Profile Management (B2C)

At some point, you may need to change the information stored in a user’s profile. A user’s profile (also known as the user’s account) is stored in Auth0, and changes to the information it contains may need to happen for a number of different reasons:

• Self-served information updates

• Mandatory updates concerning your organizations T's & C’s

• Changes due to regulatory compliance

An Identity Provider populates a user’s profile using data supplied during the login process, and this is referred to as the Normalized User Profile.

By default, there is one user profile created for each user identity, and there are a number of things to consider:

• What should you do if you need to store information to help customize a user’s experience?

• What if you need to store user information that didn’t originate from an identity provider?

• Why would you need to store user-related information that a user cannot modify?

• What do you do if you need to store user-related information that a user cannot modify?

• What happens if a user forgets their password?

• What should a user do if they want to change their password?

Auth0 provides for the storage of metadata against a user’s profile, which allows for the capture of additional information, such as preference for language and/or accessibility in order to enhance the user experience. Metadata can be used to store both information that a user can change, and also information they can’t; the latter giving you the capability of associating, for example, a user profile with records in your existing systems without modifying existing implementation.

For users who forget their passwords or who are allowed to change their password via some existing self-service mechanism (or self-service mechanism you have planned), you can leverage Auth0-provided Password Reset functionality. This can be integrated with your existing implementation and comes already incorporated with any out-of-box Auth0 UI widgets including Universal Login.

You’ll also want to make sure that you are working with a verified user account at all times. Auth0 provides out-of-box mechanisms for doing that too. You should also consider regulatory compliance such as (GDPR which has very specific requirements when it comes to protecting EU citizens from privacy and data breaches.

Though Auth0 doesn’t currently provide a centralized profile management portal out-of-the-box, for the purpose of self-serviced profile management, you can use the Auth0 Management API to build your own or utilize an already built UI. See our Auth0 community guidance which describes the Management API endpoint. All calls to the Management API will require use of an Access Token.

Alternatively, you can use the Auth0 Dashboard to manage aspects of a user’s profile. Managing a user’s profile via the Auth0 Dashboard is more of an administrative provision and should not be used for self-serviced profile management in a production environment. However, the interface provided by the Dashboard can be extremely useful during development as it provides a quick and simple way of manipulating a user’s profile information.

In addition to the Normalized User Profile information, metadata can be stored in an Auth0 user profile. Metadata provides a way to store information that did not originate from an identity provider, or a way to store information that overrides what an identity provider supplies.

You can manipulate metadata via both the Auth0 Management API and the Auth0 Authentication API. As is the case when managing the Normalized User Profile, calls to the Management API for manipulating Metadata requires use of an Access Token.

User metadata (also referred to as user_metadata) is information that can be stored against a user profile and that a user can read and update as part of any self-service profile management. Metadata of this nature may be something like salutation for a user, or a user’s preferred language which could be used to customize the emails sent by Auth0.

App metadata (also referred to as app_metadata) is, on the other hand, information that can be stored with a user profile but can only be read or updated with appropriate authorization; app_metadata is not directly accessible to a user. This type of metadata could be something like a flag to indicate that the last set of valid terms and conditions was accepted by the user, and a date to indicate when the user accepted them.

For users who forget their passwords or who are allowed to change their password via some existing self-service mechanism, Auth0 provides Password Reset functionality. You can integrate this with your existing implementation and comes already incorporated with out-of-the-box Auth0 UI widgets included as part of Universal Login.

Auth0 Universal Login provides built-in UX support for password reset using Auth0 Authentication API functionality. Alternatively, you can use the Auth0 Authentication API, through one of the Auth0 SDKs appropriate to your development environment. Email templates used during password reset workflow can also be fully customized, whether you use Auth0 out-of-box UI widgets or customized Universal Login.

You can use the Auth0 Management API, on the other hand, to directly change the password for a user identity defined using a Database Connection type. You can use the Auth0 Management API as part of any self-service profile management implementation, and also as part of any Change Password page customization.

You’ll also need to work with a verified user account at all times and make use of the mechanisms Auth0 provides. You should also consider regulatory compliance like GDPR which has very specific requirements for protecting EU citizens from privacy and data breaches.

Auth0 provides out-of-box functionality for sending a verification email to a user's email address to verify their account. By default, Auth0 automatically sends verification emails for any Database Connection identity created as part of self sign-up. However, Auth0 also provides a Management API endpoint that you can use to send verification emails in cases where email address validation is not performed by a Social Provider upon user registration.

Blocking user access in Auth0 provides a way to prevent user login to applications under certain conditions. By default, the Auth0 Dashboard provides an out-of-the-box mechanism to give administrators the ability to both block and unblock user access to all applications, and you can implement this functionality via use of the Auth0 Management API. You can also use Auth0 extensibility to disable user access to certain applications as well as provide more fine-grained access control.

In addition, the Auth0 Management API provides you with the ability to unblock users disabled due to excessive use of incorrect credentials.

By default, there is one user profile (user account) for each user identity. If you enable login from multiple identity providers - via Facebook or Google social authentication as well as via Auth0 username and password authentication - then each will have a separate user profile. You can use Auth0’s functionality for linking user accounts to create one profile for a user as an aggregate of all their associated identities.

The process of linking accounts merges user profiles in pairs: a primary account and a secondary account must be specified in the linking process. The number of accounts that can be linked, however, extends beyond a single pair. For example, you can use an account which already has multiple accounts merged with it as the primary, and link an additional secondary account to it. This means that one user account can have multiple identities associated with it, which provides a number of advantages:

• Users can log in using multiple identities without creating a separate profile for each one.

• Registered users can use new login identities, but continue using their existing profile.

• Users can carry their profile around, irrespective of which identity they use for login.

• Users can link to an account with more identity information in order to provide a more complete profile.

• Your applications can retrieve connection-specific user profile data.

Your application may need to support a user’s request to remove their account (for example, you might need to meet GDPR requirements). You can implement such a feature, along with a number of other profile-related functions, using the Management API. The Management API allows you to retrieve information stored about a user and update it as required.

Auth0 is capable of supporting various privacy-related requirements including the display of links to consent notices on signup and data protection to support the rights of users to view and correct data you’ve collected about them.

We provide planning guidance in PDF format that you can download and refer to for details about our recommended strategies.

B2C IAM Project Planning Guide