How to access programmatically to Active Directory Properties from an SPUser

Question

I'd like to know how can I do to access to Active Directory information (eg: Department) of an User starting from an SPUser... I've User Profile Service configured and I see in Sharepoint those fields..

Thank you!

Answer 1

You also can use the SPUser and SPUserCollection Object to iterate through all user profiles

using Microsoft.SharePoint;
using Microsoft.Office.Server.UserProfiles;
using Microsoft.Office.Server;
using System.Web;

here is the code:

SPSecurity.RunWithElevatedPrivileges(delegate()
{
                using (SPSite siteCollection = new SPSite("http://testssite:1130"))
                {
                    using (SPWeb site = siteCollection.OpenWeb())
                    {
                        ServerContext serverContext = ServerContext.GetContext(siteCollection);
                        UserProfileManager userProfileMangager = new UserProfileManager(serverContext);
                        SPUserCollection userCollection = site.AllUsers;
                        foreach (SPUser spUser in userCollection)
                        {
                           UserProfile profile = userProfileMangager.GetUserProfile(spUser.LoginName);    
                           Console.WriteLine(profile["department"].Value);    




                    }
                }
            });

Answer 2

You will need to load it from the User Profiles and not the SPUser object.

SPServiceContext svcContext = SPServiceContext.GetContext(site);
UserProfileManager profileManager = new UserProfileManager(svcContext);
UserProfile profile = profileManager.GetUserProfile(accountname);
string department = profile["department"].Value;

Answer 3

The other answers are effective and accurate. Though, I'm interested in another method, that does not require code that runs ElevatedPrivileges code N times whenever this information is requested.

I would consider building a list (or SQL table) with the AD Users, and necessary fields, which is updated on a scheduled basis.

The info can be loaded into a SQL data via t-sql nightly or weekly: http://blog.tech-cats.com/2007/09/querying-active-directory-through-sql.html or into a SharePoint list via c# using various methods.

The advantage here is that, every time the information required, AD does not need to be accessed via Elevated permissions.