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Minor field changes

It's almost spring and we're doing a little cleaning early this year.

Ever notice how the username field of a file object in channels.history or [file_shared](/reference/events/file_shared event isn't like typical username fields and contains a bunch of markup usually reserved only for message text?

And why is there a top-level skype field in user profile objects when really, shouldn't that be a custom field?

Well, we've noticed. And so...

What's changing?​

On March 20, 2017:

  1. Instead of seeing funky strings like <U123456:tomatotude> in the username field of file-related messages in channels.history and file-related events in the Events & RTM API APIs, you'll instead encounter just plain old tomatotude — because that's the username. If you want the user ID, you can fetch it from the user field just like any other message.

  2. The skype field in user profile data will begin appearing as a blank string: "". For teams with this profile field set today, you'll find that value in the custom profile fields configured for that team. If you attempt to set the skype field via users.profile.set, your request will technically succeed but the provided value will be stubbornly ignored.

What isn't changing?​

  • No other types of message objects or events besides file uploads will change in this correction to the username field.
  • The skype field will not be removed from API responses.

How do I prepare?​

It is unlikely that you need to do anything at all.

In the rare case that you've customized behavior to deal with this username anomaly, you may need to adjust your behavior to treat it like a typical username field again.

If your app relies on a team's populated skype field, you'll need to look for it as part of the user's profile available in expanded user objects and with users.profile.get.

When is this happening?​

We'd like to enable these changes on March 20, 2017.

Please review how you handle these fields and, if necessary, make any needed modifications. Have questions or concerns? We're happy to help! Feel free to contact us here.