Users

Retrieve users

const rql = rqlBuilder().eq('email', '[email protected]').build();
await exh.users.find({
  rql,
});

Using the Extra Horizon SDK or REST API's you can easily retrieve users. The permissions assigned to you determine the returned fields. You will receive either a Full User, a Patient, or a Staff view.

Full User

{
    "id": "abcdef0123456789abcdef01",
    "first_name": "John",
    "last_name": "Doe",
    "language": "EN",
    "email": "[email protected]",
    "phoneNumber": "[phone]",
    "timeZone": "Europe/London",
    "activation": true,
    "roles":[...],
    "staffEnlistments":[...],
    "patientEnlistments":[...]
    "lastFailedTimestamp": 1632733680,
    "failedCount": 0,
    "creationTimestamp": 1632733681,
    "updateTimestamp": 1632733682
}

Patient

Staff

Property overview

Attribute	Description
id	The identifier of the user.
first_name	First name of the user.
last_name	Last name of the user.
language	A supported language code see Localization service documentation
email	email address of the user.
phone_number	phone number of the user.
activation	Boolean indicating the email address has been activated true or false.
roles	Array containing a description of the roles this user has obtained.
staff_enlistments	Array containing a description of the staff enlistments this user has within one or more groups.
patient_enlistments	Array containing a description of the patient enlistments this user has within one or more groups.
last_failed_timestamp	Epoch timestamp Information about when the last password login attempt failed.
failed_count	The number of consecutive password login attempts.
creation_timestamp	Epoch timestamp when the user was created.
update_timestamp	Epoch timestamp when this user object was last updated.

When using the Javascript SDK fields are transformed into a camelCase. snake_case will be phased out for the user service and all other Extra Horizon Services in the future.

Create a new user

You can use the Extra Horizon SDK to create new users from your application. This also triggers a UserCreated event.

JavaScript

const user = await exh.users.createAccount({
    firstName: 'John',
    lastName: 'Doe',
    email: '[email protected]',
    password: 'Secret1234',
    phoneNumber: '[phone]',
    birthday: '1987-06-05',
    country: 'UK',
    gender: 1,
    language: 'EN',
    timeZone: 'Europe/London'
});

Notice: birthday, country & gender are part of the registration fields but are not returned when querying for the user. This is because of the underlying integration with the Extra Horizon Profile Service. During account creation, a user profile is created and these fields are stored there.

Check for email availability

As an application, you have the ability to check if an email is available or already in use in a user account.

JavaScript

await exh.users.isEmailAvailable('[email protected]');

Email verification

After registration, the activation attribute defaults to false. While email verification does not block using any API services, it does block the possibility to initiate a password reset. If you do not provide password reset functionality in your application, you can skip this step. For other applications, it is highly recommended to implement email verification to prevent sending emails to the wrong person.

The user service can be configured to hold a reference to an HTML template in the template service. When registration occurs, the user service will try to send an email by using this template.

To use an email verification template other than the default one, contact Extra Horizon

The user service will provide the user's firstname, lastname, and activation_hash values to the email service. The email service adds a tracking_hash before it reaches the template service. Thus you can use these three fields in your email template. Please review the Template Service documentation to learn how to design email templates.

{
    ...,
    "schema": {
        "type": "object",
        "fields": {
            "firstname": {
                "type": "string"
            },
            "lastname": {
                "type": "string"
            },
            "activation_hash": {
                "type": "string"
            },
            "tracking_hash": {
                "type": "string"
            }
        },
    }
    ...
}

Resending email verification

When you make an application where email verification is a prerequisite, or when you want to provide password reset capabilities, you want your user to be able to trigger the email verification mail again.

JavaScript

await exh.users.requestEmailActivation('[email protected]');

To use an email activation template other than the default one, contact Extra Horizon Support

Performing a user activation

By performing the steps mentioned higher, you can send your user an email with an activation token. Typically this is embedded inside an URL or a deep link. You can then use that token to activate the user.

JavaScript

await exh.users.validateEmailActivation({
    hash: '6ca1691b4c5b4dbfa5def4c49b910657',
});

Clearing user activation attempts

Users have a limited number of attempts to initiate and complete their activation. Once they reach the maximum allowed attempts, they are blocked from further attempts until their activation request is cleared. Finding and clearing an activation request can be done like this:

JavaScript

const request = await exh.users.activationRequests.findByUserId(userId);
await exh.users.activationRequests.remove(request.id)

Change email address

When a user is logged in, he can change the email of his or another user's account, depending on the set permissions. Changing an email requires re-activating the associated account.

