Forum Discussion
Person fields not pulling data from AD
As long as that info is in AD, it should pull through. I'm on SP online, which may be the difference - when I add a Person, I'm given the below options for what I want displayed in that field:
Caite Stevens Yes. That information is in AD (Azure AD). What I have noticed is that I have to select that name in each of the fields (Title, Work Phone, etc.) It does not auto populate all of the fields based on the name field which is how data fetching usually works. Did you witness the same? Also, I noticed like you did, the Mobile Phone does not work. I have the data there and confirmed it in Azure AD but it simply will not populate that data. I am using SPO.
The People Field in SharePoint is an interesting field... it doesn't pull directly from AD per se.
There is a hidden list on every site collection called the "User Information List". This list contains all of the users that have been added to a site collection. It includes the properties from their user profile in Active Directory.
The People Picker first checks to see if the Person in the Person/Group field exists in the User Information List. If it does, it uses the values from this list for the "Show Field". However, if the user is missing from this list, it retrieves the user information from AD and adds the user to the site collection User Information List.
Theoretically, this list should update from a timer job in SharePoint... but it's extremely common that it does not update correctly. You'll likely find blogs on how to remove/re-add users to this list and/or re-sync the values from AD. I actually don't know how often it is supposed to run in SharePoint Online.- It's crazy to think that SharePoint online, especially modern web parts use these old school pieces of original SharePoint tech. You would think they would update or have that webpart pull from graph at least :).
It's frustrating because if we are using SP as an intranet, one of the first things people want to see is an Employee Directory, and clicking on Delve or Teams /org doesn't cut it as a replacement.
