User Profiles Tab

Alation Cloud Service Applies to Alation Cloud Service instances of Alation

Customer Managed Applies to customer-managed instances of Alation

Using the User Profiles tab of the Admin Settings page, Server Admins can bulk-create user accounts by uploading them from a CSV/TSV file and map user database accounts to Alation accounts.

• Bulk-Create User Accounts

• Map User Database Accounts

Bulk-Create User Accounts

For the user upload process, you’ll need to prepare a CSV or TSV file containing user data in the format described in this topic.

Note

When LDAP or SAML authentication is configured for the Alation application, user accounts are created at the time individuals log in using their corporate credentials. However, bulk-loading user accounts from a CSV file can be useful even with LDAP or SAML authentication. Server Admins may need to perform a configuration that involves user accounts before users begin logging in. For example, they could be setting up Data Source Admins in advance. Additionally, pre-uploading accounts enables users to use @-mentions in conversations to tag colleagues who haven’t logged in yet, motivating them to log in.

CSV/TSV Format for User Profile Uploading

Important

• Ensure that any non-ASCII characters within the data are UTF-8 encoded to prevent errors during upload.

• Starting with 2021.1, the role attribute can only be used if role assignment using custom groups is disabled.

• Starting with 2024.1.5, each file upload can handle up to 50 user entries for creation or updates. If the upload exceeds this limit, you will still see a preview of the proposed changes accompanied by an error message indicating that the upload threshold has been surpassed. To create or update more users, organize them into batches of 50 and create a separate file for each batch.

Column	Required?	Value	Description
user	Yes	Alphanumeric Unique across all rows	Values in this column will be uploaded as user names. In versions before 2021.2, the number of characters in a username is limited to 30. From version 2021.2, the username character limit is increased to 150 characters. *
display_name	Yes	Alphanumeric	Values will be uploaded as users’ display names
email	Yes	An email address	Values will be uploaded as users’ emails
title	Yes	Alphanumeric	Values will be uploaded as users’ titles
role	Yes	Alphanumeric	The role of the user: server_admin catalog_admin source_admin composer steward viewer
password	No	Alphanumeric	This column can be included to set initial passwords for new users. It cannot be used to update passwords of existing users.

* From 2021.2, the username character limit is increased to 150 characters. The previously truncated usernames that have more than 30 characters will be automatically migrated and shown in full. To disable the migration, refer to Disable the Username Migration.

Example

"user","display_name","email","title"

"John Doe","John the Curator","[email protected]","The Guru"

"Jane Doe","Jane the Steward","[email protected]",""

Upload User Profiles

To bulk-upload user profiles:

1. Prepare a CSV or TSV file using the information in CSV/TSV Format for User Profile Uploading. To get started, you can download a CSV file with the existing user profiles from Alation:

   1. Open the Admin Settings page.

   2. In the Server Admin section, click the User Profiles.

   3. Click Download the current user profiles as a template to download the file to your local machine.

   

2. Upload your file using the Drag & Drop or Click to Upload button under Upload user profiles in a CSV / TSV file. Alation will generate a preview of the file. If your file includes updates to existing users, the profiles corresponding to existing users will appear as links in the user column, providing a direct link to the user’s profile in Alation. Any existing values that will be overwritten by the current upload will be highlighted in green.

   Note

   Starting with version 2024.1.5, uploading of more than 50 entries at a time is not allowed. You will see an error message and the Confirm button will be inactive if your file includes more than 50 entries, as illustrated in the screenshot below.

   

3. Click Confirm to upload the file. User profiles will be uploaded to Alation.

Map User Database Accounts

Server Admins can map Alation user accounts onto users’ existing database accounts.

To create the mapping:

1. In the Server Admin section of the Admin Settings, click the User Profiles link.

2. Find the User DB Accounts section and follow the instructions on the page to map the accounts.