Introduction & Background

The people profile definition (PPD) is a JSON document that will be prepared in collaboration with ahead’s customer success managers and that describes all the known fields of “people” in ahead’s user interface and how those fields are used throughout the UI.

Note

People Profile Definition

Describes which fields are supported in a user profile, of what type they are (e.g. a list, or a date), in what way they can be added and how they are used in ahead.

The ahead people store (APS) is our database that is regularly synchronized with your MS Entra tenant and provides the basis to merge any additional fields into the profile of a person.

Microsoft Entra (previously Azure Active Directory)

ahead’s default values come from Microsoft Entra. Once ahead has been consented to be used with your tenant, it prepares the APS and creates user profiles from those people found in MS Entra.

ahead’s people profile import API

Most of the documentation here deals with how to use the import API. Based on the fields defined in the PPD, customers can use our API to enrich user profiles with additional data.

Authorization - how to get API Keys Learn how to authorize your requests by using API Keys

calling the Endpoint Read the specification of the people import API

user fields

Fields marked as having the source User can be entered by the user. The first time a user logs into ahead they will get a notification inviting them to fill our any empty user fields.

Caution

A manual user field cannot be updated via the API.

Tip

User fields are never mandatory. If you need certain fields to always be filled in, they need to be sourced as “API”.