Stanford
Stanford Sites User Guide

Person Importer

The Stanford Person Importer allows you to pull directory information that is publicly displayed on members of your organization’s Stanford Profiles (CAP) at profiles.stanford.edu.

The Person Importer will import only publicly available data for a person’s profile into a node on your site. Whenever the data for a person’s profile is imported to your site, any changes to the imported data will need to happen at profiles.stanford.edu. After the person’s profile has been imported, it is possible to add additional information to the node. 

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 at Adding a new Person.

For deactivated SUNet IDs: Please note that once a person's profile has been imported, if that person's SUNet ID is deactivated (say, they've left Stanford), that profile will not be deleted from your site. At this point deleting, changing, or updating the profile will need to be done manually. 

Fields Imported by Stanford Profiles (CAP)

The following fields are imported by Stanford Profiles and will need to be edited directly at profiles.stanford.edu as they are hidden locally. Imported fields will only display if they are marked as "Public" at profiles.stanford.edu.

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

Using the Person Importer

  1. In the Administrative Toolbar, select Manage (if needed), then hover over Configuration > Importers and click Person Importer.
  2. Expand Authorization and enter your authentication information (CAP Username and CAP Password) for the CAP API. If you don't have these credentials yet, you can file a ServiceNow request. 
    • Note: If this is the first time you are setting up the importer, to access all the available options, you may need to save the page after entering your username and password.
  3. You have the following options for importing person profiles: by organization, by workgroup, or by SUNetID.
    • To import profiles from an organization:
      1. In the field under the Organizations table, start typing an organization name to get suggestions.
      2. To add additional organizations to your Person Importer, click Add another item.
    • To import profiles from an workgroup:
      1. In the field under the Workgroup table, enter the name of the workgroup you wish to import. If you are having issues with adding a workgroup, it could be because:
        • Incorrect spelling of workgroup
        • The workgroup added was a personal workgroup, which are not supported via the CAP API
      2. To add additional workgroups to your Person Importer, click Add another item.
    • To import profiles by SUNetID:
      1. In the field under the SUNetID table, enter the user's SunetID to import.
      2. To add additional SUNetID’s to your Person Importer, click Add another item.
  4. Once you are satisfied with your import selections, scroll to the bottom of the page and click Save.

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.

  1. In the Administrative Toolbar, select Manage (if needed), then hover over Configuration and click Importers.
  2. 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.

  1. Navigate to the edit page for the imported profile you are trying to add information to.
  2. In the Taxonomy table, 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.
  3. 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).
  4. Continue adding Telephone, Fax, Location Name and Address, Map URL, Research Interests/Highlights, and Stanford Affiliation fields as desired.
  5. Click Save.

Troubleshooting

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.