Set up My Sites (SharePoint Server 2010)

Applies to: SharePoint Server 2010

This article describes how to set up My Sites in Microsoft SharePoint Server 2010. Like other tasks in SharePoint Server, there are multiple ways to complete a task. This topic provides one ordered task with prerequisites and procedures to help you set up My Sites in your enterprise.

Before you set up My Sites, ensure that you understand the concepts and terminology in My Sites overview (SharePoint Server 2010) and Plan for My Sites (SharePoint Server 2010). Additionally, ensure that your system is running either the Standard or Enterprise version of SharePoint Server 2010.

We recommend that you perform all of the procedures in the order listed for best results, although not all of them are required.

In this article:

• Prerequisites

• Create a My Site host site collection

• Add a wildcard inclusion managed path to the Web application

• Connect the Web application to service applications

• Enable self-service site creation for the Web application

• Configure My Site settings for the User Profile service application

• Enable the User Profile Service Activity Feed Job

• Next Steps

Prerequisites

Because My Sites have dependencies on other service applications and features in SharePoint Server, ensure that you meet the prerequisites in this section before you perform the procedures in this task.

Web application

Although you can use an existing Web application, for optimal performance and security, we recommend that you create the My Site host site collection in a dedicated Web application that has a distinct root URL. For more information, see Create a Web application (SharePoint Server 2010).

User Profile service application and profile synchronization

Ensure that you have a User Profile service application that you want to use for My Sites. If you do not, follow the steps in Create a User Profile Service application to create one.

Optionally, configure profile synchronization if you want to synchronize user and group profile information that is stored in the SharePoint Server 2010 profile database with profile information that is stored in a directory service or business system. For more information, see Plan for profile synchronization (SharePoint Server 2010).

Create a My Site host site collection

The My Site host site collection is a site collection that uses the Enterprise site template called My Site Host. This site collection must be created in the Web application that you want to host My Sites. Generally, this site collection can be created at the root path of the Web application, although it can be created as an explicit inclusion managed path deeper in the URL as long as there is a site collection created at the Web application root. For more information about selecting the path for the My Site host collection, see My Sites architecture in the "Plan for My Sites" article.

To create a My Site host site collection

1. Verify that you have the following administrative credentials:

   • To create a My Site host site collection, you must be a member of the Farm Administrators group on the computer running the SharePoint Central Administration Web site or a service application administrator for the services related to My Sites. If you are a service application administrator, you must also have permission to create site collections in the Web application that you dedicate to host My Sites.

2. In SharePoint Central Administration, click Application Management and then click Create site collections. The Create Site Collection page opens.

3. In Web Application, ensure that the selected Web application is the Web application that you want to host My Sites. If it is not, expand the list and then click Change Web Application. The Select Web Application dialog box opens and you can select a different Web application.

4. In Title and Description, type a title and description for the site collection.

5. In Web Site Address, select the URL where you want this site collection created. Generally, you should use the default path (which displays as / in the user interface), which is the root of the Web application. For more information about this path, see My Sites architecture in the "Plan for My Sites" article.

6. In Template Selection, select the Enterprise tab and then click My Site Host.

7. In Primary Site Collection Administrator, and optionally in Secondary Site Collection Administrator, type an account in the format domain\user_name to specify an administrator for the site collection.

8. Optionally, in Quota Template, select a quota template for the My Site host site collection. This quota template does not affect the individual site collections that users create for their My Sites. For more information, see Planning for storage requirements in the "Plan for My Sites" article.

9. Copy this site collection URL for later reference.

Add a wildcard inclusion managed path to the Web application

The wildcard inclusion managed path is the path under which separate site collections are created the first time each user clicks their My Content link. This functionality is available only when self-service site creation is also enabled. For more information about managed paths, see Define managed paths (SharePoint Server 2010).

To add a wildcard inclusion managed path to the Web application

1. Verify that you have the following administrative credentials:

   • To add managed paths, you must be a member of the Farm Administrators group on the computer running the SharePoint Central Administration Web site.

2. In SharePoint Central Administration, click Application Management and then click Manage Web applications. The Web Applications page opens.

