Import External Users into the Users Table from an ABP Framework application

Introduction

In this article, I will explain you how you can import users from an external system into the users' table of an ABP Framework application. Watch out, the code in this article is not production-ready, as I wanted to keep the example simple to understand.

The sample application has been developed with Blazor as UI framework and SQL Server as database provider.

Source Code

The source code of the completed application is available on GitHub.

Requirements

The following tools are needed to run the solution.

• .NET 5.0 SDK
• Vscode, Visual Studio 2019, or another compatible IDE.
• ABP Cli

Development

Create a new ABP Framework Application

• Install or update the ABP CLI:

dotnet tool install -g Volo.Abp.Cli || dotnet tool update -g Volo.Abp.Cli

• Use the following ABP CLI command to create a new Blazor ABP application:

abp new AbpUserImport -u blazor -o AbpUserImport

Open & Run the Application

• Open the solution in Visual Studio (or your favorite IDE).
• Run the AbpUserImport.DbMigrator application to apply the migrations and seed the initial data.
• Run the AbpUserImport.HttpApi.Host application to start the server-side.

Add an extra ImportUserId property to the IdentityUser

Open the file AbpUserImportEfCoreEntityExtensionMappings.cs in the EntityFrameworkCore project and update its content.

public static class AbpUserImportEfCoreEntityExtensionMappings
{
    private static readonly OneTimeRunner OneTimeRunner = new OneTimeRunner();

    public static void Configure()
    {
        AbpUserImportGlobalFeatureConfigurator.Configure();
        AbpUserImportModuleExtensionConfigurator.Configure();

        OneTimeRunner.Run(() =>
        {

            // Other code here ...

            // This piece of code adds an extra ImportUserId property to the IdentityUser class
            ObjectExtensionManager.Instance
            .MapEfCoreProperty<IdentityUser, Guid?>(
                "ImportUserId",
                (entityBuilder, propertyBuilder) =>
                {
                    propertyBuilder.HasMaxLength(36);
                }
            );

        });
    }
}

Run DbMigrator project to apply Migrations

In the previous step, we changed our Model, so we need to tell it to EntityFrameworkCore.
Open a command prompt in the EntityFrameworkCore project and enter the command below:

dotnet ef migrations add ImportUserIdAdded

When this command has succeeded, run the DbMigrator project to apply the Database Migrations.

IImportUserAppService in Application.Contracts project

Create an ImportUsers folder in the Application.Contracts project and add an IImportUserAppService.
The IImportUserAppService has 1 Method Stub that takes a CreateImportUserDto. See below.

using System;
using System.Collections.Generic;
using System.ComponentModel.DataAnnotations;
using System.Threading.Tasks;

namespace AbpUserImport.Application.Contracts.ImportUsers
{
    public interface IImportUserAppService
    {
        Task CreateManyAsync(CreateImportUserDto input);
    }

    public class CreateImportUserDto
    {
        public List<ImportUserDto> Items { get; set; }
        public Guid? TenantId { get; set; }
    }

    public class ImportUserDto
    {
        [Required]
        [DataType(DataType.EmailAddress)]
        public string Email { get; set; }

        public string UserName { get; set; }
        
        // Make sure you use a hashed password here
        [Required] public string Password { get; set; } 

        public Guid ImportUserId { get; set; }
    }
}

ImportUserAppService in the Application project

Create an ImportUsers folder in the Application project and add an ImportUserAppService class and paste it into the code below.

In the CreateManyAsync method, we first call the SetIdentityOptions method to set the different options for User and Password. Then we loop over every user and call the InsertImportUserInDatabaseAsync. In this method, a new IdentityUser is instantiated and the ImportUserId is set afterward. Finally, the user is created by calling the CreateAsync method of the IdentityUserManager.

using System;
using System.Threading.Tasks;
using AbpUserImport.Application.Contracts.ImportUsers;
using Microsoft.AspNetCore.Identity;
using Volo.Abp.Data;
using Volo.Abp.Guids;
using Volo.Abp.Identity;
using IdentityUser = Volo.Abp.Identity.IdentityUser;

namespace AbpUserImport.Application.ImportUsers
{
    public class ImportUserAppService : AbpUserImportAppService, IImportUserAppService
    {
        private readonly IGuidGenerator _guidGenerator;
        private readonly IdentityUserManager _identityUserManager;

        public ImportUserAppService(IGuidGenerator guidGenerator, IdentityUserManager identityUserManager)
        {
            _guidGenerator = guidGenerator;
            _identityUserManager = identityUserManager;
        }

        public async Task CreateManyAsync(CreateImportUserDto input)
        {
            using (CurrentTenant.Change(input.TenantId))
            {
                SetIdentityOptions();
                foreach (var item in input.Items)
                {
                    await InsertImportUserInDatabaseAsync(item, input.TenantId);
                }
            }
        }
        
        // You will probably need to adapt this method to your needs
        private void SetIdentityOptions()
        {
            _identityUserManager.Options.User.RequireUniqueEmail = true;
            _identityUserManager.Options.User.AllowedUserNameCharacters = $"{_identityUserManager.Options.User.AllowedUserNameCharacters}"; // add special characters here!
            _identityUserManager.Options.Password.RequireDigit = false;
            _identityUserManager.Options.Password.RequireUppercase = false;
            _identityUserManager.Options.Password.RequireNonAlphanumeric = false;
            _identityUserManager.Options.Password.RequireLowercase = false;
            _identityUserManager.Options.Password.RequiredLength = 1;
        }

        private async Task InsertImportUserInDatabaseAsync(ImportUserDto user, Guid? tenantId)
        {
            var identityUser = new IdentityUser(_guidGenerator.Create(), user.Email, user.Email, tenantId);
            identityUser.SetProperty("ImportUserId", user.ImportUserId.ToString());
            var createdUser = await _identityUserManager.CreateAsync(identityUser, user.Password, false);
            createdUser.CheckErrors();
        }
    }
}

Testing

Start the AbpUserImport.HttpApi.Host project to have the Swagger page launched.
Navigate to the ImportUser endpoint in the Swagger page.

Click first on the Try it out button and then on the Execute button. The CreateManyAsync method in the ImportUserAppService will be hit and 1 user will be added to the AbpUsers table in the database.

Et voilà! You can now import users from an external system into the AbpUsers table of the ABP Framework.

Get the source code on GitHub.

Enjoy and have fun!