---
title: "Quick Start: Navigating the Employee Directory"
description: "Learn the basics of the Vitextra Employee Directory web part for SharePoint and Teams — the list view, search box, quick-filter bar, and persona card for finding and contacting colleagues."
url: https://vitextra.com/en/support/kb/10213
language: en
published: 2026-09-07
modified: 2026-10-13
products:
  - "Employee Directory"
author: "Jānis Bērziņš"
tags: ["employee directory", "SharePoint employee directory", "quick start", "search employees", "quick filters", "persona card", "employee local time", "free/busy availability", "Microsoft Teams directory", "Vitextra"]
---

# Quick Start: Navigating the Employee Directory

Learn the basics of the Vitextra Employee Directory web part for SharePoint and Teams — the list view, search box, quick-filter bar, and persona card for finding and contacting colleagues.

The Vitextra [Employee Directory web part](https://vitextra.com/en/products/employee-directory) helps you find the right colleague and reach out at the right moment. This quick-start guide walks end users through the essentials: the list view, the search box, the quick-filter bar, and the persona card.

## The directory at a glance

When a page or Microsoft Teams tab with the Employee Directory ::web part:: opens, you see every published employee at once. The interface has four main areas: the **search box** for typing a query, the **quick-filter bar** for narrowing the list in one click, the **results list** with a card for each person, and the **persona card** that slides in when you select someone.

<!-- SCREENSHOT: Full Employee Directory web part on a SharePoint page. Show the search box at the top, the quick-filter bar (My department / My team / People I work with / Favorites) beneath it, and a grid of employee cards below. Light theme, several realistic sample employees. -->

![Employee Directory web part overview](https://static.vitextra.com/articles/10213/employee-directory-web-part-en.png)
*The Employee Directory web part*

📝 **Note**  
The exact layout depends on how an administrator configured the web part. Some elements — such as the quick-filter bar or the search box — can be hidden, so your view may differ slightly from the screenshots in this article.

## Finding a person

### Search box

Start typing in the search box — labeled **Search for employees** — and the list narrows as you type. The search is "soft": it tolerates small typos and partial words, so you don't need an exact match to find someone. It looks across name, job title, department, and other profile fields.

[![Searching for an employees by department](https://static.vitextra.com/articles/10213/employee-directory-search-en.webp)](https://static.vitextra.com/articles/10213/employee-directory-search-en.webp){data-provide="lightbox" data-lity}
*Searching for an employees by department*

If an administrator has enabled **Search by skills**, your query is also matched against the skills in each person's profile. Matching skills are highlighted and shown first in the **Skills** column, which makes it easy to answer questions such as "who knows Power BI?" or "who speaks Spanish?".

📝 **Note**  
When nothing matches your query, the list shows **No results found**. Clear the search box to return to the full directory.

### Quick filters

The quick-filter bar above the list lets you narrow the directory to a relevant group of people without typing a query. Select a filter to apply it; select it again to turn it off.

- **My department** — colleagues in your own department.
- **My team** — your manager and the people who report to the same manager as you.
- **People I work with** — the colleagues you interact with most often, based on Microsoft 365 signals.
- **Favorites** — the people you have starred.

![The quick-filter bar](https://static.vitextra.com/articles/10213/quick-filters-en.png)
*The quick-filter bar*

📝 **Note**  
**My department** and **People I work with** rely on your own profile and Microsoft 365 data. If they return nothing, your profile may be incomplete or the required permissions may not be granted — ask your administrator to check. See the [Using quick filters](https://vitextra.com/en/support/kb) article for details.

## Switching views and grouping

You can display the directory as compact **Contact** cards or as a detailed **Details** table. Use the view switch in the command bar to choose the layout that suits you.

The **Group by** option organizes the results into sections — for example, by **Department** or by the first letter of the last name. Grouping works together with search and quick filters, so you can, say, filter to your department and still group the remaining people by job title.

<!-- SCREENSHOT: The command bar showing the view switch (Contact / Details) and the Group by control, with results grouped by Department below. -->

![Switching views and grouping results](https://static.vitextra.com/articles/10213/views-groupby-en.png)
*Views and grouping*

## The persona card

Select any employee to open the **persona card** — a panel with the person's full details and everything you need to get in touch. Which sections appear depends on the web part configuration and on the Microsoft Graph permissions your organization has granted.

<!-- SCREENSHOT: The persona card (details pane) open for a sample employee. Show the photo with a presence indicator, name and job title, the action buttons row, and the Local time and Availability sections. -->

![The persona card](https://static.vitextra.com/articles/10213/persona-card-en.png)
*The persona card*

At the top you see the person's photo with a real-time Microsoft Teams **presence** indicator (Available, Busy, and so on), their name, and their job title. Below that is a row of actions:

|::Action::|::What it does::|
|:---|:---|
|**Teams**|Start a chat with the person in Microsoft Teams|
|**Call in Teams**|Place a call in Microsoft Teams|
|**Send E-mail**|Open a new e-mail addressed to the person|
|**Copy e-mail address**|Copy the person's e-mail address to the clipboard|
|**Schedule a meeting**|Open a new meeting invite with the person added|
|**Download vCard**|Save the contact as a `.vcf` file|
|**Add to favorites**|Star the person so they appear under the **Favorites** quick filter|

📝 **Note**  
Administrators can enable or disable each action independently, so you may not see all of the buttons above.

Further down, the persona card can show:

- **Local time** and **Working hours** — the person's current local time, the offset from your own time zone, and whether they are within their working hours or **Outside working hours**. This helps you avoid messaging a colleague in the middle of their night.
- **Availability** — the person's **Free/Busy** for today shown next to your own, so you can pick a good moment to talk.
- **Manager** and **direct reports** — links you can follow to move through the org chart.
- **About**, **Interests**, and **Skills** — background information from the person's profile.

💡 **Tip**  
Use the star on a colleague's card to add them to **Favorites**. Your favorites are saved per user and stay in place between sessions, so the people you contact most are always one click away.

## Next steps

Now that you know your way around the directory, explore the individual features in more detail:

- **Using quick filters** — how *My department*, *My team*, *People I work with*, and *Favorites* work, and when to use each.
- **Searching employees by skills** — how skills search works and how skills are sourced from the Entra ID profile.
- **Managing favorites** — adding, removing, and where favorites are stored.
- **Local time and working hours on the persona card** — what the indicators mean and where the data comes from.
- **Checking availability (free/busy) in the schedule tab** — reading your and the person's availability for the day.