Changing the Login Account of a User

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Sometimes it may be necessary to change the login account for a user. The user's login account may have to be changed when, for example, the user needs a new login account due to his or her last name being changed or when login accounts are moved from one domain to another.

When a user login account must be changed, it is important to preserve the vault user associated with the original login account and to associate the same user with the new login account to preserve the user history and the user's personal settings in the vault.
Note: It is important to distinguish between login accounts and users:
  • Login accounts are server-level (or in some cases vault-level) accounts that are used for authenticating users to M-Files Server. A login account can be associated with multiple users, but only one user per vault.
  • Users are vault-level objects that store user-specific settings and user history and that have permissions to perform specific operations in a vault. A user is linked to one and only one login account.

Do the following steps to correctly change a login account for a user after new login accounts have been created in M-Files:

  1. Open M-Files Admin.
  2. In the left-side tree view, expand a connection to M-Files server.
  3. Expand Document Vaults.
  4. Expand a vault.
  5. Select Users.
    Result:The Users list is opened in the right-side pane.
  6. Right-click the user whose login account you need to change and select Properties from the context menu.
    If new login accounts are synchronized from an Active Directory source, M-Files automatically creates new users for the new login accounts. To associate the new login account with the correct existing user, you must first delete the new, automatically created user.
    Result:The User Properties dialog is opened.
  7. Use the Login account drop-down menu to select a new login account for the user.
  8. Click OK to close the User Properties dialog and to save your changes.
The new login account is now correctly associated with the existing user. Now when the user logs in using the new credentials, their previous user history and personal settings in the vault are available.