Employee Details vs. Employee Directory: What's the Difference?

Overview

Vitextra offers two web parts that both work with employee data from Microsoft 365: Employee Directory and Employee Details. Their names are similar, they share some functions - presence, local time, contact actions - and they are often installed together. They have different jobs, though, and choosing the right one saves configuration time.

In short: Employee Directory helps you find people. Employee Details shows one person in depth.

At a glance

Which web part should I use?

Choose Employee Directory when users need to look for people:

• "Who works in the Riga office?"
• "Who knows Power BI?"
• "I need the phone number of someone in finance."
• You want to export a list of employees to Excel.

Choose Employee Details when users need to know a person:

• A personal page where every employee sees and maintains their own profile.
• A profile page that opens for any colleague from a link in a news post, a team page or a message.
• A page that shows an employee's skills, languages, documents, projects and a place in the organization.
• A way for employees to ask for a change of their job title or department through an approval flow.

Use both when you want a complete people experience: search in the directory, then open a full profile. See the section below.

Using them together

The web parts are connected by the page address:

1. Create a page with Employee Details that is set to take the employee from a query string parameter - a profile page that serves everybody. Its address then looks like https://<tenant>.sharepoint.com/sites/<site>/SitePages/Profile.aspx?user=<user principal name>.
2. In the Employee Details settings, specify the address of the page with Employee Directory. The header of every profile then gets the Open Employee Directory button, which leads back to the search.
3. Use the profile page address in links to a person, for example in a news post or an onboarding page.

Questions and answers

Is Employee Details a replacement for the details pane of Employee Directory?

No. The details pane of Employee Directory is part of a search experience: it shows a compact profile of the person you selected in the results. Employee Details is a standalone web part with a page of its own, more tabs, and editing of the employee's own profile. You can keep using the details pane in the directory and add Employee Details for the people who need the full picture. For the details pane settings, see KB10199. Employee Directory: Customizing the Details Pane.

Do they need the same Microsoft Graph permissions?

No. Both read data through Microsoft Graph, but each product requests its own set of permissions, which a tenant administrator approves in the SharePoint admin center. Employee Details additionally asks for permissions to edit your own profile (User.ReadWrite) and to read documents and insights (Files.Read.All, Sites.Read.All). The full list is in KB10279. Employee Details. Solution Overview.

Can an employee edit their profile in Employee Directory?

The directory is intended for finding and reading profile data. Employees edit their own skills, languages, social accounts and other profile sections in Employee Details.

Do I need to buy both products?

No. They are separate products, and you can use either one on its own. For information about trials and licenses, see KB10206. Vitextra Licensing and Account: How to Buy and Activate a License.

Can I show the custom attributes of my organization in both?

Yes. Both web parts can show Microsoft Entra ID extension attributes and SharePoint user profile properties as additional attributes, but they are configured separately in each web part. For Employee Directory, see KB10060. How to Display Custom Entra ID Attributes in the Employee Directory Web Part.

Learn more about the products: https://vitextra.com/en/products/employee-details and https://vitextra.com/en/products/employee-directory