> ## Documentation Index
> Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://sleekplan.com/llms.txt
> Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further.
# Hide customer identity on your board
> Stop your public board from revealing who your customers are. Random usernames replace user-chosen handles with neutral ones like yellow_tree, and Hide full names keeps real names and profile pictures visible only to your team.
On a public feedback board, every post and comment carries its author. For a business-to-business product that can be a problem: your board shows which companies use you, and one customer can see another customer by name. Some organisations cannot adopt a public board at all until that stops.
The **Customer identity** section on the Access & Privacy page solves this with two independent settings. You can turn on either one, or both.
| Setting | What it hides | Can you undo it? |
| -------------------- | ------------------------------------------------------------------- | -------------------------- |
| **Random usernames** | The username shown on every post, comment, and @mention | No. See the warning below. |
| **Hide full names** | Real names and profile pictures, everywhere except your team's view | Yes, at any time |
Customer identity lives under Administration, and only workspace **owners** and **admins** see it. Both settings require a **Business** plan or higher: if your plan does not include them, you will be prompted to upgrade when you save.
Your own team is never affected by either setting. Admins keep their real usernames, names, and profile pictures on the board, so a reply from your support team still looks like it came from a person.
## Open the Customer identity settings
Go to [**Settings → Public Portal & Widget → Access & Privacy**](https://app.sleekplan.com/settings/privacy) and scroll to the **Customer identity** section at the bottom of the page.
## Random usernames
Every user on your board has a username. Unless someone picked their own, Sleekplan creates it from their email address, so `sebastian.may@acme.com` becomes `sebastianmay`. That means the username alone can reveal a person and the company they work for.
Turn on **Random usernames** and Sleekplan replaces every customer username with a neutral, randomly generated one, such as `yellow_tree` or `quiet_harbor`. Once it is on:
* Every existing customer is renamed.
* New customers get a random username when they sign up, whether they register on the board, arrive through single sign-on, or are created by an integration.
* Customers can no longer change their own username.
* New @mentions use the new username, so mentioning someone still works and still notifies them.
Names stay readable and distinct, so a conversation is still easy to follow: `yellow_tree` replied to `quiet_harbor`.
**Random usernames cannot be undone.** The usernames your customers have now are replaced, not stored somewhere for later, so turning the setting back off will not bring them back. It only means new customers get to pick their own again.
You will not lose track of who anyone is: your team still sees each person's full name and email address in the admin dashboard, in [Customers](https://app.sleekplan.com/customers) and on every post.
If your board already has comments, @mentions written **before** you turned the setting on still show the username that person had at the time, because the mention is part of the comment text. New mentions use the new username. If that matters for a compliance review, turn the setting on before you open the board rather than after.
Because it is permanent, Sleekplan asks you to confirm before the setting can be saved.
A confirmation appears explaining what will change. Read it, then choose **Randomize usernames** to continue, or **Cancel** to leave everything as it is.
The setting is still a draft until you save. Click **Save changes** in the bar at the bottom of the page. Renaming starts as soon as you save and runs in the background, so a board with a lot of customers takes a short while to finish.
## Hide full names
Turn on **Hide full names** and Sleekplan stops showing customers' real names and profile pictures to anyone but your team. On the board a post then shows only the username, with a plain default avatar.
This setting is reversible. Turn it off and the names and pictures appear again, because nothing is deleted: they are simply not sent to the public board while the setting is on.
It also closes a quieter gap. With **Hide full names** on, the @mention autocomplete no longer finds customers by their real name, so nobody can type a colleague's or competitor's name into the composer to check whether they use your product.
Turning this on hides profile pictures as well as names. Hiding the name while still showing someone's photo would not really make them anonymous.
## Which one do you need?
* **Anonymity on the public board, permanently.** Turn on both. This is the usual choice when a compliance or security review has asked you to remove customer identity from public pages.
* **Softer privacy, keeping the option to change your mind.** Turn on **Hide full names** only. Names and pictures are hidden, usernames stay as they are, and you can reverse it at any time.
* **Only usernames are the problem** (for example, they were generated from work email addresses). Turn on **Random usernames** only.
## What your team still sees
Neither setting changes what your own team can see. In the admin dashboard, an admin still sees every customer's real name, email address, and profile picture on posts, comments, and in [Customers](https://app.sleekplan.com/customers), so you can still follow up with the person behind a request.
The [Sleekplan API](https://sleekplan.com/docs/api/overview) also keeps returning full names, because it authenticates with your workspace API key rather than as a visitor. Usernames there are the new random ones, since those are the customer's real username once the setting is on.
## Related
Control who can reach your board and how visitors sign in before they post.
How customer accounts work and why they live only in your workspace.
How Sleekplan handles personal data, and your options for removing it.
Group your customers so you can see which audience a request came from.