Customizing the hint and help text for form fields in the Request Access wizard

Customizing the hint and help text for form fields in the Request Access wizard

The third step of the Request Access wizard is used to provide required information for the accesses that are being requested. For some access requests, the user provides the required information by completing fields of the form that is associated with the access. These forms can be customized by the site administrator. For more information, see the Form customization section in the IBM Security Identity Manager product documentation. The hint text and help text that are associated with the fields on a form can be customized to suit your needs.

Before you begin

Depending on your system customization, you might not have access to this task. Contact your system administrator to obtain access to this task, or to have someone complete it for you.

About this task
Use the following sections to work with the configuration files or the configuration properties from the IBM Security Identity Manager virtual appliance console:

To go to a custom file and edit, download, upload, or search it, see Managing custom files.
To go to a property file and edit, upload, or search it see Managing the server properties.
The site administrator can set properties for form fields to define hint text and help text. A user can view the hint text and help text in the Identity Service Center to understand what values are needed or are appropriate for the fields.

If the administrator sets the Hint text property for a form field, the text is displayed inside the input field as a hint to the user. The hint text is replaced by the field data that is entered by the user.
If the administrator sets the Help text property for a form field, a help icon is displayed next to the label for the form field. If the user selects or hovers over the help icon, the help text is displayed to provide more information about the form field.

The hint text and help text are specified as either a fixed string such as Select a primary group or the name of a property in the CustomLabels.properties file such as $PrimaryGroupHintText. If a fixed string was defined as the hint text or help text, then it cannot be customized. But if a property name was defined, you can customize the hint text or help text by modifying the value of the property.

Procedure

Consult with the site administrator to determine the property names that were defined as the values of the Hint text and Help text for the form fields that you want to customize.
Open the CustomLabels.properties file See Managing the server properties.
Optional: Find the property names that are defined for the Hint text in the CustomLabels.properties file. For each of the form fields that you want to customize, modify the values to the hint text that you want to display.
Optional: Find the property names that are defined for the Help text in the CustomLabels.properties file. For each of the form fields that you want to customize, modify the values to the help text that you want to display.
Save and close the CustomLabels.properties file.

Results
The fields on the Provide account information form of the Request Access wizard that have the Hint text property defined now display the customized hint text in the input area. The fields that have the Help text property defined now display a help icon next to the field label, and selecting or hovering over the help icon displays the customized help text.
What to do next
Log in to the Identity Service Center. Start the Request Access wizard, and verify that the Provide account information form fields reflect the customization that you made.
Parent topic: Request Access wizard