Kanshin Docs / Custom Attributes

Custom Attributes

Custom attributes let you attach your own pieces of information to users, groups, and the organization — a department, an employee number, a cost center — and have that information flow to your applications at sign-in. You manage them on the Attributes page under Directory.

Attribute definitions

First you define an attribute — you describe the piece of data once, and it becomes available to assign. A definition has:

FieldMeaning
KeyThe machine name applications will look for (for example department)
LabelA human-friendly name
Value typeThe kind of value — text, number, true/false, or structured data
ValidationAn optional pattern the value must match, so entries stay well-formed

Assigning values

Once an attribute is defined, you assign it a value at one of three levels:

  • On a user — a value specific to that person
  • On a group — a value shared by everyone in the group
  • On the organization — a value that applies across the whole organization

This lets you set a value broadly and override it narrowly — an organization-wide default that a particular user’s own value takes precedence over.

How attributes reach your applications

Assigned attributes are included in the tokens Kanshin issues at sign-in , as claims your applications can read. This means an application can make decisions — what to show, what to allow — based on your own attributes without needing its own copy of that data. Define the attribute once in Kanshin, assign it, and every application that signs users in through Kanshin can see it.