PennO365 non-PennKey account naming standards

Non-PennKey accounts include:

• Shared accounts 
• Resources  
  • Rooms (Conference, Classrooms, etc.)
  • Equipment
    • Projectors 
    • Microscopes 
    • Vans

Terminology
 

Account names

Account name requirements: 

• To avoid the PennNames space, a minimum of 9 characters or including a hyphen (for names shorter then 9 characters)
• 20 characters or less
• Begin with a standard 3-4 character abbreviation for its sponsor school/center (see Appendix)
• Include the Type of resource in the account name (see table below)
• Blank spaces are not allowed
• A dash should be used instead of an underscore. Underscores do not always appear on screen when using a browser to access mail.
   

EXAMPLES
 

• ISCConf337a (ISC 3401 Walnut Conf 337a)  
• ​​WHAProj01 (Wharton Projector 01)

Please note: It is possible to keep the actual account name hidden (if, for example, adding a standard prefix impacts an account’s branding). Use an email alias for the account, rather than the actual account name, and set up the Display Name with the more appropriate account description.

Display Names
 

Display name requirements:
 

• Should be no longer than 30 characters
• Should be unambiguous, descriptive, and succinct.
• May include SMTP RFC compliant character EXCEPT for commas and parentheses. (Dashes and spaces are both acceptable.)

Display name format:
 

1. Start with the sponsoring org name
2. Include Type of resource. This would group all resources of a particular type together (see Type table in Account name section).

EXAMPLE
 

• ISC 3401 Walnut 265C Conf A

O365 email naming conventions for non-PennKey or shared accounts

For approval of the @upenn.edu SMTP address for a non-PennKey account, the account name must be unambiguous (a name clearly referring to one and only one UPenn entity) and there can be no conflict with an existing PennName assigned to another individual. In addition, a compelling business justification is required.

Sign-in address

The Sign-in address will be unique across the tenant and will be provided by the O365 service based on the format accountname@subdomain.upenn.edu (e.g. sas-acctname@sas.upenn.edu rather than sasacctname@upenn.edu). If an organization does not have a third level domain that the service is virtually hosting, then pobox.upenn.edu will be used.

Common mailbox accounts are characterized by a recurrence in more than one org of a particular account name (e.g. help@wharton.upenn.edu and help@isc.upenn.edu). Common mailbox accounts with @upenn.edu email addresses are not available.

Outlook search overview

IMPORTANT: When you do a search in Outlook, it only looks at some of an account’s fields and searches by the start of each field’s content only.

From within Outlook, the GAL searches on the following fields:

• Display Name
• Surname (Note: NOT first name)
• Alias
• Recipient Type Details (i.e. the Account Type)