3. Select the Web application that you created to host My Sites.

4. On the Web Applications tab, in the Manage group, click Managed Paths. The Define Managed Paths dialog box opens.

5. In Add a New Path, type a value that you want to append to the URL namespace and select Wildcard inclusion. For example, if your Web application URL is http://mysites.contoso.com/ and you want users' individual site collections created under a path called "personal", type personal in the Path box. Separate My Sites site collections will be created for each user under http://mysites.contoso.com/personal/.

6. Click Add Path, and then click OK.

7. Copy this managed path for later reference.

Connect the Web application to service applications

The Web application that hosts My Sites must be connected to service applications in SharePoint Server. The User Profile service application is required for My Sites. The Managed Metadata service application and Search service application are highly recommended. For more information, see My Sites architecture in the "Plan for My Sites" article.

Additionally, if you have other SharePoint sites from which you want users to be able to access their My Site and My Profile links from the upper-right corner menu, connect the Web applications of those sites to the User Profile service application also.

To connect the Web application to service applications

1. Verify that you have the following administrative credentials:

   • To connect a Web application to a service application, you must be a member of the Farm Administrators group on the computer running the SharePoint Central Administration Web site.

2. In SharePoint Central Administration, click Application Management and then click Manage Web applications. The Web Applications page opens.

3. Select the Web application that you created to host My Sites.

4. On the Web Applications tab, in the Manage group, click Service Connections. The Configure Service Application Associations dialog box opens.

5. In the Edit the following group of connections list, select Default unless the default group does not already contain the service applications to which you want to connect the Web application.

   1. If you choose Custom, select any service applications to which you want to connect the Web application, including the User Profile service application, the Managed Metadata service application, and Search service application.

6. Click OK.

Enable self-service site creation for the Web application

Self-service site creation enables the automatic creation of a separate site collection for each user when they first click the My Content link.

To enable self-service site creation for the Web application

1. Verify that you have the following administrative credentials:

   • To enable self-service site creation, you must be a member of the Farm Administrators group on the computer running the SharePoint Central Administration Web site.

2. In SharePoint Central Administration, click Application Management and then click Manage Web applications. The Web Applications page opens.

3. Select the Web application that you created to host My Sites.

4. On the Web Applications tab, in the Security group, click Self-Service Site Creation. The Self-Service Site Collection Management dialog box opens.

5. Select On.

6. Optionally, select Require secondary contact.

Configure My Site settings for the User Profile service application

After you have a My Site host site collection and wildcard inclusion managed path configured for My Sites, you can update the My Sites settings in the User Profile service application. Most of these settings are configured during initial deployment and only changed infrequently during regular operations afterward.

To configure My Site settings for the User Profile service application

1. Verify that you have the following administrative credentials:

   • To configure My Site settings for the User Profile service application, you must be a member of the Farm Administrators group on the computer running the SharePoint Central Administration Web site or a service application administrator for the User Profile service application.

2. In SharePoint Central Administration, click Application Management and then click Manage service applications.

3. Click the User Profile service application that you connected to the Web application hosting My Sites earlier in this task. The Manage Profile Service page opens.

4. Under My Site Settings, click Setup My Sites.

5. In Preferred Search Center, specify settings for the Search Center to direct users to when they search for people or documents from their My Profile page. If you do not have a search center set up yet, you can skip this step and complete it later. For more information, see Search service application in the "Plan for My Sites" article.

6. In My Site Host, type the URL for the My Site host site collection you created earlier in this task.

7. In Personal Site Location, type the wildcard inclusion managed path you configured earlier in this task. By default, personal is pre-populated in the box. However, if you chose a different path for your wildcard inclusion managed path, replace personal with your path.

8. In Site Naming Format, select a naming format for the My Sites site collections that will be created when users click My Content in their My Sites the first time. For more information about these formats, see My Sites architecture in the "Plan for My Sites" article.

9. In Language Options, specify whether users can select a preferred language for their My Site. The available languages correspond to the language packs installed in the farm. All servers in a farm must have the same language packs. For more information about multilingual sites, see Plan for multilingual sites (SharePoint Server 2010). For more information about language packs, see About language IDs and language packs in the "Deploy language packs" article.

10. In Read Permission Level, specify the users or groups that can view other user's My Sites when they are created. By default, this includes all authenticated users. However, you can select a more specific group or users depending on the needs of your deployment.

11. In Security Trimming Options, specify how you want links to be checked for permission before they are displayed in activity feeds and on the Tags and Notes page.

