Understanding User Profiles


SharePoint 2007 has a special database that can store information about the users of the system called the user profile database. This database contains properties and metadata about each user of the system in a very similar manner that you can store information describing a document in a document library. User profile information is useful for storing contact information and biographies of the different users of the system for information-sharing purposes, but you can also use it for more advanced purposes, such as content targeting and personalization via audiences (discussed in a later section of this chapter).

While SharePoint 2007 can import profiles from other sources, this chapter assumes that Active Directory is your primary profile source because it is the most common membership store for organizations using this application. SharePoint collects common profile properties from Active Directory including Name, Email Address, Phone Number, Manager, and Address. SharePoint can also import custom profile properties such as skills, languages, and employee ID.

While SharePoint 2003 can only collect user profile information from Active Directory, SharePoint 2007 can obtain it from the following sources:

  • Active Directory

  • Other LDAP servers

  • Business data catalog applications

  • User-defined properties

Adding and Updating User Profiles

User profiles are not required for an organization to implement SharePoint; however, they allow you to personalize information, including profile information to share with coworkers. For example, each SharePoint user can create a My Site site; he or she can store personal or shared files, view organizational content, write a personal weblog, and maintain his or her own profile properties. You can create a personal site by selecting the My Site link from the top right of the screen from any page or site in the por-tal, as shown in Figure 9-21.

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Figure 9-21

Each My Site has a public view that displays user information where you can place basic personal facts as well as relevant organizational information. By sharing more details on personal sites and profiles, workers can get to know each other better, which helps in situations where employees work for the same company but in different buildings.

Tip 

Despite a great potential for quickly finding out about another user when you use My Site, it’s always important to be aware of how much information you share about yourself and to ensure that any content posted in your personal site or profile is appropriate for your corporate setting.

From the Public Profile page, you can view a variety of information about an employee including:

  • An image of the employee

  • Contact information

  • Documents that the employee has shared

  • Information on who the employee reports to and any other employees who report to them

  • Things that the employee has in common with you based on profile properties such as languages, skills, or schools

  • Shared links

  • Colleagues

Because profile properties are indexed and searchable, you can search for a specific property and find a list of people who have that property assigned to them. For example, if you are a manager looking for a computer programmer with ASP.NET experience to build a custom Web Part for your SharePoint site, you can use the People search scope to search for ASP.NET to receive a list of people in your organization who have that skill. By clicking their names, you are redirected to their personal sites where you can find out who their manager is (in cause you want to contact the manager) and what previous projects the employees have worked on.

Tip 

For more on using the People search scope, see Chapter 14.

Although you can import some profile properties from primary membership systems such as Active Directory, users can update others themselves via their My Site. This helps keep information up-to-date and relevant. The server administrator decides what profile properties a user can update. A user can also select from the following choices on who can view information that is stored in specific properties:

  • Everyone

  • My Colleagues

  • My Workgroup

  • My Manager

  • Only Me

For example, something such as skills or schools would be shared with everyone while a home phone number would only be viewable to a manager. The following Try It Outs illustrate how users can update their own profile properties via their personal site. In the event you have a specific detail that you want a user to provide on the site, for example specific professional experience, certification, or attended business seminars, you can add a new user profile property.

Try It Out-Update Personal Profile Information

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In this example, you update all profile properties that you have access to edit, noting that you cannot edit some profile properties such as those of your manager. Generally, the information that you cannot edit is imported from a central directory or application dedicated to storing such information.

Updating profile properties is only a small function of what you can do from their personal sites. But it’s a great way to familiarize yourself with your personal site and will keep your personal information up-to-date. All information entered into a user’s profile is saved and not overwritten by the regular Active Directory scheduled imports (discussed in an upcoming section of this chapter).

  1. From the home page of your corporate site, click the My Site link from the top-right navigation bar.

  2. Select the My Profile tab from the site’s navigation.

  3. Click the Edit Details link, as shown in Figure 9-22. The Edits detail window appears, as shown in Figure 9-23.

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    Figure 9-22

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    Figure 9-23

  1. Complete all missing information from your personal profile.

  2. For the Home Phone field, change the Show to drop-down value to My Manager.

  3. Click Save and Close.

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Try It Out-Add a New User Profile Property

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In the last example, you updated common profile properties. In addition to those properties, you can add new profile properties that users can update on their own. For example, you can add a property to allow users to specify what certifications they have attained, as the following steps show. Because users may have more than one certification, you should allow for multiple values. Because not every user may want to specify that information, you can make it optional.

  1. From the main page of the Central Administration site, select the link for the Shared Services Administration site from the left-hand navigation menu.

  2. From the User Profiles and My Sites section, select User Profiles and Properties.

  3. Select Add Profile Property from the User Profile Properties section near the bottom of the page. The Add User Profile Property Window appears, as shown in Figure 9-24.

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    Figure 9-24

  1. Complete the information as follows:

    Open table as spreadsheet

    Item

    Value

    Name

    Certifications

    Display Name

    Certifications

    Allow Multiple Values

    Yes

    Description

    List any professional certifications you have received.

    Policy Settings

    Optional

    Default Privacy Setting

    Everyone

    Edit Settings

    Allow users to edit values for this property

    Display Settings

    Select these three options:

    Show in the Profile Properties Section of the User’s Profile Page

    Select Show on the Edit Details Page

    Show Changes in the Colleague Tracker Web Part

    Search Settings

    Select the Indexed box

  2. Click the OK button.

  3. Click the My Site link from the top-right navigation bar.

  4. Select the My Profile tab from the site’s navigation.

  5. Click the Edit Details link.

  6. Scroll to the bottom until you see the custom property you created for Certifications. Update this with any certifications you have attained, and click the Save and Close button.

How It Works

In this example, you specify that the property should be indexed because this may be a value for which someone might want to search. For example, when a business manager prepares to launch a major new project for an upcoming product launch, she may want to search for someone who has a project management certification such as PMP. By searching for this item, she can find employees with this qualification and review their experience on past projects to discover who might be a perfect match to manage this new project.

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Configuring Profile Updates

You import user profiles into SharePoint on a scheduled basis and can do so from single or multiple sources. In cases where you are importing profile information from more than one database, you must have a master connection, which is either Active Directory or another LDAP server and a secondary connection, which is a Business Data Catalog application.

You configure profile imports on the Shared Services Administration site. You can access this site from the side navigation available in the Central Administration site. If you do not have access to visit this site, speak to your server administrator for assistance.

If your server is a member of a domain, it automatically associates with that domain in the profile settings. However, profiles are not imported until a server administrator configures the import process. If no domain connection exists, you must create a new connection under the View Import Connections link of the User Profiles and Properties section, as shown in Figure 9-25.

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Figure 9-25

From User Profiles and My Sites section of the Shared Services Administration site, you may specify permissions for a variety of personalization services, such as:

  • Create personal site

  • Use personal features

  • Manage user profiles

  • Manage audiences

  • Manage permissions

  • Manage usage analytics




Beginning SharePoint 2007. Building Team Solutions with MOSS 2007
Beginning SharePoint 2007: Building Team Solutions with MOSS 2007 (Programmer to Programmer)
ISBN: 0470124490
EAN: 2147483647
Year: 2007
Pages: 131

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