Create custom fields for SharePoint People Search

SharePoint's People search provides the ability to look up, and find information relating to a specific user. This same search capability is leveraged by BindTuning's People Web Part, which automatically extracts the users on your environment, displaying them in a cohesive and easy-to-use format. 

When pulling all the accounts from your environment, it may, inherently, pull information relating to service account which do not correspond to actual users we may need to find and/or search for. 

To overcome this same scenario, we can proceed with the creation of a custom field, whose sole purpose, is to distinguish between those service and actual user accounts, facilitating the filtering process and, lastly, making sure only relevant users are present when adding the web part to your page. 

Note: SharePoint doesn't change these attributes immediately so it is necessary to spend a few moments creating the new fields and crawling your SharePoint People Search. You must have the correct information on your Delve Directory, otherwise unexpected behaviors may occur.

Before we begin

We’ll create a boolean field for the Profile information, and a property of type Yes/No for the Managed Properties.

1. Log in as a global admin or SharePoint admin;
2. Select the app launcher icon in the upper-left corner and choose Admin to open the Office 365 Administrator center;
3. On the left pane, choose Admin centers and then SharePoint;

Create new User Profile Property

The first step is to create a new property for the User Profiles. To do so, follow the steps below: 

1. On your SharePoint Admin center go to More Features;
2. Select the option User profiles, followed by Manage User Properties;
3. On the corresponding page, select New Property.

On this new property you need to, at least, have inserted the fields below:

• Property Settings > Name (eg. ActiveUser)
• Property Settings > Type > Boolean
• Policy Settings > Default Privacy Setting: Everyone
• Edit Settings > Allow users to edit values for this property
• Display Settings > Show on the Edit Details page
• Display Settings > Show in the profile properties section of the user's profile page
• Search Settings > Indexed

Click on OK to insert this field on your Delve Directory.

Now, it is required to enable the property on the corresponding Delve profile. To do so:

1. In the SharePoint ribbon, click on your gravatar, followed by My Office Profile;
2. Click on the user profile that you want to edit, followed by Update profile.

   

3. Scroll to the bottom of the page, until you find the Additional information section;
4. Hit Edit, so as to modify the property created earlier (eg. ActiveUser);
5. Click on the ellipsis (…) and select More;

   

6. Check the option for the Active User and then, Save All and close.

Note: To perform the next steps you will need to allow time for the new Profile Property you created to be crawled.

Create new Managed Property

We’ll now create a Managed Property in your SharePoint admin center so that we can connect to the User Property.

1. Revert back to your SharePoint Admin Center;
2. Click on More Features, followed by Search;
3. On the new page, select the option Manage Search Schema; 
4. Select the option New Managed Property.

On this new property you need to, at least, have inserted the fields below:

1. Name and description;
   • Name (eg. ActiveUserProperty)
2. Type should be set as Yes/No
3. Main characteristics:
   • Searchable
   • Queryable
   • Retrievable 
   • Click Advanced Searchable Settings:
     1. Full-text index: Peopleldx
     2. Weight group: Context 0
   • Mappings to crawled properties:
     • Add the created field for User Profiles. (eg. ActiveUser)
4. Click Ok to create this property.

The image below provides an example of what you are expected to see after creating the Managed Property.

Add custom field to BindTuning's People Web Part

If everything is properly mapped it is time to configure the People Web Part, so as to grab this custom field.

1. Insert the BindTuning People Web Part in a page;
2. Edit the Web Part and select the option Manage Sources;
3. Select the tab Search Results;
4. Click on Advanced Search; 
5. In the Query put the value you’ve created in the Search Schema (eg. ActiveUserProperty:true).

You have completed all of the steps to create and activate custom fields for SharePoint Online. Please note that SharePoint does take some time to crawl the People Search Web Part. If you have any further difficulties, please contact our support desk.

More Information:

• Search Schema
• Manage User Profiles