The Member Directory is the main search feature for, and is accessible to, all community users.

TIP: The Member Directory is where you search for people; whereas, the site search is where search for content.

NOTE: The Member Directory search works like most standard searches, so this article calls out only atypical search behaviors.

Member Directory search notes

When using the Member Directory to find users, keep in mind the following:

• All of the search fields accept standard English-language alphabetic and numeric characters.
• The percent symbol ( % ) is a wildcard character.
• Your Higher Logic site is customizable. Therefore, in your site, the search results could be configured to display on a new page rather than in the lower part of the search page.
  • Click Back to Search Options to return to the Member Directory page.
• The State/Province field will be enabled only when:

• a Country has been chosen and
• that Country has state/provincial territories (such as in the U.S., Australia, and Canada); in this case, the State/Province field then auto-populates with the appropriate list of territories, ensuring that only a valid territory can be chosen.

Searches in the Member Directory

The out-of-the-box Member Directory-page configuration has two tabs, both of which have several input fields:

• Search tab - The default, basic search that is available to all community users. It returns community members only.
• Find Anyone (Admin) tab - The more robust search that is available to Super Admins only.
  • Refer to Super Admin search below to learn more.

To search for community members:

1. Specify a value in one or more fields. (More inputs lead to more refined results.)
2. Click Find Members.

The results display in the lower part of the page.

If there are multiple pages of results, you can:

• increase the xx per page count in the dropdown and/or
• use the page navigation in the lower left to access the additional pages.

Search results

When the search results display, you can:

1. click the dropdowns to choose a sort order for the list of results, and to choose how many results display on the page.
2. click a user's avatar or name to access the user's profile. (Or hover on and use the right-click menu to open in a new tab or window.)
3. click a user's email address to create and send an email message to the user via your default email application; this is not an internal community message.
4. click the Send Message button to send a message to the user's community inbox.
5. click the Add as Contact button to invite the user to become a Contact. If you add a user as a Contact, this button updates to Remove Contact.

You can also hover on either a user's avatar or name to access the Request Contact and Send Message options in a popup. Existing Contacts are indicated as such.

See Connect with Other Users to learn more about these actions.

Also, Super Admins can click the Export button to export the directory-search results as either:

• a .CSV file (Contact Export.csv) or
• an Excel file (Contact Export.xls).

...which can be customized, saved, and shared with colleagues.

The export option is described in Export Search Results.

Super Admin search

The Find Anyone (Admin) tab displays to logged in Super Admins only.

NOTE: If you log in as a Super Admin and then initiate an impersonation session, this tab no longer displays. It displays again when you stop impersonating.

• The functionality of the Admin-only search is identical to the basic search.
• Super Admins can find any user in the system; this search returns members and non-members (i.e., those who do not have IsMember permissions).
  • To learn about IsMember permissions and Security Groups, see Understand Security Groups.

Watch the video

TIP: Check out the Higher Logic Academy Paths page for product- and role-specific videos!

Additional Directories

In addition to the default configuration of the Member Directory, you can customize the directory-search experience in your community. You can:

• Add custom tabs to your Member Directory page in order to create a custom search page that is dedicated to a defined group of users.
• License either or both of the optional modules, Expert Directory and Mentor Match, each of which automatically adds its own dedicated Directory (and which gets added to the Directory dropdown menu). These directories search for users whose profiles indicate their involvement in the expert/speaker and/or mentoring program.
• The "customizability" of your community site supports the adding of search fields that are unique to your community site, such as those shown below.

Unable to find a user

It is possible for user records to not be "found" when a search is run. There are two likely reasons for this:

• The user is not in a Security Group that grants IsMember permissions.
  • Super Admins can search for the user on the Find Anyone (Admin) tab.
• The user has opted to hide their profile (described below) from Member Directory searches.

Opt out of Member Directory searches & community rosters

Users can self-manage whether their profile is included in:

• Member Directory searches and
• community rosters (the Members tab in a community).

The following setting (which defaults to Yes) is managed on the My Account > Privacy Settings page. Each user can toggle this setting to No if they prefer to "hide" their profile.

When a user toggles this setting to No:

• Super Admins: the user is visible in Member Directory searches and on the community's Members tab (i.e., the "community roster").
• Community Admins: the user is not visible in Member Directory searches but the user is visible on the community's Members tab. This "failsafe" ensures that Community Admins can always manage the members of their communities.
• Non-Admin users: the user is not visible in either Member Directory searches or on the community's Members tab.

Related articles

• See Expert Directory to learn how to create a directory that is dedicated to event speakers and subject-matter experts, based on the optional Expert Profile module.
• See Search for Mentors and Mentees to learn about the dedicated Mentor Directory that is available with the optional Mentor Match module.