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Add Awards and Other Interesting Information to User Profiles
Message center notification MC1250272 (last updated 24 March 2026), announces the general availability of a UX update for the Microsoft 365 user profile card to expose details of awards and certifications if this information is loaded into user profiles by tenants.
There’s no UX to update user profiles with details of awards and certifications. In many cases, award and certification information will flow in through a synchronized Copilot Connector intended to ingest organizational data into the Microsoft Graph. A special Copilot connectors for people data category exists for this purpose. In this case, the connector might ingest HR data which includes the award and certification information for employees.
Ingesting award and certificate information through a Copilot connector is not mandatory because it’s feasible to read information from a source (CSV file, external database, etc.) and update the Graph personCertification resource or personAward resource using the available APIs. As we’ll see, the Graph defines a bunch of resources that can be attached to a user profile. When a Microsoft 365 app displays a user profile card, it combines data from multiple resources to construct the complete card.
This article describes how to use the Microsoft Graph PowerShell SDK to update user profile information. For interactive delegated sessions, the signed-in account must hold an Entra ID administrative role like user administrator. In addition, both delegated and app-only sessions must have consent to use the User.ReadWrite.All permission (or User.Read.All to read user information).
Adding an Award to a User Profile
To add an award to a user profile, create a hash table containing details of the award. Then run the New-MgBetaUserProfileAward cmdlet to process the award, passing the hash table as the body parameter (or request body in Graph terms). Here’s how I added details of my MVP award to my user profile:
$Award.Add("issuedDate","1 June 2024")
$Award.Add("weburl", "https://mvp.microsoft.com/")
$Award.Add("allowedAudiences", "organization")
$Award.Add("issuingAuthority", "Microsoft")
$Award.Add("displayName", "Microsoft Most Valuable Professional (MVP)")
$Award.Add("description", "Microsoft recognizes exceptional technical community leaders who actively share their high-quality, real-world expertise with the MVP status.")
$Award.Add("thumbnailUrl","https://images.credly.com/size/680x680/images/00e5354b-b9fc-4bef-8732-59b419a7c16b/blob")
$User = Get-MgUser -UserId Tony.Redmond@office365itpros.com
$AwardStatus = New-MgBetaUserProfileAward -UserId $User.Id -BodyParameter $Award
If the addition is successful, the $AwardStatus variable contains details of the newly added award:
CreatedBy : Microsoft.Graph.Beta.PowerShell.Models.MicrosoftGraphIdentitySet
CreatedDateTime : 22/04/2026 13:42:35
Description : Microsoft recognizes exceptional technical community leaders who actively share their high-quality, real-world expertise with others with the MVP status.
DisplayName : Microsoft Most Valuable Professional (MVP)
Id : 43886895-925e-438f-81d8-2f53ce731ddd
Inference : Microsoft.Graph.Beta.PowerShell.Models.MicrosoftGraphInferenceData
IsSearchable : False
IssuedDate : 01/01/0001 00:00:00
IssuingAuthority : Microsoft
LastModifiedBy : Microsoft.Graph.Beta.PowerShell.Models.MicrosoftGraphIdentitySet
LastModifiedDateTime : 22/04/2026 13:42:35
Source : Microsoft.Graph.Beta.PowerShell.Models.MicrosoftGraphPersonDataSources
Sources : {}
ThumbnailUrl : https://images.credly.com/size/680x680/images/00e5354b-b9fc-4bef-8732-59b419a7c16b/blob
WebUrl : https://mvp.microsoft.com/
AdditionalProperties : {[@odata.context, https://graph.microsoft.com/beta/$metadata#users('eff4cd58-1bb8-4899-94de-795f656b4a18')/profile/awards/$entity]}
The same information (along with details of any other awards for the user profile) can be found by using the Get-MgBetaUserProfileAward cmdlet:
[array]$Awards = Get-MgBetaUserProfileAward -UserId $User.Id $Awards | Format-Table AllowedAudiences, DisplayName, IssuedDate, WebURL AllowedAudiences DisplayName IssuedDate WebUrl ---------------- ----------- ---------- ------ organization Microsoft Most Valuable Professional (MVP) 01/01/0001 00:00:00 https://mvp.microsoft.com/
Notice that the award date doesn’t display properly. That’s because I didn’t pass the date in the expected format (YYYY-MM-DD). To update the properties of an award, run the Update-MgBetaProfileAward cmdlet. For example:
Update-MgBetaUserProfileAward -PersonAwardId $Awards[0].Id -UserId $User.Id -IssuedDate '2004-06-01'
Adding a Certification to a User Profile
Adding a certification is very similar except that the update is written to the certification endpoint with the New-MgBetaUserProfileCertification cmdlet. As you can see, the properties of a certification differ from those for an award or another user profile resource, but the idea is the same:
$Certification = @{}
$Certification.Add("issuedDate","2026-04-01")
$Certification.Add("certificationId","1770-19489")
$Certification.Add("weburl", "https://office365itpros.com/")
$Certification.Add("allowedAudiences", "organization")
$Certification.Add("issuingAuthority", "RA Enterprises")
$Certification.Add("displayName", "Web Publication")
$Certification.Add("description", "This certificate recognizes professional competence in all aspects of publishing articles on a web site.")
