Updated: 2009-11-12
[This article is pre-release documentation and is subject to change in future releases.]
Microsoft SharePoint Server 2010 implements features that make enterprise social computing and collaboration easier. Social networking tools such as My Site Web sites and social content technologies such as blogs, wikis, and really simple syndication (RSS), are examples of social computing features. These features enable users to easily capture and share the knowledge and expertise that is needed to do their work. This sharing of information encourages collaboration, improves innovation, and targets relevant content to the people who have to see it. You can adapt content to each user while enabling administrators to set policies to protect privacy.
The social computing and collaboration features in SharePoint Server 2010 are built upon a database of properties that integrates information about people from many kinds of business applications and directory services.
Good understanding and planning of social computing and collaboration features is very important for creating effective Microsoft SharePoint Server solutions.
In this section:
User Profile service overview
The User Profile service is a service application in SharePoint Server that can be consumed across multiple sites and farms. The User Profile service provides a central location for configuring and managing the following personalization settings:
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User profile properties
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Audiences
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Profile synchronization settings
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Organization browsing and management settings
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My Site settings
For more information, see User Profile service overview (SharePoint Server 2010).
Plan user profiles
The User Profile service integrates user information from various sources into user profiles that are the basis for powerful personalization features. In addition to planning connections to the User Profile service, planning for people and user profiles includes profile synchronization and planning group policies. You can also use profiles to turn off a feature. For example, profiles can help you prevent information about colleagues from appearing automatically in the colleagues section of profile pages.
For more information, see Plan user profiles (SharePoint Server 2010).
Plan policies for user profiles
When planning for personalization of your portal sites, you must consider the availability of information about users in the organization. Some information is not appropriate for everyone to see. Some information should only be available to users and administrators to preserve privacy. Other information can and should be shared freely with other users to encourage collaboration. The decision about what information to share is an important one that depends on the particular needs of each organization.
For more information, see Plan policies for user profiles (SharePoint Server 2010).
Plan for profile synchronization
If you plan to use social computing features, such as My Site Web sites or People Search, in Microsoft SharePoint Server 2010, you will likely want to integrate profile information that you have stored in a directory service such as Active Directory Domain Service (AD DS) or a business system, such as SAP or Siebel, with SharePoint Server 2010. By using Profile Synchronization in SharePoint Server 2010, you can do exactly that.
For more information, see Plan for profile synchronization (SharePoint Server 2010).
Plan for audiences
You use audiences to group the users in an organization so that you can target information to relevant users. From the Manage Audiences page for the User Profile service in SharePoint Server, you can create and manage audiences and use them to target content in all of the site collections that use that shared service.
Plan for My Site Web sites
My Site Web sites are special SharePoint sites that contain profile information about a user, links to content created by a user and stored in SharePoint databases, and information about the people, interests, and activities a user is tracking. My Site Web sites have three distinct views:
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A My Networks page shows the people, interests, and activities that a user is tracking.
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A My Content page lists shared and personal documents, shared pictures, and libraries, lists, discussion boards, and surveys that a user owns.
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A My Profile page shows personal profile information.
Information on the My Profile page can be targeted to the user only or to a user’s manager, team, colleagues, or everyone. Planning for My Site Web sites includes preparing to set up My Site Web sites, planning social tags and notes, planning My Site Web site policies and permissions, and planning personalization sites.
Plan for collaboration sites
Collaboration sites are SharePoint sites that teams or groups of users can use to share information or collaborate on projects. You can associate these sites with a particular portal site collection or make them part of a publishing site collection. Collaboration sites can also be stand-alone sites. Planning for collaboration sites explains how to define specific and additional paths, and how to determine the number of collaboration sites that are needed in your organization.
For more information, see Collaboration site planning (SharePoint Server 2010).
Plan an Enterprise Wiki
An Enterprise Wiki is a large-scale knowledge repository designed to both store and share information in an enterprise. You can use an Enterprise Wiki to share and update information on a larger scale than a wiki, library, or team site. Planning for an Enterprise Wiki includes the things to consider when you are determining if an Enterprise Wiki is the best solution for your organization, the preparation steps for setting up an Enterprise Wiki, and planning access to the Enterprise Wiki.
For more information, see Plan an Enterprise Wiki (SharePoint Server 2010).
See Also