Employee Directory
A searchable Employee Directory can be invaluable on an intranet, particularly in large organizations. This type of component can be as simple as a searchable phone book or as sophisticated as an all-encompassing Human Resources information system where all employees' data is stored, but the level of access to personal information is restricted according to users' access privileges. In the latter case, individuals could access most of their own data, but only names, titles and phone numbers of other employees, while HR group members could access all users' data.
An implementation of an employee directory should include an extended search capability that allows users to search for employees by keyword and sort results by name, location, department and title. User profiles should include all relevant contact information, including mail address, e-mail address, phone number(s), title and department. If available, a photograph should also be included - this is a great way for new employees to learn the names of their peers, and for security to verify employees' identities.
An extra "Wow" factor can be built into this system by cross-referencing the complete Organization Chart with staff profiles for multiple methods of navigation. As well as keyword searching, the employee directory could be developed to function like a drill-down database application. This would include listing names and titles for each employee's direct reports and supervisor in individual profiles. These names would be clickable and take users to the appropriate profile where they could continue up or down the organizational hierarchy.
Typically, an employee directory will be part of a centralized directory service that multiple components will access to determine who a user is and what their access privileges are. Human Resources or another appropriately delegated administrator would be responsible for administrating it. This would cause authorized updates to staff profiles (when employment status changes) to be reflected in this system and any other systems or components that rely on its data.
See Chapter 10 for more information on Employee Directories and their typical implementation in a LDAP directory service or Active Directory.