Feature description
The WordPress + Office 365 plugins not only shines when it comes to its Single Sign-on, User Registration and User Synchronization capabilities. Since v9.0 it now ships with ready made apps that let you seamlessly integrate the world’s most widely used content management system WordPress with Microsoft Office 365, Microsoft Graph and SharePoint Online.
The Employee Directory app gives companies that use WordPress as their intranet platform of choice a simple solution to offer employees the ability to search for, find and immediately contact colleagues by tapping into the potential offered to us by Microsoft Graph.
All plugins now ship by default with the Employee Directory app, but only the WPO365 login INTRANET edition offers intranet managers the ability to highly customize this experience. Scroll down to the Configuration section and watch the video to get an impression of what the Employee Directory app can do for you and how simple it is to get up and running in less than 10 minutes.
Configuration
You can watch the video below for instructions on how to configure the plugin and your web application’s registration in Azure AD to configure the Employee Directory (Microsoft Graph) app.
Please note that this video needs to be updated and does not yet reflect the recently added capability to customize the app’s appearance using (your own) Handlebars template.
Configuration options [BASIC Edition]
This section discusses the individual configuration options for the BASIC edition of the Employee Directory (Microsoft Graph) app that ships with the BASIC, PROFESSIONAL and PREMIUM edition of the plugin.
The BASIC edition cannot be customized.
Configuration options [INTRANET Edition]
This section discusses the individual configuration options for the INTRANET edition of the Employee Directory (Microsoft Graph) app that ships with the INTRANET edition of the plugin.
- Use (Handlebars) template allows you to fully customize how the users that are returned by Microsoft Graph are rendered / presented to your users. The option to use templates has been added since v9.5 and are now the preferred way to render search results. However, you can still uncheck this option and use the legacy placeholders for primary, secondary, tertiary and meta text. Refer to the following online documentation for instructions on how to create your own fully custom Handlebars template.
- Template (only visible when you checked Use (Handlebars) template) allows you to configure the location where the app should try and download the (custom) Handlebars template from. Please note that for reasons of security modern browsers won’t allow you to download content from other servers than your own (unless CORS has been properly set up). By default the shortcode generator proposes to use the Handlebars template that ships with the plugin.
- Primary / Secondary / Tertiary / Meta text (only visible when you unchecked Use (Handlebars) template) allows you to connect the built-in static template’s Primary / Secondary / Tertiary / Meta text placeholders with properties of a (Microsoft Graph) user. You can refer to this Microsoft article to understand what properties are available. Read the Select properties section further down for information on how to retrieve non-default properties.
- Try retrieve user photo tells the app to try and connect to Microsoft Graph and download a user’s Office 365 profile image to show along with the user’s information.
- Query template allows you to take control of the query entered by the user (if any) using a template that will add to and / or replace the original query text. Doing so would help you limit the results that are returned by the app. Please consult this Microsoft article to understand what properties are available and whether or not they can be used as $filter parameter. To understand how to use query parameters in the first place you can refer to this Microsoft article. Please note that you can use the token {searchterms} to reference the search query entered by the user. So if you’d like to search for employees that work in a specific department use for example the following query template startswith(department, ‘{searchterms}’) and if you’d also like to search for a user’s (display) name use (startswith(department, ‘{searchterms}’) or startwith(displayName, ‘displayName’)). If you do not specify a query template that includes the {searchterms} token, the app will add the following partial query template (startswith(displayName,'{searchterms}’) or startswith(givenName,’ {searchterms}’) or startswith(surname,’
{searchterms} ‘) or startswith(mail,’
{searchterms} ‘) or startswith(userPrincipalName,’
{searchterms} ‘) or startswith(displayName,’
{searchterms} ‘)). - Use default select properties tells the app to retrieve the default set of properties of a user e.g. surname, given name etc. This is the default set up and will work for general purposes. If you have more advanced requirements e.g. if you have custom properties in Azure AD such as employeeId and you’d like to retrieve and surface such properties in the results then you’d need to uncheck this option and manually enter (all) properties you’d like Microsoft Graph to return. You can do so in the next field Select properties that will only become visible when you uncheck this option first.
- Select properties allows you to manually enter (all) properties you’d like Microsoft Graph to return (see Use default select properties).
- Auto search tells the plugin not wait for the user to enter a search query but instead start and search immediately. This is especially usefull when used in combination with a Query Template.
- Results per page allows you to restrict the number of results displayed per page.
- Min. input length tells the plugin to wait before executing the search query entered by the user until at least a minimal number of characters has been entered into the search box. This setting does not prevent Auto search from executing a search immediately as soon as the app has finished loading.
- Add wildcard to each search term adds an * (asterix) to each word that the user enters into the search box and will therefore change the behaviour of the app significantly by instructing the app to search in SharePoint for content that contains the query text entered by the user (instead of returning only items that match exactly with the query text entered by the user).
- Hide Search box / Message bar / Paging will hide the corresponding elements when checked. This is especially usefull when used in combination with an Query template and Auto search.