Person Profile 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 to import 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
- 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:
- In the field under the SUNet ID table, enter the user's Sunet ID to import.
- 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.
Force 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.
Edit 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.
Your Questions Answered
These are frequently asked questions about importing profiles using the Person Importer.
There are several possible causes:
- The profile is not set to public on CAP (profiles.stanford.edu). Go to profiles.stanford.edu without logging in to see if they have a profile. If you do not see it, the user will need to go into profiles.stanford.edu to set their profile to public before you will be able to import their profile.
- The person you are trying to import is not in the workgroup you are importing.
- You have specified a private workgroups or a personal workgroup. Neither workgroup type will work. Workgroups used for importing profile data must be set to "public."
- When specifying SUNet ID, you selected something that is not a valid SUNet ID.
Check to see if the profile is published. If it is unpublished you can publish it.
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 or the uploaded photo is too small. We recommends that you replace (or ask the user to replace the photo) the photo with another where their head is more centered.
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.
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.
If you wish to pause or completely stop the importer from running, file a request with Stanford Web Services using our ServiceNow help form. We will clear out the credentials fields so that the profiles will no longer be imported.
Examples in the Wild
Related Topics
People List Page
The People List page displays a listing of the people in your organization, and is dynamically generated from existing or imported content on your site.
Person Page
Person profiles can be added locally to your website, or can be configured to integrate with your organization’s Stanford Profiles