Discover the power of your organization with Happeo’s People Directory

We created Happeo to help build better-connected companies. Better connections to information, knowledge, and, most of all – to the people you work with daily. In today’s world, there’s a good chance you work with people you’ve never met offline.

Perhaps you frequently need the help of your colleagues in IT, but they’re in a different country. Or maybe you need to leverage the knowledge of the people you work with but don’t know who the right person would be. To improve productivity and make cross-company collaboration easier than ever before, we’ve updated Happeo’s People section with the People Directory. Beta-testing customers have seen a 3x increase in People section visits by testing this feature. Customers on the Recommended/Growth packages and above will have access to this on August 15.
 

What does the People Directory do? 

In short: it’s here to help you quickly navigate to the right person. The People Directory gives users a browsable overview of all the people who work in your company, adding to the existing search and org chart functionality. 

We like to say that it’s your company’s digital phonebook – and we don’t mean those big stacks of paper from yesteryear. It comes complete with filters like department, title, and more, and filters for custom attributes can be configured in the Admin panel. 

That’s not all. Instead of profile cards, users now have a complete profile page that can be linked to and customized, from a brief “about” section to a list of users' skills. You’ll better understand who you’re working with and the knowledge you can leverage. Like before, you can still message, call, or book a meeting with that user directly from their profile.

Here’s how you’ll get the most value out of the People Directory

Getting the most out of the People Directory means two things: 

1. Deciding which fields you want to show up on People’s profile pages 
2. Maintaining your provisioning system’s health (Google Groups, Azure AD, or Okta)
   
   

1. Deciding which fields you want to show up on People’s profile pages 

When we built the People Directory, we asked for customer feedback on which fields you want to see present as default. We came up with the following: 

• First name
• Last name
• Employee ID
• Email
• Birthday
• Company
• Department
• Title
• Cost center
• Location
• Manager ID 
• Organization Name
• Phone number
• Skills

With these default fields, you should be all set and don’t need to do anything else. However, we do recommend that you decide which fields you should include based on your company’s culture. For example, would your company want to show and celebrate people’s birthdays? Then you’ll want to toggle that on. Is seeing an employee’s cost center in their user profile unnecessary? Then toggle that off. To configure the fields you want to show or hide, go into your Admin panel and click on the People Directory tab. 

Last for customizability: a user’s profile picture can still be customized within Happeo, even if the new one differs from the image provisioned through Google, Okta or Azure AD. Cover images can also be changed by users themselves, as well as Admins. 

2. Maintaining your provisioning system’s hygiene (Google Groups, Azure AD, or Okta) 

You can choose to display unseated users in your People Directory, though this is by default toggled off to prevent employees showing up who no longer work in the company. 

Happeo’s People section relies on how your provisioning system has set up its users. We recommend IT professionals regularly audit its hygiene. As it’s the first entry point to populate new users in most of your tools, it’s important to keep it up-to-date. This means it might be a good opportunity to check your provisioning system for accuracy. 

For example, if an employee moved to a different department but this was not updated in your provisioning system, they will still be under their old department in the org chart and their user profile.

A complete overview of your company 

The People Directory compliments the popular org chart and people-search function, completing Happeo’s People section. Every department’s work will live in different tools, but your provisioning system is still the beginning of an employee’s journey in your company – even if they personally never notice it. Because the People Directory is automatically populated with information from your provisioning system, you can count on Happeo as your starting point for a more connected company. 

We encourage you to explore the People Directory and discover your colleagues, and we look forward to your feedback. If you need help deciding on your default settings, please contact your Customer Success Manager – we’re happy to help!

Read the help center article

The People Directory is an updated feature within Happeo’s People section designed to act as your company’s digital phonebook, helping employees quickly find and navigate to the right person. By providing a browsable overview of everyone in the organisation, it complements the existing search and org chart functions. Users can filter colleagues by criteria such as department, job title, and other custom attributes configured by administrators, making cross-company collaboration much easier.

Instead of basic profile cards, the People Directory introduces complete, customisable profile pages. These profiles display essential details, including a brief “about” section, skills, and direct contact options. This setup allows employees to understand who they are working with and leverage collective internal knowledge more effectively. Directly from a colleague’s profile, users can instantly send messages, make phone calls, or book meetings, streamlining everyday communication across different teams and geographical locations.

This tool is particularly valuable in modern working environments where colleagues may never meet offline. Whether you need assistance from an IT team based in another country or are looking for a specific skill set for a new project, the directory bridges the gap. Beta-testing customers have experienced a threefold increase in visits to the People section, demonstrating its efficiency in building better-connected companies.

Administrators can customise the People Directory by deciding which specific information fields appear on employee profile pages, tailoring the platform to match the unique culture of their organisation. Happeo provides several default fields to get started, such as first and last name, email, department, job title, manager ID, location, and skills. However, administrators have the flexibility to toggle these individual fields on or off depending on what is most relevant or appropriate for their staff.

To configure these visibility settings, administrators simply need to access the Admin panel and select the People Directory tab. From there, they can easily manage options like showing or hiding employee birthdays or cost centres. If a company prefers to celebrate birthdays publicly, the feature can be toggled on; if showing cost centres is deemed unnecessary, it can be quickly disabled to keep profiles clean and focused.

Furthermore, customisation extends to visual elements on the profile pages. Users and administrators can update and change cover images to personalise their profiles. Additionally, employee profile pictures can be customised directly within Happeo, meaning the platform can display a different profile image from the one originally provisioned through external systems like Google, Okta, or Azure AD. This provides organisations and individual employees with great creative control over their digital workplace presence.

Maintaining the hygiene of your provisioning system, such as Google Groups, Azure AD, or Okta, is essential because Happeo’s People Directory relies entirely on these platforms to populate and update employee information automatically. Since the provisioning system serves as the primary entry point for adding new users and data into your company’s tools, keeping it accurate and up-to-date ensures that the digital directory remains a reliable and trustworthy source of truth for the entire organisation.

If the provisioning system is not regularly audited, out-of-date information will carry over into Happeo, leading to confusion. For example, if an employee transfers to a different department or gets promoted, but this change is not updated in the backend provisioning tool, they will continue to appear under their old department within the org chart and on their personal profile page. Regular audits by IT professionals prevent these discrepancies and maintain directory accuracy.

Additionally, system hygiene helps manage the visibility of inactive accounts. By default, Happeo toggles off the display of unseated users in the directory to prevent former employees who no longer work at the company from appearing in search results. However, administrators have the option to display them if needed. Keeping your provisioning system healthy ensures a seamless, automated onboarding and offboarding flow, making Happeo the perfect starting point for a well-connected and highly productive workplace.