Staff directory and profiles

A staff directory aims to:

• provide a central location where every staff member’s detail can be easily accessed by other staff members, and
• provide an overarching view of the organisational structure and reporting lines.

The org unit intranet enables coordinators and super users to build an internal staff directory, using SharePoint’s Lists and People web part features.

Building a staff directory by populating minimal staff information

Intranet coordinators and super users can manually populate minimal staff information (name, title and team) into the staff directory and rely on the connection with staff members’ Microsoft Office profiles to surface the remaining details (e.g. phone extensions).

• A list captures basic staff information (such as name, title, team) into designated columns.
  • Name column is configured to retrieve Microsoft Office profile information.
  • Users can hover over a staff member’s name and on the pop-up person card to view all remaining details captured in their Microsoft Office profiles. On a mobile device, users can click the staff member’s name or picture and get the same details.
• The Group by feature of the SharePoint list can be used to group staff members according to the teams they are associated with, to build a visual hierarchy and represent the organisational structure.
• The Gallery view of the SharePoint list displays information from selected columns in a card-view, with a profile image and selected column data.

Pros

• Lower maintenance - Coordinators and Super users only need to add/remove staff members when they join or leave the organisational unit. Adding other details (like title, team/sub- team, etc.) is optional.
• Takes advantage of the photos populated in staff’s Microsoft Office profile
• The Gallery view enables users to scan and easily consume team/staff information.

Cons

• Users can only search for a staff member’s name, not a specific detail (such as a phone number).
• Some information is a hover or click away, e.g. phone extension
• For staff with multiple positions, only the most recently updated position is reflected from the Microsoft Office profile information

Building a staff directory by populating detailed staff information

Intranet Coordinators and Super users can manually populate detailed staff information into the staff directory and manage it locally.

• A list captures detailed staff information (such as name, title, team/sub-team, email, phone number, location, etc.) into designated columns.
  • Name column can still be configured to retrieve Microsoft Office profile information.
  • Users can hover over a staff member’s name and on the pop-up person card to view all details captured in Microsoft Office profiles. On a mobile device, users can click over staff member’s name or picture and get the same details.
• The Group by feature of the SharePoint list can be used to group staff members according to the teams/sub-teams they are associated with, to roughly replicate the organisational structure.
• The Gallery view of the SharePoint list displays information from selected columns in a card-view, with a profile image and selected column data.

Pros

• Quick and easy access to all organisational staff members’ details
• Specific details for a particular user (like designation, phone number, etc.) can be searched for
• Custom formatting can be applied to columns and list views can be created to aid quick scan and slicing or dicing of list data
• Information for staff with multiple positions can be correctly displayed

Cons

• Initial setup and maintenance effort
  • to plan and design the list structure
  • to collate all information and populate the list
• Continuous maintenance required to keep the list up-to-date
• The Gallery view is not helpful with easy scanning and consumption of team/staff information

Populating the staff directory from Excel

Coordinators and super users can compile the required staff information in an Excel spreadsheet and easily add large data sets to the staff directory.

Things to consider:

• Coordinators and super users must be familiar with Edit in grid view functionality of Lists.
• Before copying/importing large data sets, thoroughly clean and remove any junk content (for example: double spaces, trailing spaces, unwanted special characters, hidden rows, etc.)
• Split large data set into small chunks (~25-30 rows at a time) when adding data.
• Immediately resolve errors when prompted by SharePoint. Exiting the grid view without resolving errors may result in complete or partial loss of data.
• Staff directory containing a large data set might take time to index and crawl all data and make it searchable.