to use the Override existing settings in Schoology option for the Existing Preferred Name Display setting.