Allowing PROF_DEPARTMENT_NUMBER values or deptNumber to render Directory Search results

We followed your troubleshooting article https://support.hcl-software.com/csm?id=kb_article&sysparm_article=KB0021499 to set up a preferred name, and everything worked fine. This gave us the idea to check if your system has a column or field for a department number. We found that it does—the PROF_DEPARTMENT_NUMBER in the EMPINST.EMPLOYEE table of your PEOPLEDB database. The values we assign to PROF_DEPARTMENT_NUMBER render correctly in the Directory Search results of Profiles as long as search index is updated.

However, we noticed an issue: if the value contains uppercase letters, it no longer renders in the Directory Search results. For example, Department of Motor Vehicle wont render unless we change it to department of motor vehicle. This does not make sense—why should the column or field value require lowercase letters only?

In real-world scenarios, department numbers are usually alphanumeric combinations, often containing both uppercase and lowercase letters, and sometimes even special characters.

We hope you can consider shipping this kind of feature soon.