Add and edit user profile properties

SharePoint Online user profiles include a default set of user properties that are supplied by the Office 365 directory service. As a SharePoint Online admin, you can use the SharePoint admin center to create properties and define profile policies to track key information that is not otherwise available.

Key business needs might encourage you to create new properties that associate users with important business processes. For example, a sales department can create a property for a specific sales role to use to share information with a particular audience or audiences. Custom profile properties can be edited to better suit business needs or they can be deleted when no longer needed.

Important:  User account information can be synchronized only one way—from the Office 365 directory service to SharePoint Online. If you create SharePoint user profile properties they are confined to SharePoint user profiles, and will not be available to any other Office 365 service.

Create a property for a user profile

Perform the following procedure to create a property for a user profile.

1. Sign in to the Office 365 admin center with your SharePoint Online administrator username and password (https://login.partner.microsoftonline.cn).

2. Choose Admin > SharePoint. You're now in the SharePoint Online admin center.

3. Choose User Profiles.

4. Under People, choose Manage User Properties.

5. On the Manage User Properties page, click New Property.

6. On the Add Profile Property page, in the Property Settings section, in the Name text box, type a name to be used by the User Profile Service application for the profile property. The Name must be unique, but the Display Name does not have to be unique.

7. In the Property Settings section, in the Display Name box, type the profile property name that will be displayed to all users.

   Note:  If you use multiple languages on your site, you can provide alternate display names for each language by clicking Edit Languages. In the dialog box, click Add Language, select a language from the menu, and then type the display name in the new language. You can add display names for any of the available languages. The display name that appears depends on the language setting of the user who views the property.

8. From the Type drop-down list, select the data type for the property.

   Note:  If you select string (Multi Value), the property will be permanently set as a multi-valued property. You cannot change this setting after you click OK. You can only delete the property and add it again as a new single-value property.

9. In the Length box, type the maximum number of characters that are allowed for values for this property.

10. To associate the profile property with a managed metadata term set, click Configure a Term Set to be used for this property, and then select a term set from the drop-down list. This option is available only for single-value properties.

11. In the Sub-type of Profile section, do one of the following:

    • If you are creating a user profile property, select Default User Profile Subtype to associate the default user profile subtype with this user profile property (unless you are using subtypes and you want to scope this to your custom subtype).

    • If you are creating an organization profile property, select Default Organization Profile Subtype to associate the default organization profile subtype with this organization profile property (unless you are using subtypes and you want to scope this to your custom subtype).

12. In the User Description section, in the Description box, type the instructions or information that is displayed to users about this profile property.

    Note:  If you use multiple languages on your site, you can provide alternate display names for each language by clicking Edit Languages. In the dialog box, click Add Language, select a language from the menu, and then type the display name in the new language. You can add display names for any of the available languages. The display name that appears depends on the language setting of the user who views the property.

13. In the Policy Settings section, select the policy setting and default privacy setting that you want for this property. Click the User can override box to enable users to override these settings.

    Note:  Find more information about user profiles and policy settings in the See Also links on this page.

14. In the Edit Settings section, select whether users can edit values for this property.

15. In the Display Settings section, specify whether and how the property will be viewed by users.

16. In the Search Settings section, select the Alias check box, the Indexed check box, or both, depending on the kinds of searches that you want to be associated with this user profile property.

    Note:  The Alias check box is unavailable unless the Default Privacy Setting is set to "Everyone". If you mark a property as indexed, a search for values of that property returns that profile. For example, if the telephone number property is indexed, a search of telephone numbers finds the employee with that number. If you mark a property as aliased, the property is a suitable alias for this user. For example, if you search for all documents by John Kane, the result returns documents that were written by johnkane@contoso.com and Jonathan Kane if profile properties are marked with those values as aliases.

17. Click OK.

Top of Page

Edit a property for a user profile

Perform the following procedure to edit a property for a user profile.

1. Sign in to the Office 365 admin center with your SharePoint Online administrator username and password (https://login.partner.microsoftonline.cn).

2. Choose Admin > SharePoint. You're now in the SharePoint Online admin center.

3. Choose User Profiles.

4. Under People, choose Manage User Properties.

5. On the Manage User Properties page, in the Property Name column, select the profile property that you want to change, and then click Edit.

6. On the Edit Profile Property page, locate the element or elements of the profile property that you want to change and edit them.

   Note:  Some elements of profile properties, such as the Type element, are grayed out because these elements cannot be edited. If you need to edit one of the elements that's not available for edit, you can instead create a new property and then define that element. The exception is the Source Data Connection property. The Source Data Connection property is predefined in SharePoint Online and cannot be changed.

7. When finished, click OK.

Top of Page

Delete a property for a user profile

Perform the following procedure to delete a property for a user profile.

1. Sign in to the Office 365 Admin Center with your SharePoint Online administrator username and password (https://login.partner.microsoftonline.cn).

2. Choose Admin > SharePoint. You're now in the SharePoint Online Administration Center.

3. Choose User Profiles.

4. Under People, choose Manage User Properties.

5. On the Manage User Properties page, in the Property Name column, select the profile property that you want to remove, and then click Delete.

   Note:  If the Delete command is grayed out, the property you are trying to delete is a default property in SharePoint Online and it cannot be deleted.

6. In the dialog box, verify that you have selected the correct profile property, and then click OK.

Top of Page