Reviewing Other Configuration Tools in the My Sites Settings Section

Configure Trusted Host Locations, Configure Personalization Site, and Publish Links to Office Client Applications Settings can be found in the My Sites Settings section on the User Profile service application page. Each of these is relatively straightforward but can add value to the process of managing and customizing My Site. Configuring trusted host locations can be of specific interest to larger organizations with thousands of users who want to leverage My Site sites, because the idea of putting all users in one “basket” (that is, managed by one service application and stored in one My Site host site collection) may be unappealing. And audiences can be leveraged to determine which user is created in which My Site host to ensure automation of the process. Personalization sites and published links to Office client applications allow the organization to customize the user experience based on audiences, too (as described throughout this chapter).

Following are summaries of the capabilities of these tools:

• Configure trusted host locations— If there are other User Profile service applications, links can be created that specify the URL of the host managed by the service application, and a target audience can be created to determine which users’ personal sites are hosted by that host. A large organization (for example, with 10,000 users) may want to create multiple User Profile service applications, each of which has a My Site Host site collection, and then split up where individuals’ My Site sites are created based on which branch office they are in. Several audiences would need to be created for this purpose, which look at the value of the Office field in AD, and if it matches a specific value, the user becomes a member of that audience when it is compiled. The audiences would then be used to determine where the users’ My Site personal sites are created.

• Configure personalization site— If a link is added here, it will appear at the top of the My Site page. Audiences can also be applied here, to specify which users see a specific link.

• Published links to Office client applications— Links can be created here as a means of publishing links to SharePoint sites and lists when opening and saving documents from Office client applications. Audiences can be applied to determine which users receive these links, and the type of link can be specified as well. For example, Document Library, Slide Library, Portal Site, Team Site, and other options are provided.