Allow Users to Change Their Display Names in Office 365

  • Article

Applies to: Office 365 for enterprises

Display names appear in the shared address book and on the To: and From: lines of e-mail messages. Your organization may want to prevent some users from changing their display name, but allow others to change theirs. For example, you may want to prevent staff from changing their display names, but allow managers and executives to change theirs. To do this, you need to perform the following steps:

1   Modify the default role assignment policy to prevent all users from changing their display name.

2   Create a new role assignment policy that allows users to change their display name.

3   Apply the new role assignment policy to managers and executives.

Before you begin

  • To learn how to install and configure Windows PowerShell and connect to the service, see Use Windows PowerShell in Exchange Online.
  • When you create a new role assignment policy, no roles are selected. To give certain users more capabilities, you need to assign the same roles as the default role assignment policy, and then add the roles that give more capabilities. In other words, you preserve the capabilities the users already have, and then give them more capabilities. A user can have only one role assignment policy assigned to them.

1   Modify the default role assignment policy to prevent all users from changing their display name

  1. In the Exchange Control Panel, select Manage My Organization > Roles & Auditing > User Roles.
  2. Select Default Role Assignment Policy and click Details.
  3. Under Profile Information, clear the check box next to MyProfileInformation, and click Save.
    Note   The MyProfileInformation role is the parent of the MyDisplayName and MyName roles, so when you clear the MyProfileInformation check box, the check boxes next to MyDisplayName and MyName are also cleared. The MyDisplayName role controls whether users can modify their display names, but you can't remove the MyDisplayName role without first removing the MyProfileInformation role.
  4. Take note of the other roles assigned in the Default Role Assignment Policy. You'll use this information when you create the new role assignment policy later. By default, all roles are selected in the Default Role Assignment Policy.
  5. When you are finished, click Save.

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2   Create a new role assignment policy that allows users to change their display name

  1. In the Exchange Control Panel, select Manage My Organization > Roles & Auditing > User Roles, and click New.
  2. In the Role Assignment Policy window, enter the following information:
    1. Name   Enter a unique, descriptive name for the role assignment policy, for example, "Managers and Executives".
    2. Description   Enter details about the role assignment policy, for example, This policy is for Managers and Executives so they can change their display names.
    3. Select the roles you want to assign to the role assignment policy. Remember: To preserve the capabilities the users already have, select the same roles as the default role assignment policy, and also select the MyProfileInformation role.
  3. When you are finished, click Save.

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3   Apply the new role assignment policy to managers and executives

There are two ways to assign the new role assignment policy to managers and executives:

  • One mailbox at a time   Use the Exchange Control Panel to assign the role assignment policy to an individual mailbox.
  • In bulk   You can use Windows PowerShell to assign the policy to many mailboxes. using one of the following methods:
    • Filter the mailboxes based on an existing attribute   This method assumes that the target mailboxes all share a unique filterable attribute. For example, the Title, Department, or one of the CustomAttribute1-15 attributes are the same for and unique to all the affected mailboxes. Note that some attributes, such as Title, Department, address information, and telephone number, are visible only when you use the Get-User cmdlet. Other attributes, such as CustomAttribute1-15, are visible only when you use the Get-Mailbox cmdlet.
    • Use a list of specific mailboxes   After you generate the list of specific mailboxes, you can use that list to assign the new role assignment policy.

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Use the Exchange Control Panel to assign the role assignment policy to an individual mailbox

  1. In the Exchange Control Panel, select Manage My Organization > Users & Groups > Mailboxes.
  2. In the Mailboxes list, select the mailbox, and click Details.
  3. In the Mailbox Settings section, select the role assignment policy you want to assign to the mailbox. In this example, select "Managers and Executives".
  4. When you are finished, click Save.

Filter the mailboxes based on an existing attribute

To assign the role assignment policy to many mailboxes based on an existing mailbox attribute, run the following command:

<Get-Mailbox | Get-User> -ResultSize unlimited -Filter <Filter> | Set-Mailbox -RoleAssignmentPolicy <Role assignment policy>

For example, let's assume you want to allow managers and executives to change their display names and you've stored employee levels in the Title attribute. To assign the "Managers and Executives" role assignment policy to all mailboxes where the Title property contains "Manager" or "Executive", retrieve the mailboxes that meet that criterion and assign the role assignment policy by running the following command:

Get-User -ResultSize unlimited -Filter {(RecipientType -eq 'UserMailbox') -and (Title -like '*Manager*' -or Title -like '*Executive*')} | Set-Mailbox -RoleAssignmentPolicy "Managers and Executives"

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Use a list of specific mailboxes

To assign the role assignment policy to a list of mailboxes, run the following command:

Get-Content <text file> | Set-Mailbox -RoleAssignmentPolicy <Role assignment policy>

For example, the following procedure uses the text file C:\My Documents\Managers.txt to identify the mailboxes by their e-mail address. The text file must contain one e-mail address on each line like this:

akol@contoso.com
tjohnston@contoso.com
kakers@contoso.com

After you populate the text file with the mailboxes you want to update, run the following command:

Get-Content "C:\My Documents\Managers.txt" | Set-Mailbox -RoleAssignmentPolicy "Managers and Executives"