This article presents an overview of the User Directory Web Part. This Web Part provides an easy to use, SharePoint-based, self-service directory that allows users to maintain user information in the SharePoint user profile database or Active Directory.
Viewing SharePoint Portal Server 2003 User Profiles
The User Directory Web Part is designed to manage the user profiles in SharePoint Portal Server (SPS). Once the Web Part is installed and configured to work with the SharePoint Portal Server, you can see the user information populated in the Web Part as shown below.
Select Views
The User Directory allows users to see two different views.
· The default Organization Chart (OrgChart) view displays the users in a hierarchical organization view based on the Manager Field in the profile database. You can expand each person in the node and see their direct reports.
· The Alphabetical view displays the users in alphabetical order by their LAST name.
The information from the user profile is displayed in the right-hand pane of the Web Part, including user name and title as well as contact information.
The Web Part also displays each section of the profile database using a tabbed format. Out of the box, you should see the General tab, Organization tab, and the About me tab.
· General Tab. This tab contains general information in the SPS user profile database.
· Organization Tab. This tab contains information about the user's manager and about the people reporting to the selected user. The information is populated by displaying information from the Manager fields within the entire user profile database.
· About me Tab. This tab displays the content of the “About me” field in the user profile database.
· Other Tabs. Additional tabs are displayed for each new section that you define in the user profile database, and all the fields in that section are shown under each tab.
People Search
The User Directory Web Part provides two different methods for searching for people within your organization: the Simple Search and the Advanced Search.
Simple Search
To use the simple search, type in the Last Name or First Name of the person that you are looking for in the Search box.
The User Directory Web Part searches for people with Last Name or First Name that contains the search text. For example, a search for “Le” returns five records as shown in the next figure.
Note that each search result is grouped under a “Search Result” node of the tree. The search results are cleared when you navigate away from the site.
Advanced Search
The Advanced Search allows users to define which fields from the user profile database can be searched. To define the fields that users can search by, specify the fields in the properties pane of the Web Part (see the Web Part Configuration section above).
To use the Advanced Search features, click on the Magnifying Glass button on the toolbar.
Enter your search criteria and click Search. Note that the search engine is using the AND operator to perform the search. In the example above, the Web Part will search for a person whose last name contains “John” AND department contains “Engineering” AND past project contains “sharepoint” AND education level contains “master”.
Users who have permission to update the user profile information are able to make changes to the profile database. Please review the Understand Who Can Modify User Profile section above for details on how the system determines who has the right to update the user profile information.
To update a user profile, click on the Edit button at the bottom of the tab window:
The Web Part displays the fields that can be edited by the user. The fields are again grouped by each section: Contact Information, General, Organization, About Me, and other tabs as available. The system also displays two icons next to each field:
· 
Indicates a field that will be visible to everyone (marked as Public in the profile)
· 
Indicates a field that is scheduled to be updated automatically from another corporate profile directory, such as Active Directory. Changes to these properties may be lost if the import is run after the edit session.
To edit the profile, make your changes and then click Save.
Note: When you edit and change the “Report To” information of a user, the tree on the left does not automatically refresh while you are in the OrgChart view. You can manually refresh the view by selecting another view (Alphabetical) and then switching back to the OrgChart view.
Managing user profiles in the Active Directory (AD) database is similar to managing users in the SharePoint profile database. The screen below illustrates an Active Directory view of user profiles.
What AD user information is displayed in the Web Part?
Since Active Directory can have different profile information, the User Directory Web Part relies on a list template to define which fields are to be read and updated. When the Web Part is installed, it automatically creates a List in the same site with the name “ActiveDirectoryConfig”. The List will contain the following columns:
· Name. The exact name of the property as defined in the Active Directory profile. For example: Last Name.
· Section. The section name where this property will be grouped in the tab section of the User Directory Web Part.
· View Settings. Private or Public. Set this property to Public to allow all users to view, otherwise only the owner and administrators can view this information.
· Edit Settings. Read or ReadWrite. Setting this property to Read only allows users to view the properties.
Organizational View
The organizational view in Active Directory mode displays a structure similar to that of the AD console, where each organizational unit is displayed from the top level domain name. The User Directory Web Part displays the following AD objects:
· Organization Unit. This is displayed as a folder and is read only.
· Users. This is displayed as a user and can be edited, with the direct reports listed as child nodes.
· Contacts. This is displayed as a user and can be edited.
Note: The User Directory only connects to one domain. If you are using multiple domains in your environment, use multiple Web Parts to connect to each domain.
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