Dialogue Cloud

On Premises

WebAgent Contact Search

Overview

The WebAgent’s Contact Search lets users quickly address an email, find a collegue to transfer too, or start an outbound call by typing a name, address, or keyword. Under the hood the picker calls Microsoft Graph APIs to resolve the text into directory objects—users, mail contacts, and personal Outlook contacts—so that the relevant address and presence information can be displayed instantly.

How Search Works (runtime flow)

  1. User types text in the search box (minimum one character).

  2. Graph /people query runs first. This is a fuzzy, relevance‑ranked search over the signed‑in user’s "sphere", filtered by PersonType values allowed in the current bundle.

  3. From bundle DC 2024.02 onward, a parallel Graph /users query is issued using the $search parameter, providing structured text search across additional attributes (jobTitle, department, etc.).

  4. Result merge & de‑duplication happens client‑side: objects with the same Azure AD object ID are collapsed.

  5. The picker shows up to 100 hits ordered by Graph relevance.

Supported directory object types

PersonType Description License requirement
OrganizationUser

Tenant‑member user accounts managed in Microsoft 365 admin center.

Needs an Exchange Online license only if it is to be found via the People API. The agent performing the search does not require that license.
OrganizationContact

Mail contacts (usually external) created by admins and visible in the GAL.

No license; must have a valid email address.
PersonalContact

Contacts stored in the signed‑in user’s Outlook mailbox.

No license; must have an email address.

Every cloud account in your tenant is an Entra ID Formerly known as Azure Active Directory (or Azure AD, or AAD) user (formerly Azure AD user). However, the Graph /people endpoint classifies a subset of those accounts as PersonType.OrganizationUser, and by default only those with an Exchange Online mailbox are returned in People results. Unlicensed or mailbox-less Entra ID users are therefore invisible to the People search but can still be discovered by the /users?$search=… query introduced in bundle DC2024.02.

Version differences — search logic evolution

DC 2023.02 ▼ vs DC 2023.03 ▲

Feature DC 2023.02 or lower DC 2023.03 and later
Graph APIs invoked

/me/people?$search=…

Same People API call
PersonType filters

OrganizationUser

OrganizationUser,OrganizationContact,PersonalContact
Objects surfaced

Tenant users with EXO mailbox

Tenant users with EXO mailbox + GAL contacts + Outlook contacts
License prerequisite

Exchange Online required

Required only for OrganizationUser

DC 2024.01 ▼ vs DC 2024.02 ▲

Feature DC 2024.01 or lower DC 2024.02 and later
Graph APIs invoked

People API

People API +/users?$search=…
Searchable attributes

Display name & aliases (implicit)

Display name, given/sur‑name, jobTitle, department, mail, UPN In Windows Active Directory, a User Principal Name (UPN) is the name of a system user in an email address 'like' format. A UPN (for example: john.doe@domain.com) consists of the user name (logon name), separator (the @ symbol), and domain name (UPN suffix).
Directory scope

OrganizationUser, OrganizationContact, PersonalContact

All left column + any Entra ID user (license-independent)
License prerequisite

Exchange Online for People hits

No license needed for /users hits

Admin tips & best practices

  • Ensure mail contacts have a valid external email attribute; otherwise they are not returned by the People API.

  • If staff must be discoverable but do not need a mailbox, rely on DC2024.02+ and verify their Azure AD accounts have the required attributes filled (e.g. department).

  • Personal contacts are visible only to the owner; advise agents to save frequent external addresses in Outlook for faster recall.