Changing the Activate AD User Attribute

background by default, activate records whether a user has registered answers to their password security questions in the ad attribute extensionattribute1 on the user object the data stored looks like \<?xml version="1 0" encoding="utf 16"?>\<user>\<password>\<answers set="1" when="2013 08 29t10 52 57" />\</password>\</user> sometimes, addressing client requirements dictates that other data is also stored in the extensionattribute1 attribute while not common, it underscores the importance of reserving the attribute for activate’s exclusive use this article explains how to change the default attribute that activate will use in active directory notes the ad attribute activate uses cannot be used by other systems to store data if other systems write to the same attribute, the data that activate stores can be overwritten ideally no user objects in ad should have any data stored in this attribute when activate is installed this can be checked using powershell get aduser filter 'extensionattribute1 like " "' this should not list any users if users are using the selected attribute, this data should be cleared out if it is not being used by other systems how to change the ad attribute activate uses if other systems are writing to extensionattribute1 find an unused attribute from extensionattributes1 – extensionattribute15 get aduser filter extensionattributex like " "' change //resources/user/extensionattribute (see screenshot below) to use the attribute found above restart the activate orchestrator service and the activate app pool //resources/user/extensionattribute by