various nameid formats

[Cantor, Scott]

> What are the various nameid formats? If a SP requires employee Id as
> Nameid, can I use this format?

I do, fairly often, but whether you *can* or not depends on the SP. Most don't care or use Formats properly at all, but there are exceptions.

As a matter of standard practice, the educational sector follows a profile that calls out explicitly any attribute's URI name as a valid NameID Format to use if the attribute is used as a NameID.

The only existing Formats are all defined in the SAML specification and all but transient and persistent are simply historical and have no real value or definition to them.

Using "unspecified" is always wrong and is pathologically stupid to "require". Read it out loud: I require a Format that is unspecified. It literally reads in English as nonsense.

-- Scott