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HOWTO: Add New Fields to the User Profile or Group Profile

Updated: December 4, 2024

Users and groups are defined using schemas and, as an Extensible Platform, Nuxeo gives you the ability to modify or add schemas.

Prerequisite

This page gives the step by step instructions to deploy new user information in Nuxeo Platform. For the UI configuration, it assumes you have the Nuxeo Web UI addon deployed.

Extending User Properties

Let's add a new user property called manager, corresponding to the current user's manager. This information would be helpful in the workflow context (for reassignment, escalation rules etc.)

Create the New User Property

Create a manager_user_field.xsd file with the following content from the default user schema definition:

<?xml version="1.0"?>

<xs:schema targetNamespace="http://www.nuxeo.org/ecm/schemas/user"
  xmlns:xs="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema"
  xmlns:nxs="http://www.nuxeo.org/ecm/schemas/user">

  <xs:include schemaLocation="base.xsd" />

  <xs:element name="username" type="xs:string" />
  <xs:element name="password" type="xs:string" />
  <xs:element name="firstName" type="xs:string" />
  <xs:element name="lastName" type="xs:string" />
  <xs:element name="company" type="xs:string" />
  <!-- here is my new user field -->
  <xs:element name="manager" type="xs:string" />
  <xs:element name="email">
    <xs:simpleType>
      <xs:restriction base="xs:string">
        <!-- the same pattern is used in userinfo.xsd -->
        <xs:pattern value="[^@]+@[^\.]+\..+" />
      </xs:restriction>
    </xs:simpleType>
  </xs:element>

  <!-- inverse reference -->
  <xs:element name="groups" type="nxs:stringList" />

  <!-- tenant id for the user -->
  <xs:element name="tenantId" type="xs:string" />

</xs:schema>

Deploy the New Field in Studio Modeler

  1. Open your Nuxeo Studio Project and Navigate to Studio Modeler > CONFIGURATION > Resources > Schemas.
  2. Upload the manager_user_field.xsd file.

  3. Go to CONFIGURATION > Content Model > Schemas and click on New.
    Fill in the popup window like this:

    schema_user.png
    schema_user.png

  4. Click on Ok.

  5. Go to CONFIGURATION > Advanced Settings > XML Extensions and create a new XML extension (called for example USER_SCHEMA_EXTENSION) with the following content:
     <require>org.nuxeo.ecm.core.management.typesContrib</require>
 <extension point="schema" target="org.nuxeo.ecm.core.schema.TypeService">
     <schema name="user" override="true" src="data/schemas/manager_user_field.xsd"/>
 </extension>
  6. To check that those steps were effective, check into your database that the fields are present in the users table after synching your project server-side and restarting Nuxeo.

Display the New Field in Web UI

This new field has to be displayed in all the pages related to the user information.

It includes:

Edit Layout

  1. In Designer, go to Resources and create a folder under UI called custom-user-fields. We will create all the next elements in this folder.
  2. Create a new element nuxeo-edit-user.
  3. Replace the existing content by the element nuxeo-edit-user.html.
  4. Add:
    <nuxeo-user-suggestion value="{{user.manager}}" label="[[i18n('editUser.manager')]]" search-type="USER_TYPE" name="manager"></nuxeo-user-suggestion>

Create Layout

  1. Create a new element nuxeo-create-user.
  2. Replace the existing content by the element create-user.html.

  3. Add the line:

    <link rel="import" href="nuxeo-edit-user.html">

  4. Replace:

    <nuxeo-layout id="layout" href="[[_layoutHref('nuxeo-edit-user.html')]]"
                   model="[[_layoutModel(user, new)]]"
                   on-element-changed="_layoutElementChanged"></nuxeo-layout>

by:

<nuxeo-layout id="layout" href="nuxeo-edit-user.html"
                      model="[[_layoutModel(user, new)]]"
                      on-element-changed="_layoutElementChanged"></nuxeo-layout>

User Management Layout

  1. Create a new element nuxeo-user-group-management.
  2. Replace the existing content by the element
    nuxeo-user-group-management.html.
  3. Add the following line:
    <link rel="import" href="nuxeo-create-user.html">
  4. Comment the line:
    <link rel="import" href="nuxeo-user-group-management/nuxeo-create-user.html">

User Management Page Layout

  1. Create a new element nuxeo-user-group-management-page.
  2. Replace the existing content by the element
    nuxeo-user-group-management-page.html.

