Oracle Calendar – How Middle Names Are Displayed
The issue:
People using the OCS Calendar may see their middle initial within a directory entry; sometimes they see just the first 5 letters of their middle name, depending on which software client they use.
Sometimes they see their preferred name in the first name field and then part of their middle name in the middle initial field. This can be confusing if they want to use their middle name as their preferred name.
Why does this happen?
The applications that build the Cal Poly directory receive their base information from several data sources provided by the State HR offices, the Foundation HR office, the ASI HR office and others. The sources are not consistent in their handling of the middle name field – sometimes a data source may contain the full middle name; sometimes it may contain just the middle initial(s) of an employee.
The middle name field in the OCS infrastructure is populated with the middle name as provided by the data source for the person’s primary role with the University, unless that middle name exactly matches the person’s preferred name, as described further below.
However, the Oracle Web client and the thick client software will only display the first 5 characters of the middle name or initials.
e.g. Mary Josephine Smith would be shown as Mary Josep Smith and
Mary J Jones would be shown as Mary J Jones
What is a Preferred Name?
Employees can designate a ‘preferred name’ in the directory to be used as their first name.
e.g. Egbert David Smith might prefer to be called Bert Smith.
If the preferred name is exactly the same as the middle name, the middle name is blanked out to avoid repetition.
e.g. If Egbert David Smith wants to be called just ‘David’, his name would appear as David Smith, not David David Smith.
However, if Mr. Smith wants to be called ‘Dave’, which is not identical to ‘David’, his name would appear as Dave David Smith.
How can you change your preferred name?
If you are employed by an auxiliary organization, please contact your H.R. office to make a change.
If you are a State employee, please go the Cal Poly portal at http://my.calpoly.edu and then click on ‘My Employee Info’.
Then click on ‘Names’ within the My Employee Info channel. It brings up a PeopleSoft screen which allows you to type a new preferred first name and a new preferred middle name. However, the preferred middle name is not used by OCS
This screen would be used by Egbert Smith from the example above to change his preferred name to ‘Bert’.
The Primary, or Official name is the one on record at your H.R. office and is usually the one shown on your Social Security card.
How can you change your Primary name?
You can only change your primary first name and/or middle name and initials in person through your H.R. office – there aren’t any online screens that you can use to make the change yourself.
