FAQ: Why can't I find someone in the lookup directory?

If you can't find somebody in the directory, there are a number of possible reasons:

• The individual may have left the University or may have chosen to make their directory information private. If you know which Department or College they belong to, this may give you more information.
• The web-based directory search normally works on surnames. If you put in a first name as well then you may find the individual, if they have a display name that includes the first name. Using just the surname is more reliable.
• If the name is wrongly spelt, then it is likely that you will still find the individual somewhere in the list of "fuzzy matches", but they may be quite a long way down the list. It is usually helpful if you can get the first few characters right and omit the rest if you are not sure of them.
• The search mechanism does its best with double-barrelled or hyphenated names, or names containing accented characters, but you may sometimes succeed better by removing a hyphen or accent from a name (names in the directory do not include hyphens).
• All the above apply only to the web-based search. Searches from within mail clients (LDAP searches) are typically more restrictive, so if you can't find someone using LDAP you may succeed better using the web-based search. For an LDAP search on a hyphenated name you should omit the hyphen.
• If you are looking at the members' list of an institution, rather than using the search facility, then you may be looking in the wrong institution. In particular, note that where an institution has "child institutions", e.g. student groups in Colleges, a member of a child institution will not normally also be listed as a member of the parent institution. So a student at a College will only appear under their particular student category and not under the College itself.
• If you know for certain that the individual is a member of staff or student of the University and that they have not chosen to make their directory information private (for instance if you are looking for yourself), and if you know the appropriate CRSid, try searching using that instead. If that leads you to a page, check the surname on the page and repeat the search using that exact name. If this still doesn't work, or if the CRSid search fails, contact the Computing Service.

Last updated: March 2012