Getting Started with Personalization in MOSS 2007
The first thing you should do is make sure you've created a Shared Service Provider (SSP).
To check this do the following:
Go to MOSS 2007 Central Administration
Click on Shared Services Administration in left navigation
If this list is not empty then click on an SSP
If this list is empty then click New SSP and create a Shared Service Provider
Once on the Shared Services Administration page for your SSP you should see at least 3 sections titled: User Profiles and My Sites, Audiences and Search. To get started you'll need to import user profiles from the directory.
To import user profiles:
Under User Profiles and My Sites click on the link labeled "User profiles and properties"
On the User Profiles and Properties page click on "Configure profile import"
Provide a default access account, specify an account that has read access to your directory.
Note: This account needs to also have Manage User Profiles rights, verify click on "Personalization services permissions" under User Profiles and My Sites on the SSP Admin page. To keep things simple until you have a grasp of the service you should use the SharePoint Admin account.
Click OK
On the User Profiles and Properties page click on "Start full import"
Verify that import started and wait until import has completed before moving on to other personalization admin tasks (this may take a few hours)
After import is complete to view the results click on "View user profiles" on the User Profiles and Properties page
The SSP administrative portion of My Site should have been configured when you created the SSP. So while waiting on profile import to complete you can explore the non administrative parts of My Site.
To create a My Site:
Click on My Site in the global actions bar which is in the top right corner of every SharePoint page
Wait while your My Site is created
After creation is complete check to make sure the name of the site created is titled with your name
If not then open a new browser window with your credentials and click the My Site link again or copy the URL behind the My Site link into the browser window.
Note: My Site is highly personalized so it works best when its created using your credentials and not those of an admin account or alternate account
Follow the links in the Getting Started with My Site web part
Once profile import is complete we can go back to setting up personalization services in the SSP Admin page. Now that we have profiles we can do things with them like create audiences.
To create audiences:
Go to the Shared Services Administration page for your SSP.
Click on "Audiences" under the section Audiences
On the Manage Audiences page click on "Create audience"
Note: Audiences should not be created until after you've completed a profile import.
Walk through the steps to create a new audiences based on user profile data
After you're done creating audiences click on "Start compilation" from the Manage Audiences page
Note: Audiences must be compiled before they can be used.
After compilation is complete to view the results click on "View audiences" from the Manage Audiences page
Now that we have created new audiences we should put them to use on SharePoint sites by targeting content.
To target content on SharePoint sites:
Go to SharePoint site
Go to the document library on the site
Go to Document Library Settings
Click on "Audience targeting settings" under General Settings
Enable audience targeting
Note: You can do this for any list type not just documents.
Go back to the document library
Edit or upload a new document
Click the Browse button in the Target Audiences field
Select an audience you created or search and use an existing distribution list
Note: Distribution lists and security groups will only display after you've completed a profile import.
Click OK to update the document's properties
To display targeted content on SharePoint sites:
Go to the site home page and add the Content Query Web Part
Modify the Content Query Web Part
Under Query change List Type to Document Library
Under Query -> Audience Targeting check "Apply audience filtering"
Click OK
Verify the items you targeted in the document library only show for people in those audiences.
Now that you've had a chance to see how audience targeting works let's move on to People Search.
To setup people search:
Go to Shared Services Administration for your SSP
Under Search section click on "Search settings"
On Configure Search Settings page find the default content access account
If this is not set then provide a default content access account
Verify default content access account has Use personal features rights
Note: To verify click on "Personalization services permissions" under User Profiles and My Sites on the SSP Admin page. To keep things simple until you have a grasp of the services you should use the SharePoint Admin account.
On Configure Search Settings page click on "Content sources and crawl schedules"
On the Manage Content Sources page hover over "Local Office SharePoint Server sites" and click the arrow to drop the ECB menu
In the drop menu click Start Full Crawl
Verify that crawl started and wait until crawl has completed before moving on to search for people
Finding people:
Once crawl is complete to main portal site and click on Search in the top navigation area to go to the Search Center
In Search Center click on tab labeled "People"
Type in a term you added to your profile while exploring your My Site such as a project, skill or responsibility
Hit Enter or click the Go button
Verify that you and others who match that search term was returned as search results
One area of personalization we haven't touched on at all yet is publishing links to the Office client. Links to SharePoint lists, libraries, and sites can be published to Office 2007 clients as places to easily retrieve or save documents.
To publish links to Office 2007 clients:
Go to Shared Services Administration for your SSP
Under User Profiles and My Sites click on "Published links to Office client applications"
Click New to add a link
Provide a URL, name and type for the link
If you want to the link to only show for a specific set of people then specify and audience
Click OK
To view links in the Office 2007 client:
Open Word 2007
Open the File Open or Save As dialog box
Click on My SharePoint Sites on the left
Note: In order for the service to find the SSP you must set the My Site you created earlier as your default My Site.
Verify link are presented
Note: The service that updates the client runs daily, this is configurable, so if you don't see the link wait at least 24 hours.
Last but not least are Personalization Sites. Personalization sites are the culmination of all the personalization pieces put together to offer users highly personalized mash ups. There is no quick and dirty way to get started with Personalization sites as they do require planning and understanding of your site's content. To get an idea of what they are about and how they connect to the other pieces of personalization and your portal, go to “Plan for personalized content and sites” in the MOSS 2007 Technical Library on TechNet. You can also play around with the features by creating a sub site under your portal using the Personalization site template.
This was just a quick getting started overview of personalization. The MOSS 2007 personalization platform is much richer than can be explained in a getting started blog post. If you want to dive deeper into a particular area of the personalization features that isn’t already covered by the TechNet content referenced above, please leave a comment here.
