Audiences in Microsoft Office

Drawer QR Code JIS X 0510 in Microsoft Office Audiences

Audiences are a useful feature introduced in SharePoint 2007 When it comes to building content management systems, or indeed any system for presenting information to end users, it s important that you display the right information to the right users On the surface, this may seem like a job for application security after all, security is partly about determining whether a user is authorized to perform a particular action In some circumstances, this is the case; however, consider the following scenario: A company provides an intranet application that displays relevant data and links to commonly used applications Users in one department are likely to have requirements different from users in another Both groups of users have access to all of the information, but certain items are more relevant to each group and should therefore be featured on the intranet site Clearly, this is not a security requirement, because both groups are authorized to view all content It s more of a personalization requirement, and this is where audiences come in useful By applying criteria to user properties, audiences can be easily compiled and used for personalizing content For example, to pick up on our line-of-business subtype, all users

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who have a particular cost center code can be grouped into a single audience Content related to that cost center can then be displayed where appropriate

Although user profiles can contain properties that define where a specific user sits within an organizational hierarchy, sometimes it s more useful to know how an organization is structured at a higher level For example, if a user reports to a marketing manager, it s reasonable to assume that the user works within the marketing organization However, if you re looking for information in the marketing organization itself, this information doesn t help you If, however, the marketing organization has its own profile, you can easily locate the information that you need and understand how the marketing organization fits within the wider enterprise structure Organization profiles, new in SharePoint 2010, can also use custom properties and subtypes in the same way as user profiles Adding properties to organization profiles is similar to adding properties to user profiles the main difference is the manager objects that are used Here s an example:

void AddOrganizationProperty(string siteUrl) { using (SPSite site = new SPSite(siteUrl)) { SPServiceContext ctx = SPServiceContextGetContext(site); UserProfileConfigManager mgr = new UserProfileConfigManager(ctx); OrganizationProfileManager opm = new OrganizationProfileManager(ctx); ProfilePropertyManager ppm = mgrProfilePropertyManager; //Create Core property CorePropertyManager cpm = ppmGetCoreProperties(); CoreProperty p = cpmCreate(false); pName = "MyOrgName"; pType = "string"; pLength = 50; pDisplayName = "MyOrgDisplayName"; cpmAdd(p); //Create ProfileType property ProfileTypePropertyManager ptpm = ppmGetProfileTypeProperties(ProfileTypeOrganization); ProfileTypeProperty pt = ptpmCreate(p); ptIsVisibleOnEditor = true; ptpmAdd(pt); //Create ProfileSubType property ProfileSubtypePropertyManager pspm =

opmDefaultProfileSubtypeProperties; ProfileSubtypeProperty pst = pspmCreate(pt); pstDefaultPrivacy = PrivacyPublic; pspmAdd(pst); } }

One of the first steps in configuring user profiles for use within SharePoint is to set up a My Sites host by following these steps: 1 In Central Administration, under Application Management, create a new Site Collection using the My Site Host template from the Enterprise category

2 Once the My Sites site collection is up and running, we can configure the User Profile Service application and use it to create sites for each user In Central Administration, choose Manage Service Applications | User Profile Service Application | Setup My Sites In the My Site Host Location text box, enter the URL of the site collection that we just created:

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TIP Self-service site creation is defined at the web application level Creating a separate web application to host My Sites will allow greater administrative control over the sites that can be created within a SharePoint farm If My Sites is enabled on an existing web application, users with the appropriate permissions will be able to create other types of site collections, potentially leading to fragmented distribution of content and an ineffective use of resources 4 Now that we ve configured My Sites, users can manage their profiles and access their personal sites by clicking their username in the upperright corner of the page and then selecting My Profile: After selecting My Profile, the user is automatically directed to the My Sites site collection Across the top of the page are three links: My Profile, My Network, and My Content Let s take a look at each of these