Find ri:userkey value using the Confluence API
Asked by Chris P.:

Hello there,

Is there a way to use the Confluence API to receive the "ri:usekey" value?

Referring to:

[Confluence Cloud REST API Developer Guide](https://developer.atlassian.com/cloud/confluence/rest/#api-api-user-get " Confluence Cloud REST API Developer Guide")

and:

[Deprecation notice and migration guide for major changes to Confluence Cloud REST APIs to improve user privacy](https://developer.atlassian.com/cloud/confluence/deprecation-notice-user-privacy-api-migration-guide/ "Deprecation notice and migration guide for major changes to Confluence Cloud REST APIs to improve user privacy")

We are able to to get user information, using the "**Get user** " API, if I know the {**accountID**}, using GET of said user in advance.

```
https://your-domain.atlassian.net/wiki/rest/api/user?accountId={accountId}?
```

However, there are a few page macros, for example:

* Profile Picture macro
* User Profile macro

that when viewing the HTML source, the macro object uses the "**ri:userkey**" value, and not the {accountID}.

```
<ri:user ri:userkey="8a7f808565a1b953011234567890z" />
```

We maintain quite a large number of individual profile pages, which we deploy and maintain 100% via the Confluence API.

Couple of questions:

1. Is there / will there ever be a method of finding out the {accountID} value for a user, using their name?
   1. We currently only know that we have to maintain ***MANUALLY***, an external lookup mechanism to match a user to their Confluence accountID (for example table lookup, or, database lookup)
2. *More importantly* : is there a way to use to:
   1. ++**Lookup the ri:userkey via API ?**++

Thank you in advance for you feedback \& advice.


Answers:
author: Pawe? Go??biewski
body: I have the same issue. Really need the \`ri:user ri:userkey\` to generate some pages :/

Edit:  
Well, it turns out, you can reference it using username, which can be *accountId.*

```
<ac:link>
<ri:user ri:username="8a7f808565a1b953011234567890z"/>
</ac:link>
```

I've tested it on profile picture macro and it works!

Source: <https://community.atlassian.com/t5/Confluence-questions/User-mention-Macro-REST-API/qaq-p/1037118>  

<br />

Edit2:  
To get accountID you can use this API call (where *org* is your organization name):

```
https://org.atlassian.net/wiki/rest/api/search/user
```

With CQL query (<https://developer.atlassian.com/server/confluence/advanced-searching-using-cql/>), fullname used as example

```
cql =?user.fullname~"surname"
```

So the full query will look like this:

```
https://org.atlassian.net/wiki/rest/api/search/user?cql=user.fullname~%22surname%22
```


author: Logan McGhee
body: I came across this message (and several other threads) as the result of getting the userkey from confluence pages that I was retrieving via the API.  

When using expander body.storage as part of the request, the response was providing userkey values which, as of GDPR changes, are effectively useless.  

However, using the expander body.view as part of the request, the response sends back the appropriate accountID value of mentions in the page.

Hoping that this information helps people not waste the same time that I did.  
Please leave me a ? if this helped you so I can feel my time was worthwhile ?


author: Luke
body: Unfortunately this does not work for the reverse case though. When confluence generates the html for a user being mentioned on the page, it will use the userkey (as per the original post in this ticket).

There is still no way to look up the userkey and convert it to an accountId, as far as I am aware.


author: Luke
body: I am also trying to find the solution to this problem


author: Arturo Kirkconnell
body: Awesome Thanks!!


author: Jen McVicker
body: Worked for me too!


author: Vaidik Kapoor
body: Confirming that this works. I was able it generate pages using this way.


author: Onno Broekmans
body: It indeed looks like this is an unfortunate interaction between the GDPR migration you referenced, and the XML storage format for these macros. In any case, it's preventing me from matching a User Mention to a human-readable name.

Is there *any* kind of API, private or not, that can be used to match a user key to a name or account ID?

* The official API appears to have all mentions of a "user key" carefully stripped out, probably because of aforementioned GDPR migration.
* I tried the "rest/api/search/user" endpoint, but couldn't find a CQL query that allows for searching by the old-fashioned user key.
* There's an interesting "rest/experimental/cql/pdcleaner" endpoint, but I never managed to get it to actually return anything.


author: Steve Eckhart
body: I also need to be able to retrieve the user's Display Name from the ri:userkey in the User Profile macro.


Tags: api

confluence-cloud

confluence-development

macro

rest-api

user