Add, edit, or delete an audience (SharePoint Server 2010)

 

Applies to: SharePoint Server 2010

Use audiences in Microsoft SharePoint Server 2010 when you want to display content such as list or library items, navigation links, and entire Web Parts to specific groups of people. This is useful when you want to present information that is relevant only to a particular group of users. For example, you can add a Web Part to the legal department's site that contains a list of legal contracts that is visible only to users in that department.

You can add, edit, or delete an audience by using the Central Administration tool in SharePoint Server 2010. When you add a new audience, you also add a rule that determines the membership for each audience you create. Audiences must always have at least one audience rule. For more information about audience rules, see Add, edit, or delete an audience rule (SharePoint Server 2010).

When you add a new audience, you also select an owner for the audience. The owner should be someone who understands why the audience was created and should be someone who can be contacted if there is a problem with the audience. Typically, the owner will be the person who created the audience, but this is not a requirement. Having audience owners is helpful in enterprises that have a large number of audiences created by several different administrators.

Important

When you add a new audience, you cannot view its members until the new audience is compiled. For more information, see Compile an audience (SharePoint Server 2010).

In this article:

  • Add an audience

  • Edit an audience

  • Delete an audience

Add an audience

You can add an audience when you want to filter specific content to selected users.

To add an audience

  1. Verify that you have at least one of the following administrative credentials:

    • You are a member of the Farm Administrators group.

    • You are a service application administrator for the User Profile service application that contains the audience that you want to edit.

    • You are an administrator for the Audience feature of the User Profile service application that contains the audience that you want to edit.

  2. On the Central Administration Web site, in the Application Management section, click Manage service applications.

  3. On the Service Applications page, in the list of service applications, click the row of the User Profile service application that you want to configure.

    Clicking the row activates options in the ribbon.

  4. In the Operations group of the ribbon, click Manage.

  5. On the Manage Profile Service page, in the People section, click Manage Audiences.

  6. On the View Audiences page, click New Audience.

  7. On the Create Audience page, in the Properties section, in the Name box, type a name for the new audience.

  8. In the Description box, type a detailed description of the new audience.

  9. In the Owner box, type the account name of the user who will own and manage this audience.

    You can click Check Names to verify that you have typed the name correctly, or you can click Browse to search for an account name.

  10. Select Satisfy all of the rules to require that all of the rules need to be satisfied in order for a user to be included in the audience or select Satisfy any of the rules to allow membership in the audience as long as any of the rules are satisfied.

  11. Click OK.

  12. On the Add Audience Rule page, take one of the following actions:

    • To add a rule based on a user, for example, all users who report to a specific manager:

      1. In the Operand section, select User.

      2. In the Operator section, select Reports Under to create a rule based on organizational hierarchy or select Member Of to target content by group or distribution list.

      3. In the Value box, type a value or select a user to use when evaluating the property against this rule.

        • For a Reports Under rule, select the person who is the manager of the users you want to include in the audience.

        • For a Member Of rule, select the group or distribution list that the user must belong to in order to be included in the audience.

      To create an audience based on a group of people who report to a specific manager, for example, you would select User in the Operand section, select Reports Under from the Operator list, and then select the name of the manager in the Value section.

    • To add a rule based on a user profile property, for example, all users whose job title is "accountant":

      1. In the Operand section, select Property, and then select a user profile property from the list.

      2. From the Operator list, select an operator for the property. Each user profile property has a slightly different set of operators. For example, the operators for the Job Title property are Contains and Not Contains. To find descriptions of the operators available in the UI, see Operators (Transact-SQL).

      3. In the Value section, type a value to use when evaluating the property against this rule.

    For example, if you have an audience called "Finance", you could create an audience rule to target content to all accountants in your organization by selecting the Job Title user profile property from the Property list, selecting the Contains operator from the Operator list, and then typing "accountant" in the Value text box.

    Note

    You can only select one operator per rule by using Central Administration. To add audience rules that contain more complex logic, you must use the SharePoint Server 2010 object model. For more information, see Audience Class (https://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/p/?LinkID=185879).

  13. Click OK.

Edit an audience

You can change the name, description, or owner of an audience. You can also change whether audience members must satisfy all audience rules or can satisfy any of the audience rules.

To edit an audience

  1. Verify that you have at least one of the following administrative credentials:

    1. You are a member of the Farm Administrators group.

    2. You are a service application administrator for the User Profile service application that contains the audience that you want to edit.

    3. You are an administrator for the Audience feature of the User Profile service application that contains the audience that you want to edit.

  2. On the Central Administration Web site, in the Application Management section, click Manage service applications.

  3. On the Service Applications page, in the list of service applications, click the row of the User Profile service application that you want to configure.

    Clicking the row activates options in the ribbon.

  4. In the Operations group of the ribbon, click Manage.

  5. On the Manage Profile Service page, in the People section, click Manage Audiences.

  6. On the View Audiences page, in the list of audiences, point to the name of the audience that you want to edit, click the arrow that appears, and then click Edit.

  7. On the Edit Audience page, you can make the following changes:

    • In the Properties section, you can change the name or description of the audience.

    • In the Owner box, you can type the account name of the user that will own and manage this audience.

      You can click Check Names to verify that you have typed the name correctly, or you can click Browse to search for an account name.

    • You can select Satisfy all of the rules or Satisfy any of the rules to determine the membership of this audience.

  8. Click OK to apply your changes.

Delete an audience

You might want to delete an audience when there is no longer a business need to target content to the users and groups in that audience.

To delete an audience

  1. Verify that you have at least one of the following administrative credentials:

    1. You are a member of the Farm Administrators group.

    2. You are a service application administrator for the User Profile service application that contains the audience that you want to delete.

    3. You are an administrator of the Audience feature of the User Profile service application that contains the audience that you want to delete.

  2. On the Central Administration Web site, in the Application Management section, click Manage service applications.

  3. On the Service Applications page, in the list of service applications, click the row of the User Profile service application that you want to configure.

    Clicking the row activates options in the ribbon.

  4. In the Operations group of the ribbon, click Manage.

  5. On the Service Applications page, in the list of service applications, click the User Profile Service application that you want to configure.

  6. On the Manage Profile Service page, in the People section, click Manage Audiences.

  7. On the View Audiences page, in the list of audiences, click the audience that you want to delete and then click Delete.

  8. Click OK to confirm the deletion.

See Also

Concepts

Manage audiences (SharePoint Server 2010)
User Profile Service administration (SharePoint Server 2010)
Assign administration of a User Profile service application (SharePoint Server 2010)
User Profile service application overview (SharePoint Server 2010)
Plan for profile synchronization (SharePoint Server 2010)