The first thing you should do is make sure you've created a Shared Service Provider (SSP).
To check this do the following:
Go to MOSS 2007 Central Administration
Click on Shared Services Administration in left navigation
If this list is not empty then click on an SSP
If this list is empty then click New SSP and create a Shared Service Provider
Once on the Shared Services Administration page for your SSP you should see at least 3 sections titled: User Profiles and My Sites, Audiences and Search. To get started you'll need to import user profiles from the directory.
To import user profiles:
Under User Profiles and My Sites click on the link labeled "User profiles and properties"
On the User Profiles and Properties page click on "Configure profile import"
Provide a default access account, specify an account that has read access to your directory.
Note: This account needs to also have Manage User Profiles rights, verify click on "Personalization services permissions" under User Profiles and My Sites on the SSP Admin page. To keep things simple until you have a grasp of the service you should use the SharePoint Admin account.
Click OK
On the User Profiles and Properties page click on "Start full import"
Verify that import started and wait until import has completed before moving on to other personalization admin tasks (this may take a few hours)
After import is complete to view the results click on "View user profiles" on the User Profiles and Properties page
The SSP administrative portion of My Site should have been configured when you created the SSP. So while waiting on profile import to complete you can explore the non administrative parts of My Site.
To create a My Site:
Click on My Site in the global actions bar which is in the top right corner of every SharePoint page
Wait while your My Site is created
After creation is complete check to make sure the name of the site created is titled with your name
If not then open a new browser window with your credentials and click the My Site link again or copy the URL behind the My Site link into the browser window.
Note: My Site is highly personalized so it works best when its created using your credentials and not those of an admin account or alternate account
Follow the links in the Getting Started with My Site web part
Once profile import is complete we can go back to setting up personalization services in the SSP Admin page. Now that we have profiles we can do things with them like create audiences.
To create audiences:
Go to the Shared Services Administration page for your SSP.
Click on "Audiences" under the section Audiences
On the Manage Audiences page click on "Create audience"
Note: Audiences should not be created until after you've completed a profile import.
Walk through the steps to create a new audiences based on user profile data
After you're done creating audiences click on "Start compilation" from the Manage Audiences page
Note: Audiences must be compiled before they can be used.
After compilation is complete to view the results click on "View audiences" from the Manage Audiences page
Now that we have created new audiences we should put them to use on SharePoint sites by targeting content.
To target content on SharePoint sites:
Go to SharePoint site
Go to the document library on the site
Go to Document Library Settings
Click on "Audience targeting settings" under General Settings
Enable audience targeting
Note: You can do this for any list type not just documents.
Go back to the document library
Edit or upload a new document
Click the Browse button in the Target Audiences field
Select an audience you created or search and use an existing distribution list
Note: Distribution lists and security groups will only display after you've completed a profile import.
Click OK to update the document's properties
To display targeted content on SharePoint sites:
Go to the site home page and add the Content Query Web Part
Modify the Content Query Web Part
Under Query change List Type to Document Library
Under Query -> Audience Targeting check "Apply audience filtering"
Click OK
Verify the items you targeted in the document library only show for people in those audiences.
Now that you've had a chance to see how audience targeting works let's move on to People Search.
To setup people search:
Go to Shared Services Administration for your SSP
Under Search section click on "Search settings"
On Configure Search Settings page find the default content access account
If this is not set then provide a default content access account
Verify default content access account has Use personal features rights
Note: To verify click on "Personalization services permissions" under User Profiles and My Sites on the SSP Admin page. To keep things simple until you have a grasp of the services you should use the SharePoint Admin account.
On Configure Search Settings page click on "Content sources and crawl schedules"
On the Manage Content Sources page hover over "Local Office SharePoint Server sites" and click the arrow to drop the ECB menu
In the drop menu click Start Full Crawl
Verify that crawl started and wait until crawl has completed before moving on to search for people
Finding people:
Once crawl is complete to main portal site and click on Search in the top navigation area to go to the Search Center
In Search Center click on tab labeled "People"
Type in a term you added to your profile while exploring your My Site such as a project, skill or responsibility
Hit Enter or click the Go button
Verify that you and others who match that search term was returned as search results
One area of personalization we haven't touched on at all yet is publishing links to the Office client. Links to SharePoint lists, libraries, and sites can be published to Office 2007 clients as places to easily retrieve or save documents.
To publish links to Office 2007 clients:
Go to Shared Services Administration for your SSP
Under User Profiles and My Sites click on "Published links to Office client applications"
Click New to add a link
Provide a URL, name and type for the link
If you want to the link to only show for a specific set of people then specify and audience
Click OK
To view links in the Office 2007 client:
Open Word 2007
Open the File Open or Save As dialog box
Click on My SharePoint Sites on the left
Note: In order for the service to find the SSP you must set the My Site you created earlier as your default My Site.
Verify link are presented
Note: The service that updates the client runs daily, this is configurable, so if you don't see the link wait at least 24 hours.
Last but not least are Personalization Sites. Personalization sites are the culmination of all the personalization pieces put together to offer users highly personalized mash ups. There is no quick and dirty way to get started with Personalization sites as they do require planning and understanding of your site's content. To get an idea of what they are about and how they connect to the other pieces of personalization and your portal, go to “Plan for personalized content and sites” in the MOSS 2007 Technical Library on TechNet. You can also play around with the features by creating a sub site under your portal using the Personalization site template.
This was just a quick getting started overview of personalization. The MOSS 2007 personalization platform is much richer than can be explained in a getting started blog post. If you want to dive deeper into a particular area of the personalization features that isn’t already covered by the TechNet content referenced above, please leave a comment here.
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