How to Add and Configure the Employee Directory Web Part

This article walks through the first steps with the Vitextra Employee Directory web part: adding it to a modern SharePoint Online page and configuring the main settings of the property pane - the data source, columns, sorting, page size, the search box and totals. At the end you will find an overview of the other property pane groups with links to the articles that cover them in detail.

Before you begin

Before you add the web part to a page, make sure that:

• The Employee Directory solution is installed in the tenant app catalog. The procedure is described in KB10035. How to Install a Vitextra Product in SharePoint Online.
• The Microsoft Graph permissions are approved. The solution requests the Directory.Read.All, User.Read.All, Presence.Read.All, Calendars.Read and People.Read permissions. A global administrator approves them on the API access page of the SharePoint admin center.
• You can edit the page - the Edit permission level or membership in the site's Members group is enough.

Adding the web part to a page

1. Open the page and click Edit in the top-right corner.
2. Hover over the place where the directory should go until a line with a + sign appears, and click it to open the web part toolbox.
3. Type Employee Directory in the search box and select Employee Directory.

The web part appears on the page and immediately shows the employees of your organization using the default settings. To change the settings, click the pencil icon (Edit web part) on the left of the web part - the property pane opens on the right. Its groups are shown as an accordion: click a group name to expand it.

Choosing the data source

The first group of the property pane, Data Source, defines where the web part takes employee data from. Select one of the two values in the Data Source dropdown:

• User profiles (the default) - people are found through SharePoint search in the SharePoint user profiles. This source supports the predefined query (KQL), hidden profiles and the refinement panel.
• Entra ID (Azure AD) - people are read directly from Microsoft Entra ID through Microsoft Graph. Only enabled member accounts are shown; guest accounts are excluded.

The rest of the Data Source group changes depending on the selected source: some options are available only for User profiles, others only for Entra ID (Azure AD). These are described below.

Columns and custom columns

Under the source selector there are two Configure buttons:

• Columns - opens the list of built-in employee properties (name, job title, department, phone numbers, office location and others). For each property you can choose whether it is shown in the list (Show in list) and on the person's card (Show on card), change its Caption and set its Order.
• Custom Columns - lets you add properties that are not in the built-in list: custom SharePoint user profile properties or custom Microsoft Entra ID attributes. Click Add new item, enter the property name and its caption, then save.

The configured columns are also used elsewhere in the web part: they are offered in the Content Fields of the cards and in the Group by dropdown.

Options of the User Profiles source

When the source is User profiles, the Data Source group contains two more settings:

• Predefined Query - a KQL (Keyword Query Language) condition that is added to every search the web part runs, including the initial list. Use it to limit the directory to a part of the organization, for example Department:"Sales" to show only the sales department or (Department:"Sales" OR Department:"Marketing") to show two departments. The default value * means no restriction.
• Show hidden users - by default the web part does not show profiles that are hidden from address lists. Turn this option on to include them. Service accounts (such as app@sharepoint or Sync_DC_ accounts) are always excluded.

Options of the Entra ID source

When the source is Entra ID (Azure AD), the predefined query and Show hidden users are not available. Instead, the group contains the Show only users with non-empty department toggle. It is turned on by default, which hides accounts without a department - typically shared mailboxes, meeting rooms and technical accounts that are not real employees. Turn it off to show every enabled member account.

The Search by skills toggle, also in this group, adds people whose profile skills match the search text to the results. It is turned on by default and takes effect with the Entra ID (Azure AD) source. See KB10316. How to Search Employees by Skills in Employee Directory.

Sorting and page size

Three settings at the end of the Data Source group define the order of the results and how many are loaded at once:

• Sort by - the field the results are sorted by. The list of fields depends on the source: (Default), First Name and Last Name for User profiles; (Default) and Full Name for Entra ID (Azure AD). With (Default), User Profiles results are sorted by search relevance, and Entra ID results are returned in the order Microsoft Graph provides.
• Direction - Sort A to Z (the default) or Sort Z to A.
• Display items in pages of - how many people are loaded at a time, from 1 to 50 (the default is 40). When there are more results, a Show More Results... button appears under the list and loads the next portion.

Search box and totals

Two toggles at the top of the Appearance group control the elements above the results:

• Display Search Box - shows or hides the search box. Turn it off when the web part should show a fixed list, for example the members of one department defined by the predefined query.
• Show Totals - shows or hides the number of people found.

Both are turned on by default.

Other settings

The remaining groups of the property pane are described in separate articles:

Saving the page

The settings take effect on the page as soon as you change them, so you can check the result before publishing. When the directory looks as expected, click Republish (or Publish for a new page) to make the changes visible to everyone.