Microsoft has announced that it will replace its WorkingWith API with its new People API. The People API aggregates data about individuals from various sources (i.e. mail, contacts, and social networks). The People API ranks such contacts based on relevance to a particular user. For instance, an individual who is "10 hops" away in a particular organization may be significantly relevant to the user.
Microsoft decided to replace the WorkingWith API with the People API because the People API includes "more complete and rich AD metadata from users." Only a small subset of such data was available through the WorkingWith API. Microsoft also determined that the ranking capability of the People API offers a new level of value that the WorkingWith API simply can't deliver. Accordingly, the WorkingWith API, and related documentation, will be removed from the MS Graph sometime before the end of 2016.
The People API is part of the MS Graph environment. Users can call the person resource type to return details on a particular person. Such details (properties) include a person's birthday, company, department, display name, email addresses, given name, unique identifier, if flagged as favorite, type of mailbox, office location, notes taken, notes about, type, phone numbers, addresses, and much more. Microsoft suggests those looking to transition from the WorkingWith API should check out the preview version of the People API.
Not only does the API rank people based on relevance, users can browse for related people. Additionally, the People API search functionality adjusts for misspelled names and supports phonetic search. Users can supplement basic search with certain topics to retrieve more relevant results. To learn more, check out the docs.