Attribute coverage
Attribute coverage audits your directory. For each attribute a signature can use, it shows how much of your organisation actually has a value.
Run it before you design, not after. A signature built around department looks
fine in preview and falls apart in production if a third of the directory has
none.
What it covers
Section titled “What it covers”Every attribute that maps to a placeholder: the identity fields, the phone numbers, job title and department, the address components, the manager fields, and all fifteen extension attributes.
The extension attributes are the ones most worth checking. They have no enforced meaning, so whether they are populated at all is entirely up to how your organisation uses them.
How to use it
Section titled “How to use it”Three situations call for it.
Before designing a template, to find out which attributes you can rely on.
Before writing an assignment rule that matches on
an attribute, because a rule matching on officeLocation only reaches the people
who have one.
When a signature is missing a field for some people, to find out whether it is one person or a systemic gap.
What to do about a gap
Section titled “What to do about a gap”Two options, and they are not exclusive.
Populate the directory. This is the better fix where the data should exist anyway. It improves the address book at the same time, and it is often less work than it looks, since much of it is bulk-editable.
Design around it. Wrap the affected part of the template in a conditional section so it disappears cleanly for people without the value, rather than leaving a stray separator or an empty label.
The derived helpers anyPhone and anyAddress are built for this. Attaching a
whole contact row to {{#anyPhone}} lets the entire row disappear rather than
each field inside it.
Extension attributes and on-premises sync
Section titled “Extension attributes and on-premises sync”Extension attributes are writable for cloud-only users but read-only for users synced from on-premises Active Directory. If your users are synced, populating them means changing AD and letting the change flow through, rather than editing in Entra.
Why the count differs from your seat count
Section titled “Why the count differs from your seat count”Attribute coverage counts shared mailboxes, because a shared mailbox still needs a signature.
Billing does not, because shared and resource mailboxes are unlicensed and therefore free.
The two numbers answer different questions and are expected to differ.
Who can run it
Section titled “Who can run it”Admins and Editors. The Marketing role does not reach it. See users and roles.