People
/people for the People screen, and /people/<id> for one person’s full page.
People is in the navigation’s People group for anybody with
client.view or directory.view, and a person is also one
search away.
A person is a student, staff member or parent, synced in from your student information system or directory. The source system owns them, and the roster sync keeps them current.
From 0.17.1, Directory is part of this screen. What was the Directory page is
now the Accounts view of People, and old /directory links, including the
ones on tickets, open it with their search and ticket carried across.
Finding somebody
Section titled “Finding somebody”Type a name or a username in the search box in the top bar and pick a person to open their page, or press Enter for full results. Or open People and search the roster.
A link to a person from anywhere else in the desk, whether a device’s holder, a
ticket’s requester, a repair’s client or a buyer in stock history, opens that
person’s full page. An older bookmark to /people?q= still works: it opens the
person it names, or searches the roster when it names nobody in particular.
People from more than one source are de-duplicated, so somebody who exists in both your SIS and your directory appears once with both sets of detail.
The People screen
Section titled “The People screen”One screen with two views, switched at the top of the list:
| View | Shows | Needs |
|---|---|---|
| Roster | The people stored in Plugboard, filtered by campus, type, year, tutor group, source and status | client.view |
| Accounts | A live search of the accounts in every directory connection you can see: Entra, Google and Active Directory | The Directory module and directory.view |
You see the tabs only when you can open both. Somebody with only
directory.view opens straight into Accounts. The view and the search are kept
in the address, such as /people?view=accounts&q=jordan, so a bookmark or a
link from a ticket opens the same search.
In both views, selecting a row opens a preview beside the list, or as a sheet from the bottom on a narrow screen. Escape closes it.
Roster
Section titled “Roster”The roster preview shows who somebody is, what they have right now (devices, loans, open repairs and open tickets) and the common actions, so a quick question at the counter does not need a page of its own. Open full profile takes you to their page.
Above the roster, Sync roster (needs user.manage) pulls from your SIS.
Add person and Import preview (need client.manage) cover people your
SIS does not have, such as a relief teacher on their first morning. An import is
reviewed before anything is written, and never changes somebody already here.
From 0.21.0, invalid rows are skipped instead of failing the whole file, and
Download rows to fix returns them with an Import problem column to correct
and import again. If the roster changes between the review and the import, it
stops and asks you to review again.
Accounts
Section titled “Accounts”Search every directory connection at once. If a connection cannot be searched, the results say they are incomplete and name it. Open an account to see its status, licences, inbox delegates and groups, and act on it: Lock or Unlock, Reset password, and add or remove a licence. Find in roster switches to the Roster view searching for that person’s name.
Each account action is recorded to a ticket. The Ticket context box drafts and raises one for you, and arriving from a ticket links the actions to that ticket straight away.
For a live Entra account, each action asks for the person’s name or sign-in address, a reason for the audit log and fresh authentication, the same checks as the person page. Other accounts use the older directory operations, which change demo fixtures only. A demo action logged to a ticket is marked as demo and is not evidence of a real change.
Inbox delegates can be added and removed here only on the demo directory. For a live account the delegates are listed read-only, and delegation is managed from the person’s Account & groups tab.
The person page
Section titled “The person page”Everything about a person in one place. The header shows their name, type, year level, username, student or staff ID and which system they came from. Below it, one tab per area:
| Tab | Shows |
|---|---|
| Overview | A card per area with a one-line summary, each opening its tab |
| Devices | Assigned to them |
| Loans & repairs | Loans currently out, and their repairs with status |
| Tickets | Their open tickets |
| Account & groups | Their live directory account: state, groups, licences, sign-in methods, recent sign-ins and Conditional Access, with the account actions |
| Purchases | Up to 20 recent purchases at the desk or kiosk, with the visible total |
A tab appears only when you have access to what it shows. Account & groups
needs the Directory module, identity.view and an email address on the person.
What each provider supports is on directory accounts.
From 0.17.1 the Account tab lists the person’s groups, and people with
identity.license.manage can assign and remove licences there. Assigning uses
one of the tenant’s seats straight away; removing stops the services that depend
on it. Both ask for the person’s typed name, a reason and fresh authentication,
like the other account actions. Without that permission the licences are listed
read-only.
Each tab has its own link, such as /people/<id>#devices or #repairs, so you
can send a colleague straight to the part that matters.
The point of the page is that a student standing at the counter is one search away from their whole history, so the question “have we seen this before” has an answer.
Quick actions
Section titled “Quick actions”On the preview and the person page, each shown only to somebody who could complete it:
| Action | Needs |
|---|---|
| New ticket | ticket.create and the Tickets module. The person is already filled in as requester |
| Lend a device | loan.issue |
| Check card | The Card checker module |
| Reset password | Access to their directory account, as above, and identity.password.reset |
The person page’s More actions menu adds Check MDM for devices (needs
client.manage) and Search all accounts (needs the Directory module and
directory.view), which opens the Accounts view searching for this person. Use
it to find their account in another directory connection, or one that is not
linked yet.
What a person record carries
Section titled “What a person record carries”Which fields are populated depends on your source system.
| Field | From |
|---|---|
| External id | The source system’s own identifier |
| Name | |
| Username | Used at the kiosk when card entry is unavailable |
| Type | Student or staff |
| Year level | Students |
| Tutor or form group | Drives the tutor notification email |
| Card number | Used by the card checker and the kiosk |
| Active | Leavers stop appearing |
Leavers
Section titled “Leavers”Plugboard detects leavers itself: on each sync, anyone active locally whose external id is missing from the roster pull gets deactivated, whether or not your source system explicitly flags them inactive. Their records stay, so a repair they lodged in 2024 keeps its owner.
The sync result and audit log report how many people were deactivated, alongside the created and updated counts.
If a sync pulls an empty roster — usually a sign the source system connector is broken rather than that everyone left — Plugboard leaves the existing list alone instead of deactivating everyone.
Card numbers come from your SIS. Where somebody has a new or replacement card that is not on file yet, register it from the card checker.
If you run PaperCut, registering a card can write it through, so the card that identifies somebody at the desk is the same one that releases their printing.
Parents
Section titled “Parents”Parents are people too, and they reach the parent portal to see their children’s records. The link between a parent and a child comes from your SIS.
Which means: if the parent portal shows the wrong children, or none, the fix is in the SIS rather than here.
Permissions
Section titled “Permissions”| Permission | Allows |
|---|---|
client.view |
See people and their profiles |
client.manage |
Edit person records, register cards |
Related
Section titled “Related”- Card checker for verifying somebody at the counter.
- Directory accounts for managing their identity provider account.
- Inductions for bulk device handout.