2 Easiest Ways to Set Employee Birth Date in Microsoft 365 User Profile

While building an SPFx web part to show upcoming employee birthdays, I ran into a common problem. Most users didn’t have their birthday information available.

At first, I tried fetching the data directly from Azure Active Directory using Microsoft Graph. That’s when I realized something important: an employee’s birthday is not an editable property in Azure AD. No matter what permissions you assign, you can’t update it there.

Next, I moved to PowerShell. I found scripts online that claimed to update birthdays in bulk. But even after assigning all the required permissions, I kept hitting security and access errors. The script simply wouldn’t work.

After digging deeper, I realized I was approaching the problem the wrong way.

The employee birthday field is actually stored in the SharePoint User Profile, not in Azure AD. And the good news is, you don’t need PowerShell or custom code to update it.

In this tutorial, I’ll show you how to set employee birth dates directly in the SharePoint User Profile using the admin UI. This approach is simple, works in modern SharePoint Online, and is perfect when you need quick results without writing any code.

Set Employee Birth Date in Microsoft 365 User Profile

There are two approaches to update the user profile properties, such as birthday dates, joining date, phone number, etc.

• Directly from the user profile. [Employees can update their own birthday date].
• From the SharePoint admin center. [Admins will update employees’ birthdays].

Update Your Birthday Through SharePoint User Profile

Follow the steps below to update your birthday on the SharePoint user profile.

1. Open any SharePoint site that you have permission.
2. Then, in the top-right corner, you can see your profile -> click it.
3. Click on My Microsoft 365 profile.

4. Then, in the new tab, your profile information will be displayed as shown below. Click on the Update your profile button.

5. Then it will open a model as shown below, go to the About tab, and down you’ll see the Birthday. Update it, then click Save Changes.

That’s it, this way, you can update your own birthday, along with this, you can update some other information such as surname, contact details, etc.

Update Employee Birthdays Through SharePoint Admin Center

If you’re a SharePoint administrator, follow the steps below to update your employees’ birthdays.

1. Go to SharePoint Admin Center and log in as an administrator.
2. In the left-hand menu, click on More Features -> User profiles -> Click on Open.

3. Click Manage User Profiles.

4. Search for the user whose birthday you want to update. Click the drop-down next to the email to see a pop-up with options, as shown below. Click on Edit My Profile.

5. Then, in the new tab, the User profiles page opens; scroll down to find the Birthday property. Provide the birthday date in the “Month Date” [February 4] format.

Then, in the bottom-right corner, the Save and Close button will be present; click it. That’s it. Repeat the same steps for updating the remaining employees’ birthday dates.

Conlcusion

I hope you found this article helpful.

In this article, we looked at two practical ways to update an employee’s birthday in SharePoint User Profile. We also clarified an important point — although birthdays can’t be edited directly in Azure Active Directory, updating them in the SharePoint User Profile makes them available when you retrieve user information through Microsoft Graph.

If you’re struggling to update employee birthdays and want a UI-based, no-code solution, this approach works reliably in SharePoint Online. It’s especially useful when you’re building features like birthday reminders, employee highlights, or SPFx web parts that depend on accurate user data.

If you’re facing the same challenge, follow these steps, and you’ll be able to update employee birthdays without touching PowerShell or custom code.

Also, you may like:

• SharePoint Framework User Profile Web Part
• Update User Profile Data in Office 365 Using Power Automate
• Get Current User Details in Power Apps [Email, Profile, User ID, Department]
• Your organization needs more information to keep your account secure