  3. Add the following line:

    <link rel="import" href="nuxeo-user-group-management.html">

  4. Comment the line:

    <link rel="import" href="../../bower_components/nuxeo-ui-elements/nuxeo-user-group-management.html">

View Layout

  1. Create a folder called nuxeo-user-group-management under UI.
  2. In this folder, create a new element nuxeo-view-user.
  3. Replace the existing content by the element nuxeo-view-user.html.
  4. Add the following lines:
<div class="layout vertical flex">
<label>[[i18n('user.manager')]]</label>
<nuxeo-user-tag user="[[user.properties.manager]]"></nuxeo-user-tag>
</div>

Update your Custom Bundle File

You need to reference these new elements in your *-custom.bundle.html file. To do so, add the following lines:

<link rel="import" href="custom-user-fields/nuxeo-edit-user.html">
<link rel="import" href="custom-user-fields/nuxeo-create-user.html">
<link rel="import" href="custom-user-fields/nuxeo-user-group-management.html">
<link rel="import" href="custom-user-fields/nuxeo-user-group-management-page.html">
<link rel="import" href="nuxeo-user-group-management/nuxeo-view-user.html">

Translate the New Field

Add a new entry in your translation file (messages.json by default) with:

{
...
"user.manager":"Manager"
...
}

Deploy Your Changes

  • User Creation and Edition Layout

user-edit.png
user-edit.png

  • User View Layout

user-view.png
user-view.png

User and Group References

Whenever you contribute to a schema referencing another schema or document, you must define the references and inverse references.

On that particular case, you also have to define directories to specify the way schemas are linked to each other.

The relation between user and groups uses a directory called groupDirectory is defined as follow:

<?xml version="1.0"?>
<component name="org.nuxeo.ecm.directory.storage">
  <require>org.nuxeo.ecm.platform.digestauth.config</require>
  <extension target="org.nuxeo.ecm.directory.GenericDirectory" point="directories">

    <directory name="groupDirectory" extends="template-group">

      <schema>group</schema>
      <types>
        <type>system</type>
      </types>
      <idField>groupname</idField>
      <dataFile>groups.csv</dataFile>
      <createTablePolicy>on_missing_columns</createTablePolicy>
      <autoincrementIdField>false</autoincrementIdField>

      <cacheEntryName>group-entry-cache</cacheEntryName>
      <cacheEntryWithoutReferencesName>group-entry-cache-without-references</cacheEntryWithoutReferencesName>

      <references>
        <reference field="members" directory="userDirectory"
                   name="user2group" source="groupId" target="userId"
                   dataFile="user2group.csv"/>

        <reference field="subGroups" directory="groupDirectory"
                   name="group2group" source="parentGroupId"
                   target="childGroupId"/>
        <inverseReference field="parentGroups" directory="groupDirectory"
                          dualReferenceField="subGroups"/>
      </references>

    </directory>
  </extension>
</component>

The customization of the groups is similar to the users.

The default group schema definition:

<?xml version="1.0"?>

<xs:schema targetNamespace="http://www.nuxeo.org/ecm/schemas/group"
  xmlns:xs="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema"
  xmlns:nxs="http://www.nuxeo.org/ecm/schemas/group">

  <xs:include schemaLocation="base.xsd" />

  <xs:element name="groupname" type="xs:string" />
  <xs:element name="grouplabel" type="xs:string" />
  <xs:element name="description" type="xs:string" />

  <!-- references -->
  <xs:element name="members" type="nxs:stringList" />
  <xs:element name="subGroups" type="nxs:stringList" />

  <!-- inverse reference -->
  <xs:element name="parentGroups" type="nxs:stringList" />

  <!-- multi tenant -->
  <xs:element name="tenantId" type="xs:string" />

</xs:schema>

The group schema can be extended as well using an extension:

<extension target="org.nuxeo.ecm.core.schema.TypeService" point="schema">
  <schema name="group" src="schemas/my_custom_group_schema.xsd"/>
</extension>

Make sure you have the mandatory fields configured for references and inverse references for the group hierarchy.

In a more friendly way, you can add your own schemas using Nuxeo Studio.

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