JavaScript

await exh.users.updateEmail('abcdef0123456789abcdef01', {
  email: '[email protected]',
});

Password reset

Users not remembering their password is common. You want to deal with it safely in your applications. The Extra Horizon SDK provides you with the ability to do so.

Requesting a password reset email

Similar to the email verification flow, the password reset flow provides you with a reset token that you can use to set a new password for your user's account.

JavaScript

await exh.users.requestPasswordReset('[email protected]');

To use a password reset template other than the default one, contact Extra Horizon Support

Resetting a password

By performing the steps mentioned higher, you can provide your user with an email containing a reset token. Typically this is embedded inside a URL or deep link towards your application. You can then use that token to reset the password of the user.

JavaScript

await exh.users.validatePasswordReset({
    hash: 'be7ab8ebe9094588ac3693cd6ec9d5b7',
    newPassword: 'myNewSecret1234',
});

Completing a password reset will log out the target user. This action will terminate all active sessions by invalidating all authentication tokens, including OAuth1, OAuth2, and Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA) tokens for the user.

Clearing password reset attempts

Users have a limited number of attempts to initiate and complete a password reset. Once they reach the maximum allowed attempts, they are blocked from further attempts until their password reset request is cleared. Finding and clearing a password reset request can be done like this:

JavaScript

const request = await exh.users.forgotPasswordRequests.findByUserId(userId);
await exh.users.forgotPasswordRequests.remove(request.id)

Password Change

When authenticated you can also implement password change functionality in your application. Changing the password requires you to resend the current password together with the new password.

JavaScript

await exh.users.changePassword({
    oldPassword: 'password123',
    newPassword: 'newPassword123',
});

Removing a user

Removing a user requires the global DELETE_USER permission. This will also trigger a UserDeleted event.

JavaScript

await exh.users.remove('abcdef0123456789abcdef01');

Using pin codes for email verification

The pin code mode is an alternative mode for the account activation and forgot password flows. The mode is targeted to use cases where the end user might need to manually input the secret in the application.

By default Extra Horizon uses the hash mode, this sends an email with a hash (a string of 40 hexadecimal characters) to the user. When the pin code mode is enabled and used, a pin code of 8 digits is send instead.

Setting up pin code mode

By default the pin code mode is disabled, it can be enabled with the Extra Horizon SDK:

await exh.users.settings.updateVerificationSettings({
  enablePinCodeActivationRequests: true,
  enablePinCodeForgotPasswordRequests: true,
});

It is supported that both the hash mode and pin code mode are be used for different parts of your application, so different email templates are used to send pin codes to end users. Rather then the content.activation_hash or content.reset_hash, a content.pin_code field will be available to the pin code email templates. The templates can be set like this:

await exh.users.setEmailTemplates({
  activationPinEmailTemplateId: '642ffe4388742725cc5cb1e2',
  reactivationPinEmailTemplateId: '642b0899443c9874f8c41bc7',
  passwordResetPinEmailTemplateId: '65325e4a18bf0c1e3b1f5c7e',
});

After enabling the pin code mode and setting the email templates, pin codes can now be used in the activation and forgot password flows.

Using the pin code mode in the account activation flow

When enabled the pin code mode can be used when initiating the activation flow, during account creation, changing the email address of a user and when (re-)requesting the account activation email.

For example, the pin code mode is used by setting activationMode when creating an account:

await exh.users.createAccount({
  activationMode: 'pin_code',
  // Account details ...
});

The user receives an email showing the pin code, which the user should be able to give to your application. Then the pin code can be used to complete the activation:

await exh.users.validateEmailActivation({
  email: '[email protected]',
  pinCode: '88703459',
});

Using the pin code mode in the forgot password flow

If the pin code mode is enabled for the forgot password flow, mode can be used when requesting a forgot password email:

await exh.users.requestPasswordReset({
  email: '[email protected]',
  mode: 'pin_code',
});

The user receives an email showing the pin code, which the user should be able to give to your application. Then the pin code can be used to change the password:

await exh.users.validatePasswordReset({
  email: '[email protected]',
  pinCode: '88703459',
  newPassword: 'MyV3ryS3cr3tP4a$$w0rd'
});