Add additional properties to the profile card using the profile API in Microsoft Graph

In May (skip below to read the announcement) we announced our plans to provide additional profile customization options with the Microsoft Graph.   Today we're pleased to announce the availability of these customization capabilities.

The hundreds of millions of users of Microsoft 365 cloud services form part of the core of Microsoft Graph. The users' data is carefully managed, protected, and with proper authorization, made available by Microsoft Graph services to drive productivity and creativity in businesses.

People are the heart and soul of intelligent insights in the Microsoft Graph, but more importantly of your company - but finding the right people at the right time isn’t always easy.  Sometimes you’re looking for more than just a name and face, maybe it’s a skill, location, or something else.

Now by configuring your tenant settings through the Microsoft Graph you can enrich individual’s profile cards by adding the following attributes from Azure Active Directory:

• UserPrincipalName
• Fax
• StreetAddress
• PostalCode
• StateOrProvince
• Alias

In addition,  you can also add any of the 15 custom attributes from Active Directory or Azure Active Directory (Azure AD) to users' profile cards.

To learn more about this new profile customization option review the documentation at https://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?linkid=2115944.

Announced in May 2020

People are the heart and soul of your company, but finding the right people at the right time isn’t always easy.  Sometimes you’re looking for more than just a name and face, maybe it’s a skill, location, or something else.

In Office 365 when you select someone’s name or picture in Outlook or other Office apps and services, you can find information related to them on their profile card. To see a profile card in Outlook mobile, tap a person's picture or name. To see the profile card in other apps, hover or click the person's photo or name. To see your own profile card, select your own profile picture or name.

The profile card is also sometimes referred to as a contact card or people card. Here's an example of the card in Outlook on the web:

However, profile cards are limited in the amount of information they display.  Perhaps you want to include custom properties related to your company or a person’s role to help people find the right person or expertise.

Today we’re pleased to announce we’ll be adding the ability to add custom information to a person’s profile card through the Microsoft Graph Beta.  This allows an administrator to customize people’s profile cards by adding properties according to your business needs.

The new Beta experience will provide a simple way to supplement a person’s profile card via the Microsoft Graph.

For example, as illustrated below, you may want to add a custom property to the profile card, such as a person’s Cost Center or Employee Id.

Figure 1 Profile view where more contact info is displayed

 In this example, you can see the standard profile card before it has been expanded.

 Using new this new customization option, you’ll be able to easily display important information such as a person’s Cost Center or Employee Id as illustrated below in the expanded profile view.

Figure 2 Profile with all contact info displayed in addition to custom attributes

Wrapping Up

This new Beta experience will become available in Spring 2020 – keep an eye out for availability by bookmarking this article or by following @OfficeDev and @MicrosoftSearch on Twitter.

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