Forum Discussion
How to generate a SharePoint List to pull users from Office 365?
Without delving into learning PowerApps just yet, is there a simple way to ask Sharepoint to auto load employee information like name, email, or dept based on Azure Active Directory information?
Currently, I can search/find employees and add them to Sharepoint List column by searching for them using a company email address. We also have unique identifiers like employee numbers that I'd like to use instead.
1) How can I instruct SP to search for a person based on this number instead of their email address? 2) How can I link columns for "auto filling" subsequent columns with name, email, dept, etc from the unique number in Azure?
Appreciate your insight and thank you!
I'm thinking a bit on this - I think I need more information...
First pass at this problem, I would look at modifying the user profile synchronization attributes in the SharePoint Admin Center. Add the custom attribute for the ID: Add and edit user profile properties in SharePoint - SharePoint in Microsoft 365 | Microsoft Docs then you have to manage a process to sync this property - Bulk update custom user profile properties for SharePoint Online | Microsoft Docs which is kind of a bummer - if this were on-prem, you would be able to configure this custom property to pull the information from the synchronization connection.
Now for the search portion, are you talking about search via the people pickers? or about Search in the tenant?
Search in the tenant *I think* would automatically start indexing the custom attribute and would be searchable in the "People" portion of search. If it doesn't add it in automatically, you can modify the search schema and map the property to a managed property Manage the search schema in SharePoint - SharePoint in Microsoft 365 | Microsoft Docs then this property could be used in search.
The out of the box people picker is something different - honestly I don't think you could modify this to be searchable via a custom attribute. Also, I'm fairly sure the people pickers use Azure AD in SharePoint Online and the search function for this is immutable. I've submitted a few tickets to try to see if we could make the people picker remove accounts based on attributes in their profile and those answers have been "No".
As far as the information aside from the Custom ID attribute - have you had a look at the hidden user list? <Tenant SP Online URL>/_catalogs/users/simple.aspx Maybe this could be useful?
Thanks Timothy.. The Tenant and People Pickers are tools/language hare are above my knowledge/skill level.. I also do not have access to the Sharepoint Admin Center as I'm not in IT.
I appreciate the response, but it might be that I need to learn PowerApps to build this. I appreciate your insight and response, however.
- Could always ask IT about that identifier - if it's in the information for the users' profiles. I would think something like that would have been included since it sounds like the identifier is pretty important.
Don't be afraid to ask - if they're not sure, reference some of the documentation to support the question/request. Depending on the size of the company you work for - it might be easy to implement it.- Wanted to follow up on this noting I didn't have to ask IT.. 1 day, I was scrolling through 20 different categorical field names of our profiles under "Get Employee" and found they tucked the Employee ID under a "Nickname" Field.... so I've been pulling/using that with the Dynamic Content in flows.. Thanks for the suggestion!
