Person Importer

The Stanford Person Importer allows you to pull information from Stanford Profiles (profiles.stanford.edu, which is also sometimes called "CAP." The imported data creates Person Profile pages on your site.

Using the Person Importer is an important way to empower Stanford individuals to control the public display of their own information. We strongly encourage the use of this feature whenever feasible.

Overview

The Person Importer connects to Stanford Profiles and imports any profiles that meet the criteria you have established when setting up your importer. Once importer, you may not edit the imported fields, but you may add additional information to the imported profiles. Some common examples of additional information include:

People categories on your site
Related content on your site, since as related news,
Other information, such as appointment signup links, additional biographical information or links, etc.

Changes to individual profiles are updated on your site once daily. You can also manually run the importer if you need to refresh the imported content on your site.

What can be imported

For public websites, information can be pulled from "Public" profiles. For intranets, you can apply for access to pull Stanford-Only information.

Imported Fields

The following fields are imported by Stanford Profiles and will need to be edited directly from their source (profiles.stanford.edu, StanfordYou, or in HR data.) Fields will be imported only if the individual has marked the following fields as "Public" on public sites and "Public" OR "Stanford-Only" on intranets.

First Name
Last Name
Short Title
Full Title
Photo
Bio Body Text
Email
Mobile Phone
Mail Code
Education
Links
Profile Link

Set up your importer

Apply for CAP Credentials

In order to use the Stanford Person Importer, you first must apply for credentials to for your site to connect to the API. You can do so through this ServiceNow form. Each site should have its own set of credentials.

It may take up to a week to be granted access.

Add your credentials to the Importer

In the Administrative Toolbar go to Configuration > Importers >Person Importer.
Expand Authorization field and enter your authentication information (CAP Username and CAP Password) for the CAP API that you received via Secure email.

Select who you wish to import

You can import person profiles by organization, by workgroup, or by individual SUNetID.

By organization

Importing by organization works well for groups who have individuals organized under one ore more budget codes. This method has great advantages for groups who need to manage a large volume of staff or faculty profiles. When users are no longer associated with the budget code, you can choose to have them deleted or unpublished automatically. To import profiles from an organization:

In the field under the Organizations table, start typing an organization name to get suggestions or visit the Org Hierarchy Tool in OFWEB. Select your organization
If you wish to add add additional organizations, click Add another item and repeat the process of selection.
If you have budget codes that are nested under your main budget code and you wish to include individuals from those subgroups, check the box that says Include Child Organizations.

By workgroup

Workgroups can be great ways to group people together for import. Users whose SUNet IDs are deactivated are automatically removed from workgroups, which can help your list of people stay up to date. Personal workgroups are not supported.

To import profiles from an workgroup:

In the field under the Workgroup table, enter the name of the workgroup you wish to import.
To add additional workgroups to your Person Importer, click Add another item.

Workgroups that have deep nesting (workgroups inside of workgroups inside of workgroups) can sometimes time out during import. If you find yourself in this situation, you may want to add the nested workgroups individually.

By SUNet ID:

To import profiles by SUNet ID:
1. In the field under the SUNet ID table, enter the user's Sunet ID to import.
2. To add additional SUNet ID’s to your Person Importer, click Add another item.

Other ways to create profiles

Although importing person profiles is recommended, it is possible to add a person’s profile directly to your website by following the user guide instructions for the Person Profile Page content type. This can be important when adding profiles for people who do not have a current affiliation with the University, alumni who do not have an active profile on profiles.stanford.edu, etc.

For deactivated SUNet IDs: Please note that once a person's profile has been imported, if that person's SUNet ID is deactivated, you can choose what to do with their profile (unpublish, delete, etc.) Using the Person Importer

Forcing an immediate import

The Stanford Person Importer automatically imports twice per day. However, you can force an import. Please note that depending on the number of profiles you are importing this may take time.

In the Administrative Toolbar, select Manage (if needed), then hover over Configuration and click Importers.
Under the Importer table, click the Import button that appears on the same line as the Stanford Person Importer.

Editing profiles imported by the Person Importer

Though all of the imported data fields must be edited directly from Stanford Profiles (and are hidden locally), additional details can still be added to a person’s local profile if desired. To accomplish this, follow the steps outlined below.

Navigate to the edit page for the imported profile. You can update the following:

In the Taxonomy section, add Person Type & Group. Filling out this field will allow the person to be included in the “Person Type” filter on the Person List page.
In the Bio & Content field, add additional paragraphs as desired. Note: This will not replace any imported data (e.g. adding a bio here would not affect a bio coming from the importer - they both would be displayed on that person’s profile page).
Continue adding Telephone, Fax, Location Name and Address, Map URL, Research Interests/Highlights, and Stanford Affiliation fields as desired.

Remember to click Save when you have completed your edits.

Troubleshooting

Person in a workgroup is not importing.
The most common cause of a profile not importing is due to the profile not being set to public on CAP (profiles.stanford.edu). Go to profiles.stanford.edu without logging in to see if they have a profile. The user will need to go into profiles.stanford.edu to set their profile to public. The next common issue is the workgroup is set to private. Private workgroups will NOT be recognized by the importer. All workgroups must be public.

Person added via individual SUNet ID is not importing.
The most common cause of missing people is that they do not have a public profile. Check profiles.stanford.edu without being logged in to see if they have a profile. If they do have a profile, check that the SUNet ID that you are using is their SUNet, and not an email alias. The Stanford-Only view of StanfordWho is a good source of information for SUNet IDs.

Imported pages are unpublished.
If you import a person pages and they are unpublished, delete those person pages and force an immediate import. The next import will show a published person pages.

When I import the images, people's heads are not centered in the image or are clipped.
This happens when the photo used on Stanford Profiles (CAP) at profiles.stanford.edu does not have the person’s head centered in the frame. CAP recommends that you replace the photo with another where their head is more centered vertically.

I added a workgroup to import profile information and updated the images to some of the profiles, but those changes have reverted back.
The daily workgroup import will override any images you upload. As a work around, you will need to remove the workgroup after you change the image. Canceling the import will allow your changes to be saved.

I tried to update my StanfordYou privacy settings and my changes did not import.
We do not use Stanfordyou to import your profile. We use Stanford Profiles (CAP) at profiles.stanford.edu. The user's CAP profile on profiles.stanford.edu must be set to 'public' in order for the import to function correctly.

The image on my profile page is not updating. My profile on profiles.stanford.edu is displaying the new image but my person page is still showing the old image.
Please go to your media library and see if your old and new image are in the library. If you see the old and new image, you can delete the old image and then re-sync the people importer. See Forcing an immediate import for instructions on how to re-sync the people importer. Please submit a help request if you continue to experience this issue or require further assistance.