Username recovery

Username recovery lets end users recover their usernames using other information they remember, such as their email address.

PingOne Advanced Identity Cloud includes a ForgottenUsername journey template. This journey collects an end user’s email address and then uses it to search for a user identity with that address. It then emails the username associated with that email address to the end user.

When reviewing the journey template, notice that both Identify Existing User node outputs connect to the Email Suspend node.

This is recommended behavior for security reasons. Returning different outcomes potentially exposes which end users have accounts in your system.

An alternative journey sends a verification link, then uses the Display Username node once the end user returns from the email.

Example forgotten username REST output

When calling a username recovery self-service endpoint, you’ll receive a JSON object back, containing callbacks for each of the nodes included in the username recovery journey.

Sample JSON callbacks

{
  "authId": "<omitted for length>",
  "callbacks": [
    {
      "type": "StringAttributeInputCallback",
      "output": [
        {
          "name": "name",
          "value": "mail"
        },
        {
          "name": "prompt",
          "value": "Email Address"
        },
        {
          "name": "required",
          "value": true
        },
        {
          "name": "policies",
          "value": {}
        },
        {
          "name": "failedPolicies",
          "value": []
        },
        {
          "name": "validateOnly",
          "value": false
        },
        {
          "name": "value",
          "value": ""
        }
      ],
      "input": [
        {
          "name": "IDToken1",
          "value": ""
        },
        {
          "name": "IDToken1validateOnly",
          "value": false
        }
      ],
      "_id": 0
    }
  ],
  "header": "Forgotten Username",
  "description": "Enter your email address or <a href=\"#/service/Login\">Sign in</a>"
}