$CertStatus = New-MgBetaUserProfileCertification -UserId $User.Id -BodyParameter $Certification
Surfacing New Resources on the User Profile Card
Exposing each of the resource types in the Microsoft 365 user profile card requires Microsoft to update the card UX. Awards and certifications are now available, and other resources will show up in the future. This is part of an ongoing process that Microsoft began several years ago. Skills, for example, were added to the profile card in mid-2025.
The various forms of caching used at client and server level mean that it can take up to a day for additions and changes to awards and certifications to appear on the user profile card. Currently, awards and certifications appear in the user profile card in OWA, the new Outlook, and Teams. Figure 1 shows how awards and certifications appear. In this case, I added details of my MVP status as an award and a made-up certification from the tenant.
The user profile card displays a custom graphic for the MVP award because the image URL comes from Credly. For security reasons, only Microsoft and Credly images appear currently. This might change in the future.
Microsoft’s Broad People Platform Initiative
You can get some insight into how Microsoft is building out a full profile for users by running the Get-MgBetaUserProfile cmdlet and examining the various categories of information that can be in a user profile:
Get-MgBetaUserProfile -UserId $User.id | Format-List
Account : {f7cc7d45-d1ae-4dbb-9731-3f279e155c61, de907003-d236-4edb-bbdc-6c0ef5c4627b}
Addresses : {}
Anniversaries : {43128816-9f61-4c39-8432-3a37a38a4183, 4f0874c3-600d-4747-91fb-84cfe9b0acfd}
Awards : {43886895-925e-438f-81d8-2f53ce731ddd}
Certifications : {}
EducationalActivities : {c4040fc2-a4bc-430e-957e-b681cf358b0a}
Emails : {38d2ba7e-b96f-4d09-b9f8-3f55f633b0ff, 394801a5-b667-40b7-adce-6e660f5b4f6d, d49f6e4e-bb68-432b-8b06-da75ca8301ca, 5d6cfd01-805d-43bd-81a9-faf3852caadf}
Id : profileId
Interests : {a92991bf-ae0a-4b84-9ee4-e4dc32cffcdf}
Languages : {1cb99176-846c-4443-a410-90d59b653630}
Names : {AadSource}
Notes : {39200fe1-b63d-4e8d-838d-cad6d0c309cd}
Patents : {}
Phones : {3ebbefa6-262a-4072-8a73-1b934ea0473a, 65957933-800e-402b-ae73-ca26fa552dba, a506f790-c471-4cd3-9c14-ea2676e6dc1c, bae9452c-44be-4ff5-842d-a0ed0ef5bb73…}
Positions : {845dd999-af06-4c9d-854f-ee7de4717566, 3dfe4fc3-53a0-4fd9-a1c6-b494de4cf163}
Projects : {6fb22b44-1109-417f-87b2-743a68f5898a}
Publications : {19ae6b75-0c03-4f75-a884-52dec995cb99}
Skills : {dc57205b-daed-496a-b7d0-3eb62f5fe1a5, 67236b06-e2fb-4f13-b95c-3cd359d9b991, 2615009b-7b88-41a0-bfcf-5c933f3d24f3, 68531846-d6ef-48f3-bd3d-b51954caad8a…}
WebAccounts : {69b97076-f687-4d7c-8005-0bd72af3dfcc, 9a174880-92f5-451f-ba5e-59cf478a2b78}
Websites : {}
More information about resources is available in the user profile documentation.
t’s obvious that Microsoft envisages the user profile to be a rich surface of information about people, where anything from anniversaries to languages to job positions can be shown if an organization chooses to populate the data. I covered this initiative in some detail in September 2025.
Building a Complete User Profile
Obviously, adding information to reveal such a breadth of information about individual users is something that needs consideration and buy-in across an organization, especially when preserving user privacy and the concerns of work councils and employee unions must be considered, even if information like patents, awards. Certifications, and publications are in the public domain.
Some Microsoft 365 tenants will ignore these resources because they don’t want to expose detailed information about people through the profile card. Others will go full-tilt and make sure that the fullest possible picture of individuals is exposed within the organization. Isn’t it nice to have choice?
Insight like this doesn’t come easily. You’ve got to know the technology and understand how to look behind the scenes. Benefit from the knowledge and experience of the Office 365 for IT Pros team by subscribing to the best eBook covering Office 365 and the wider Microsoft 365 ecosystem.