AD user and contact matching rules

Mapping steps in priority order

If some or all AD users are already set up in Autotask when you enable the AD integration, Autotask will map them according to the following rules:

  1. Email address — The AD email address matches one contact email address in Autotask. This match is not case-sensitive.
    1. Active contacts are searched first. If there is a single match, the user is mapped to the contact.
    2. Inactive contacts are searched next. If there is a single match, the user is mapped to the contact and the contact is activated.
  2. Name — The normalized name (all special characters are removed) in AD matches the normalized name in Autotask.
    1. Active contacts are searched first. If there is a single match on First Name, Middle Name and Last Name, the user is mapped to the contact. If the Middle Name is blank in both AD and Autotask, we match on First and Last Name only.
    2. Inactive contacts are searched next. If there is a single match on First Name, Middle Name and Last Name, the user is mapped to the contact, and the contact is activated. If the Middle Name is blank in both AD and Autotask, we match on First and Last Name only.
  3. If there is no match on either name or email address, a new contact is created.

If a field contains a value in Autotask but is blank in Active Directory, the value in Autotask is retained and not overwritten by the synchronization.

NOTE  If an AD user was previously mapped and then made inactive, the original mapping is retained when they are reactivated, unless the contact has been deleted from Autotask.
If a contact is deleted from the AD group, it is made inactive in Autotask.

Conflict Cases

The following conditions constitute a conflict and will cause user mapping to fail:

  • The AD user being matched shares an email address with another AD user.
  • The AD user being matched has the same name as another AD user.
  • There are multiple Autotask contacts with the same name.
  • There are multiple Autotask contacts with the same email address.

NOTE  For duplicate AD users, we will create a new contact for the first user, then mark subsequent conflict/duplicates as “User action needed”.