Profile customization with AAD and Microsoft Graph connectors
Published Nov 02 2021 09:51 AM 14.4K Views
Microsoft

On the profilecard in Microsoft 365, you can find information about users stored and maintained by your organization, which is critical to contextualize a user especially in the world of hybrid work. You can find information like Job title or Contact information, but what if you want to know more information about the user? What you’re looking for can be as generic as a Job title or Mobile phone number, but what if the information you need is specific like Employee Type, Cost Centre, Country, Preferred Language, Seat Number, Skills etc. This becomes increasingly complex if this information is outside the boundaries of Microsoft 365 in HRMS systems or intranet portals. Often you would need to search across multiple systems and know what systems that information is in. What if you could find all the information about a person, even the information which is unique to your company, right in the context of the person? 

 

This is where customization of people experiences in your organization helps. You can already customize some parts of profile card by surfacing some AAD data on your profile cards. However, today we're excited to announce new capabilities in profile card customization where as a Microsoft 365 administrator you can not only surface a lot more AAD information on the profile card but also directly enrich user profiles with information from HRMS systems like Workday, SAP SuccessFactors and more using Microsoft Graph connectors without the need to populate AAD with this information. With these capabilities, you can now find more information you need about a person right in a person’s context and in less time. 

 

Getting started 

Display AAD data on your profile cards 

Profile card displaying AAD information – Employee ID, Cost Center, Seat Number, etc.Profile card displaying AAD information – Employee ID, Cost Center, Seat Number, etc.

 

With the new admin experience for Microsoft 365 profiles, you can display AAD properties including Custom attributes 1-15 in profile cards through few easy steps in the Search & intelligence settings in the Microsoft 365 admin center. 

 

Profile card customization UI in the Microsoft 365 admin center.Profile card customization UI in the Microsoft 365 admin center.

 

 

Display information from HRMS systems in the profile card & people search 

Profile card displaying enriched information from HRMS systems– UPN, Work Phone, Skills, etcProfile card displaying enriched information from HRMS systems– UPN, Work Phone, Skills, etc

 

Configure a Microsoft Graph connector to ingest data from systems like SuccessFactors, Workday, and more 

Through extending the capabilities of Microsoft Graph connectors to the Microsoft 365 profile, you'll be able to ingest data from systems like SuccessFactors, Workday, and more.  

 

Currently you will have to sync the profile data you want to ingest from HRMS systems into an Azure SQL, Microsoft SQL Server, or Oracle SQL server and then use the available Microsoft Graph connectors to ingest this information. Alternatively, you can simply export select profile data into a CSV file and use a CSV connector to ingest the information into the Microsoft Graph. Using these intermediatory solutions will help you collate profile information from multiple systems and meet any specialized compliance policies for organizations that prevent Microsoft Graph connectors to directly connect to their HRMS system. However, in the event you are interested in using a Microsoft Graph connector for directly connecting to your HRMS system, contact peoplecustomizationfeedback@service.microsoft.com or complete the form at the bottom of this article to join the preview program.  

 

Enrich your Microsoft 365 profile with connector data 

The Microsoft 365 Profile API is a set of APIs that provides a rich schema for storing profile data of a user in a tenant. It is an entity-based model that provides a wide range of entities like accounts, address, educations, interests, skills, projects and more. These entities have native semantic depth built-in to support rich profiles– making it easier for everyone to express themselves and be able to contextualize people within the company.  These properties are surfaced in shared people experiences across Microsoft 365 and third-party services and experiences via the Microsoft Graph.  

 

The Microsoft 365 profile is different from Azure Active Directory and SharePoint User Profile Application (UPA). Enriching the Microsoft 365 profile for the purpose of people experience scenarios frees up some of your attributes in Azure Active Directory. 

 

Search & intelligence dashboard in Microsoft 365 center for managing Microsoft 365 profilesSearch & intelligence dashboard in Microsoft 365 center for managing Microsoft 365 profiles

 

You can enrich your Microsoft 365 profile data through ‘Customizations’ in the Search & Intelligence admin center. Just jump into the Profile schema management dialog and choose the user properties of the Microsoft 365 profile you want to enrich using the configured Microsoft Graph connector. Once you have enriched the user’s profile you will be able to display the properties on profile cards or surface them in Microsoft Search. 

 

Searching for people attributes in Microsoft SearchSearching for people attributes in Microsoft Search

 

Limitations 

While you can enrich your Microsoft 365 user profiles with data from different third-party systems, there are a few limitations as part of current preview: 

  1. Not all the user profile properties from the profile schema can be displayed on the profile cards & indexed for search. 
  2. The profile card on which customization is allowed is currently only available for web apps such as Outlook Web App, OneDrive SharePoint, Office.com, etc. 
  3. You cannot create new custom properties in the Microsoft 365 user profile i.e., you can only enrich the existing properties. 
  4. User Principal Name (UPN) for each user should be available in your SQL instance or HRMS system. 

 

Profile card customization preview sign-up 

If you are interested in trying out some of these new features, you can sign-up for using the form below and we will reach out to you. 

  1. For preview of the Admin UI for profile card customization with AAD data, complete the form here 
  2. For preview of profile enrichment using HRMS connectors, complete the form here  

 

Feedback 

Didn’t find the customization capability you are looking for? Need a direct connector for your HRMS system? Let us know by sending your feedback to peoplecustomizationfeedback@service.microsoft.com. 

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‎Dec 16 2021 09:58 AM
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