Updating Contact Email from User Email Update

Question

Is there anyway I can update a contact email when the user's email is updated? I though this can be done via User trigger easily, but the problem is whenever the email gets updated from the User page, the user has to confirm first the updated email before the user email gets updated.

When the user clicks the confirmation link on the email, the trigger didn't fire(checked via debug logs). Thus, not updating the associated contact with it.

And I know that there is a workaround here wherein the user won't have to confirm the email if the "generate new password" is ticked, and I don't want to reset the user's password each time they have updated their email, so this is not an option.

Is there anyway around this?

Sample Code:

   trigger UserTrigger on User (after update) {

        if(Trigger.isUpdate && Trigger.isAfter) {
        //ChatterUtility.AddToGroups(Set userIds)
        Map<String, User> setUnamesCon = new Map<String, User>();

        for(User u : Trigger.new) {
            if (u.Email != Trigger.oldMap.get(u.Id).Email) {
                setUnamesCon.put(u.contactId, u);
            } 
        }

        if(setUnamesAcc.size() > 0 && setUnamesAcc != null) {
            List<Contact> lConForUpdates =   new List<Contact>();
            for(Contact con : [SELECT Id, Email FROM Contact WHERE id in: setUnamesCon.keySet()]) {
                    con.Email = setUnamesCon.get(con.Id).Email;
                    lConForUpdates.add(con);
            }
            update lConForUpdates;
        }

    }
}

Cheers

Answer 1

It seems like a Salesforce bug to me. In order to fully resolve this, the best we can do is probably to vote on this idea: https://success.salesforce.com/ideaView?id=08730000000kyTtAAI

Meanwhile, to walkaround this, you have two possible solutions:

1, The most correct, but might be painful solution. Fire a scheduled job in the user trigger. Check for every several minutes to see whether the email has been changed. If so, update the related contact.

2, If you don't mind updating the contact email right away without waiting for user confirmation, you can write a VF page and capture the new email address and update contact info there. Not very accurate solution though.

Answer 2

I noticed that the only thing I could see in debug logs after a user did the 'Changed Email Confirmation' was a VisualForce homepage component loading (and not the expected User Trigger running). This had nothing to do with the Email address change, but just ran because the user was directed to his/her homepage after confirming the email address update, and we happen to have a visualforce home page component on that homepage.

So I added a controller and an action to the homepage component ('action' property on the apex:page tag). This controller checks if the current user's email address is different from the 'previous email' (stored in a custom field on User). If so, it can trigger any needed actions. If not, do nothing.

This at least saves you from having to go through a tedious scheduling process. Only requirement is that the Visualforce component needs to be on each user's homepage, because that is where they will be directed after confirming the updated email address.

Example page:

<apex:form >
    <!-- nothing needs to be  on this page. Just including some example content-->
    <apex:pageBlock title="Please log a case for SFDC related Questions">
        <apex:pageBlockButtons location="top">
            <apex:commandButton value="New SFDC Case" onclick="window.open('{!URLFOR($Action.Case.NewCase)}','_parent');" />
        </apex:pageBlockButtons>

    </apex:pageBlock>
</apex:form>

Example controller:

public with sharing class SalesforceContactInfoController {

    public void checkUserEmail(){
        // check if the current user's email address has changed
        // this has to be done here as this is a homepage component that is loaded for every user
        // and the APEX trigger on User cannot detect an Email address change on User (SFDC BUG!)
        User u = [Select Id, Email, Previous_Email__c from User Where Id = :UserInfo.getUserId()];
        if(u.Email != u.Previous_Email__c ){
            // resync user (this should also reset the 'previous email' field)
            UserExport.exportUpdatedUsersOffline(New Set<Id>{u.Id});            
        }
    }
}