Name fields behaviour

Hi Anna, just on the back of this we have noticed the following:

1. At new employee input, we manually populate the Display Name field as “First Name” + “Surname”
2. When the new joiner completes their pre-boarding actions and adds in a middle name, the Display Name is automatically updated to “First Name” + “Middle Name” + “Surname”. We don’t want this to happen as it’s not appropriate for us to be broadcasting someone’s middle name across org charts, directory, etc.

Can I confirm if this is the correct behaviour from Bob and whether there is any way around it? I can understand the Full Name field automatically updating in this way, but I don’t understand why the Display Name field is doing the same? 

Many thanks!

Hi @Joy Whittaker! Regarding the onboarding flow for the new hires to complete: do you need to add in any name fields for them to fill out?
I only ask since you/the HR team has already filled out that data in the new hire flow when the employee profile was completed. Removing these fields means they won’t be prompted to fill this out and therefore, not updating what the profile already has listed.
Once they reach their start date, they can easily make any changes they’d like to the Display Name if they’d prefer.

@Lindsay Sinenberg thanks for coming back on this, much appreciated.

Yes, we do need our new joiners to review these fields in order to populate any gaps or correct any errors. In most cases we do pre-populate with middle names if confirmed by the ID received during KYC checks, but this doesn’t always include middle names. We would prefer this to be reviewed during pre-boarding so that the new joiner can review all their data prior to their start date in one action/flow, so not something we can take out.

​@Joy Whittaker  Hi Joy, 

Did you ever resolve this? I am facing the same issue and would not like middle name visible at all 

​@Krish afraid not, this is still an ongoing issue for us. If you need them to not be visible at all, could you try archiving the field? We still use the middle name field, we just don’t want it to show in the Display Name.

​@Lindsay Sinenberg was there ever an update on this please?

​@Joy Whittaker We will still need full legal name, so the middle name is required for payroll purposes, just wouldn’t like it on show for other employees to see. 

​@Lindsay Sinenberg ideally, I’d just like to see if Display name is the only thing visible for employees. The rest of the information is only relevant for internal use. 

​@Lindsay Sinenberg I’ve just come across the same issue. Could you let me know whether there’s a solution possible please?

Hi everyone 👋

Thanks for raising this. At the moment, this is expected behavior in Bob, and unfortunately there’s no configuration change or workaround available to prevent the middle name from appearing in the Display Name while still capturing it for legal or payroll purposes.

Hi Netta

Thank you for confirming the behaviour is expected. 

What is HiBob’s solution for this? We purchased HiBob to automate processes and improve integration across our internal central functions. In the current state, either HR or IT has to intervene with a manual step to remove the auto populated ‘middle name’ in the ‘display name’ field. 

Can HiBob not remove the auto-population to display name or create 2 new fields (display first name and display second name) that then populate the display name?

This is a really basic and frustrating system process that adds manual administration for new starters and name changes. 

I hope to hear from you soon.

Thanks,
Luke

​@Netta Brodsky I agree with Luke here. If the stance is that you are capturing the middle name in case it is needed for legal or payroll purposes, is this not what the “Full Name” field is for?

We never use Display Name for our payroll because this isn’t accurate where someone has a preferred name that is different to their legal name, such as Alex vs Alexandra or those who are known by a different name than the one that appears on their legal documents. Typically most of our payroll systems require first name and surname separately, so we don’t use any of the combined fields, but appreciate other systems may differ.

Display Name to me should specifically be for how the person’s name is displayed within Bob. For us, it’s not appropriate for middle names to be displayed here as this is sensitive data that is restricted. 

We promoted Bob as the core of our future-ready HR tech stack, and it puts us in a very difficult (and rather embarrassing!) position where an employee updating their requested fields suddenly finds their middle name on display to the whole company, and there is nothing we as the system owners can do to prevent it.

We’re therefore in the same position as Luke where manual intervention is required to correct this, and it is always on a reactive basis after the information has potentially been viewed by other employees.

Hi 
We have this issue too. 

We are populating the Display Name with a preferred name, however if the employee then adds a legal middle name this seems to be overwriting the Display Name to the Legal First Name-Legal Middle Name-Legal Last Name. 

This cannot be expect behaviour? Why would it be expected that the inclusion of a Legal Middle Name would overwrite a Display Name when most people never display middle name as standard??? 

This is causing no end of issues across all of our systems. We need to offer Employees the capability to be known as their preferred name and this functionality is leading to upset when non-preferred and dead names are being displayed instead because the employee simply added their middle name, as requested, for payroll and travel purposes. 

Hi, 

Just to add on to this, from our side it looks as though the pattern seems to be;

If preferred name is equal to full legal name, then HiBob will update the preferred name with any legal name changes. However, if preferred name is not equal to full legal name then HiBob assumes this is intentional and doesn’t update it with any legal name changes. 

​@Netta Brodsky, would you be able to confirm whether this is correct?

Thank you!

Hi ​@Netta Brodsky,

We’re experiencing the same challenge - even though we’ve included the first, middle, last and display name fields in the name change flow, the display name gets automatically changed to a combination of first, middle and last name, even if the display name was filled differently from a user.

This creates an unnecessary second step where employees have to first go through the name change flow to change e.g. their first name, but then secondly through another request to change back their display name.

Is there any update or workaround on this? It’s creating a lot of frustration on employees side.

Thanks a lot!

​@Netta Brodsky To confirm, we’re still experiencing this and it’s causing frustration and additional work for the team. Would really appreciate if there’s any update or if it’s on the potential review radar?

​@Netta Brodsky is there an update on this? It looks like none of your customers actually want this behaviour from the system. As ​@Joy Whittaker said, this is what the Full Legal Name field is for, not the Display Name. It is creating a lot of additional manual work for the team having to correct these for most new joiners as we use Display Name for all letters and comms from Bob.

Tagging ​@Harshil Boparai - looks like Netta’s been tagged a few times over the last few months but no response yet, are you able to help or point this thread towards another Bobber please?