Intranet-based staff directories are only truly useful when they contain comprehensive information about staff members.

This means going beyond just a name, phone number and email address. Staff directories should provide a photo, job title, organisational unit, reporting structure, plus much more.

The challenge is that no single system will hold all these details, forcing staff directories to pull information from a number of sources.

Typical sources include:

• HR/payroll system
• IT/security
• user contributed and updated information

Drawing this information together will require integration, a more difficult task when legacy systems are still in place.

In some cases it may be possible to have ‘real-time’ integration between these systems, although scheduled updates are more common. Often, data is synchronised between the systems on a nightly (or weekly) basis. For a staff directory, this is often sufficient.

[CM Briefing 2009-06, read the full article]