SharePoint Birthday Web Part? No Out-Of-The-Box Solution

Last Updated on December 14, 2023

Does a SharePoint birthday web part exist?

Unfortunately, no. But in this guide, you will learn a workaround that will allow you to implement an employee birthday calendar.

Let’s get started.

The Gap in SharePoint’s Features

You might expect a platform focused on team engagement to have a simple birthday web part or even a freely configurable template for it.

Surprisingly, SharePoint Online doesn’t offer this as a standard feature.

Because of this:

• The absence can be a setback for companies that value employee engagement.
• Without a built-in birthday web part, you’re left to find alternative, often time-consuming, solutions.

Fortunately, there’s a workaround that you can implement.

Creating a Birthday Calendar

Here’s what you can do to implement a birthday calendar:

Step 1: Create another team site

The first step here is to create another team site.

You can easily do that by:

• Going to the start page (home icon)
• Click create site > team site

Over the years, a lot of changes have been made to the user interface.

But the general steps remain the same — give the site a name and configure the site address if you want.

Related: Microsoft 365 Group or SharePoint Team Site: Which to Create

Step 2: Add a calendar on Outlook

Now go to Outlook and add a new calendar:

• Select the add from directory option
• Select the account that has access to the team site
• Select the team site to add it

Related: Calendar Options in SharePoint and Microsoft 365 (List)

Step 3: Add recurring events

All you have to do here is add the user or employee birthdays as recurring events.

Here’s what to do:

• Create a new event
• Add the details
• Set to repeat yearly

Don’t forget to save the recurring events.

Related: How to Add a Channel Calendar in Microsoft Teams (Guide)

Step 4: Create a group calendar

Finally, you can add a group calendar on any site where you want to display birthdays.

Head over to the page of that SharePoint site:

• Go to edit mode
• Add a new group calendar web part

Now add the group calendar and configure the number of events per page on the web part properties:

Make sure to publish the changes.

When you view the page, you will now see the birthdays as recurring events:

Note: If you want to publish the events as news, it could get complicated. But you could create a flow and make use of the news web part.

Other Alternatives:

So far, using the Outlook functionality and the group calendar web part is the best alternative.

But if you like, there are other alternatives you can try:

For example, you can create a birthdays list and connect the employee profiles from the Azure Active Directory.

Do you have any other workarounds for creating an employee birthday calendar that’s not on the list above?

Comment down your suggestions. For business-related questions, you can send them using the contact form here.