Contact Directory

Searching for information in the Contact Directory

The Contact Directory contains information about people, departments, phone numbers and email addresses at the University of Bristol. Some information and searches are available only to members of the University who are logged-in. See "Why might I want to login?" for more information.

How to search for information about:

• a person (staff or student) by name, email or University of Bristol (UOB) username
• an organisation, eg faculty, department etc
• a member of staff by job title
• departmental functions
• departmental rooms, eg physics meeting rooms
• a phone number - to view the people, functions or rooms attached to the number

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Search for a person (staff or student) by name, email name or University of Bristol (UOB) username

On the main search page select the 'person' tab. Enter your search criteria in the text box provided. This search is case insensitive (ie a search for 'smith' will return exactly the same results as a search for 'Smith', 'SMITH' etc). You can enter your search criteria in many formats:

• john smith
• j smith
• john david smith
• smith, j
• smith, john

Please note:

• Only members of the university are allowed to search for information about students, by logging into the Contact Directory with their standard University of Bristol username and password.
• Searches for staff by "First-name surname" are no longer restricted to authenticated university members.

The search will automatically return results which match or contain your search criteria ie a search for 'smith' will also return 'smithson' and 'smith-brown' etc. You can disable this facility by selecting the 'exact match' check box.

If you're not sure how to spell the person's name you can select the 'sounds like' check box. A search for 'smith' will return 'smyth' and 'smythe' etc. The 'sounds like' function is only applied to surname. The 'surname only' search is for use when your search term could be found in either the first name or surname, and you want to narrow down your search.

Email search

Enter the email, eg John.Smith@bristol.ac.uk The search is case insensitive and will work even if you don't type in the '@bristol.ac.uk' part of the email.

University of Bristol (UOB) username search

Enter the full username.

Please note:

• For non-university members, email and username searches are available but the staff username will not be displayed on the person details page.

Wildcards

The name and email searches also allow the use of standard wildcards:

? can be used to substitute a single character and * will substitute one or more characters, eg sme* will return all names and emails which start with 'sme...').

Search for an organisation, eg faculty, department etc

You can search for a person by looking up their organisation. An 'organisation' is a University faculty, department or unit, as defined in the University organisation hierarchy.

• On the main search page select the 'organisation' tab. Enter your search criteria in the text box provided. You can search by organisation name or Personnel Information Management System (PIMS) code, but generally it's easier to search by organisation description, eg chemistry.
  You can enter part of the string, eg a search for 'chem' will return 'School of Chemistry', 'Department of Biochemistry' and also 'Biogeochemical Research' etc. This search is case insensitive and allows the use of standard wildcards.
• Departments matching your search will be listed; select the organisation you're interested in.

You now have five options to view information about the department.

1. Select the 'functions' tab to see any contact information supplied by departments which does not relate to named people, eg 'postgraduate enquiries', 'admissions tutor' etc.
2. Select the 'staff' tab to display a list of members of staff with brief contact details. Select a person's name to display full details.
3. Select the 'postgraduate' tab to display a list of the postgraduate students with brief contact details. Select a person's name to display full details. Please note: the postgraduate tab only appears for logged-in university members

4. If you don't find the person in the expected organisation, you can select the 'hierarchy' button. You can use the 'hierarchy' tab to move up and down the University's structure, viewing details of staff at each level.
5. Select the 'rooms' tab to see information about departmental rooms.
   Please note: office locations of individual staff members are displayed on the 'other details' tab of their contact details. Staff office locations are not searchable on the 'rooms' tab.

Search for a member of staff by job title or search for a departmental function

On the 'function or job title' tab you can search for either:

1. a person by their official job title, as recorded in the Personnel database (PIMS). Please note: this facility should be used with caution, as job titles do not follow a standardised format.
2. a departmental 'function', eg 'postgraduate enquiries'. Functions are set up by departments to give contact information about activities which are not related to individual people.

• On the main search page select the 'function or job title' tab.
• Enter your search criteria in the text box provided. You can search by supplying only part of the job title, eg 'reader' will return all members of staff with the word 'reader' in their title . The search is case insensitive and also allows use of standard wildcards.
• Select either the 'search for job title' button to display a list of people or 'search for function' button to display a list of functions matching your search criteria.

Search for a departmental room, eg meeting room

You can search for information that departments have supplied about rooms with contact details, eg postgraduate common room, meeting room.
Please note: office locations of individual staff members are displayed on the 'other details' tab of their contact details. Staff office locations are not searchable on the 'rooms' tab.

• On the Contact Directory main search page select the 'room' tab.
• Enter your search criteria in the text box provided. You can enter part of the name, eg a search for 'room' would return 'common room', 'senior common room', 'staff room' etc. The search is case insensitive and allows use of standard wildcards.
• The results page displays the full name of the room together with the department the room belongs to. By selecting the room's name, full details are displayed, including a phone number.

Search for a phone number

You can search for a phone number to find out whose it is.

• On the main search page select the 'phone no' tab. Enter an extension number eg, '45626', in the text box provided.
• The resulting page will display all staff with that phone number linked to their name, specifying the type (ie. own, alternative or fax) and also any functions or rooms allocated to the number.

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Why might I want to login?

Not all information in the Contact Directory is visible to the general public and not all search facilities are made available to everyone. Members of the University of Bristol are able to identify themselves to the Contact Directory by logging in. Users who are logged-in are additionally able:

• to search for students or to search among the combined set of staff and students
• to retrieve more than 20 results for staff searches
• to view staff usernames
• to view course affiliations for staff who are also registered students
• to view a list of the postgraduates within a department

There is no longer any restriction to information and services based on whether you are accessing the Contact Directory from within the university precinct or from off-site. All restrictions are in place, both on- and off-site until you login.