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Customizing Login Identifier

If your application has a need to use something other than email or username, you may specify any valid column within the users table that you may have added.

This allows you to easily use phone numbers, employee or school IDs, etc. as the user identifier. You must implement the following steps to set this up.

This only works with the Session authenticator.

Note

By default, Shield requires users to register their email and password. Further customization is required beyond the steps on this page to remove emails from user registrations.

Create Migration File

Create a migration that adds a new column to the users table.

Change $validFields

Edit app/Config/Auth.php so that the new column you just created is within the $validFields array.

public array $validFields = [
    'employee_id'
];

If you have multiple login forms on your site that use different credentials, you must have all of the valid identifying fields in the array.

public array $validFields = [
    'email',
    'employee_id'
];

Update Validation Rules

Warning

This is very important for security.

You must write new Validation Rules and then set them using the Customizing Validation Rules description.

Note

Not only the Validation Rules for login, but also the rules for registration should be updated. If you do not add the new Validation Rules, the new field will not be saved to the database.

Customize Login View

  1. Change the login view file in the app/Config/Auth.php file.

    public array $views = [
    'login'                       => '\App\Views\Shield\login',
    // ...
];

  2. Copy file vendor/codeigniter4/shield/src/Views/login.php to app/Views/Shield/login.php.

  3. Customize the login form to change the name of the default email input to the new field name.

    <!-- Email -->
<div class="mb-2">
    <input type="text" class="form-control" name="employee_id" autocomplete="new-employee-id" placeholder="12345" value="<?= old('employee_id') ?>" required>
</div>