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Shared Email Support Between Contacts + Internal Users | September 2025

Michael Stephenson avatar
Written by Michael Stephenson
Updated over a week ago

September 23, 2025

Element451 now supports the same email address to be used for both an internal user (admin) and a contact (student). Previously, email addresses had to be unique across the entire platform.

  • Previous Behavior: A user’s primary email address was unique across all account types—no two accounts could share the same email.

  • New Behavior: The same email can now be used for one admin account (internal user) and one Contact (external user/student) accounts. Emails must still be unique within an account type.

    This means that an individual can have an internal user account with their email and also a separate contact record with the exact same email. These remain two distinct accounts with no relation to each other.

  • SSO Support: This change improves single sign-on (SSO) workflows for schools where users appear in both admin and student databases.

  • Although this change technically allows a Contact test record to share an email address with an Internal User record, we recommend keeping them separate. To avoid potential conflicts with future Contact records, use a unique or aliased email address for your test record(s).

This update provides more flexibility for institutions managing users who exist in multiple roles, while ensuring smoother SSO experiences across systems.

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