> ## Documentation Index
> Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://docs.dataerai.com/llms.txt
> Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further.
# People search
> Find researchers across your workspace and the global OpenAlex graph, then import an author — with their works, institutions, and grants — into Dataerai.
People search lets you find **researchers**, not just assets. It searches the
people already in your workspace and, on demand, the global
[OpenAlex](https://openalex.org) scholarly graph — then lets you import an author
and their scholarly record into Dataerai.
## Search for a person
In the search bar, choose the **Person** category and type a name. Dataerai
routes the query to the **People** results tab automatically.
Dataerai first returns the people already in your workspace, ranked by
relevance. This is instant — no external calls.
Don't see who you're looking for? Click **Search the web** to extend the
query to OpenAlex. Web matches are merged with your local results and
de-duplicated, with an origin icon showing where each person came from.
The web phase is deferred behind a button so a simple workspace lookup never
waits on an external service. If a search fails, Dataerai shows an explicit
error with a **Retry** — it never silently reports "no people found".
## Open a person and import them
Selecting a person opens a detail panel in the sidebar. For an OpenAlex author,
you can **Import** them into your workspace.
Importing runs a **cascade**: it creates (or upgrades a stub of) the primary
person, then pulls in a capped first slice of their **works** synchronously and
queues the remainder to import in the background. Along the way it also brings in
the **institutions** and **grants** attached to those works, de-duplicated so you
don't get repeats.
Imports call OpenAlex on your behalf and write across your workspace, so they're
rate-limited per user. A very large author imports their first works
immediately and finishes the rest in the background — you can keep working while
the queue drains.
## What gets imported
| Entity | Source | Notes |
| ------------ | ------------------- | ----------------------------------------- |
| Person | OpenAlex author | A pre-existing stub is upgraded in place |
| Works | author's works | First slice synchronous, remainder queued |
| Institutions | works' affiliations | Batched and de-duplicated |
| Grants | works' funding | De-duplicated by funder + award |
Once imported, people and their works are first-class in your workspace — they
show up in people search, asset attribution, and [grant
attribution](/attribution/grants).