    Important

    This option is available only after you apply Microsoft SharePoint Server 2010 with Service Pack 1 (SP1). Before SharePoint Server 2010 with SP1, the security trimmer checked all links for permission. Starting with SharePoint Server 2010 with SP1, the addition of Security Trimming Options provides an explicit way to check link permission. This is important in hosted environments where tenants may share the same User Profile service but have different requirements on how to display links. It is also useful in non-hosted environments by giving an administrator more control over how links are displayed.

    • Check all links for permission. This is the default option for clean installations of SharePoint Server 2010 with SP1 and upgrades to SP1. This option requires all links to be security trimmed, which prevents users from seeing items that contain links they do not have permission to access.

    • Check only specified links for permission. By using this option, you specify the URL paths (also known as URL hierarchies) that you want to include or exclude from security trimming. This option provides flexibility and control over the security trimming process. For example, you might want to check all internal URL paths for permission, but allow external URLs to bypass security trimming so that they are displayed to everyone.

      In the accompanying Enter URL hierarchies to be checked for permission box, specify the URL paths that you want to include in security trimming. For example, if you specify a URL path like https://www.contoso.com/, all URLs under that path, such as https://www.contoso.com/products, will be checked for permission when they are displayed in activity feeds, tags, and notes. Unspecified URLs are not security trimmed, so they are displayed to everyone.

      In the accompanying Enter URL hierarchies to be displayed regardless of permission box, specify the URL paths that you want to exclude from security trimming. For example, if you specify a URL path like https://www.contoso.com, all URLs under that path are excluded from security trimming and are displayed to everyone.

    • Show all links regardless of permission. By using this option, all links appear regardless of permission to the link itself. This disables security trimming, which increases the risk of disclosing links that users do not have permission to access. Consider this implication when disabling security trimming.

12. In Newsfeed, specify whether you want to enable the newsfeed on My Sites. If you enable the newsfeed, but the accompanying Activity Feed timer job for the User Profile service is disabled, you receive the following message with a link to enable and configure the job settings: “The Activity Feed Timer Job is currently disabled, this setting will have no effect until the Activity Feed Timer Job is enabled. Activity Feed Timer Job settings.”

    This option is available only after you install SharePoint Server 2010 with SP1. Prior to SharePoint Server 2010 with SP1, the Activity Feed timer job both determines whether the newsfeed is enabled and how it is configured. Starting with SharePoint Server 2010 with SP1, the addition of the Newsfeed option provides an explicit way to enable or disable the newsfeed. This is important in hosted environments where tenants may share the same User Profile service but have different requirements on whether they can enable newsfeeds for their users.

    The default behavior of this option is affected by whether you perform a clean installation of SharePoint Server 2010 with SP1 or apply the service pack to an existing SharePoint Server. For clean installations, the Newsfeed option is disabled and the Activity Feed timer job is enabled. For upgrades, the behavior is as follows:

    • If your Activity Feed timer job was disabled before upgrade, after upgrade the timer job will be enabled and the Newsfeed option will be disabled.

    • If your Activity Feed timer job was enabled before upgrade, after upgrade the timer job will be enabled and the Newsfeed option will be enabled.

    • In a services farm, the Newsfeed option will be enabled after you apply the service pack and until you run the configuration to upgrade the farm and the subsequent database changes are applied. However, the existing Activity Feed timer job setting will not be affected. The newsfeed will continue to work if you had enabled the timer job and configured it to run before you applied the service pack.

13. In My Site E-mail Notifications, specify an e-mail address to use as the sender e-mail address for My Site e-mail notifications. This account does not have to be a real monitored e-mail address.

    Important

    You must add the IP address of the farm's outbound SMTP server to the safe list in Microsoft Exchange Server 2010 to prevent My Site e-mail notifications from being sent to the Junk folder. For more information about safe lists in Exchange Server 2010, see Understanding Connection Filtering (https://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/p/?LinkId=211793).

14. In the Secondary My Site Owner box, specify a user account to be assigned as the new owner of the My Site if the existing My Site user is removed from the profile database. For example, if a user leaves the company and is no longer in the profile database, his or her My Site will be deleted together with any content. However, before it is deleted, a new owner can recover any important content. Initially, the My Site Cleanup job attempts to assign ownership of the My Site to the user’s manager. However, if no manager is found, the My Site is assigned to the user specified in Secondary My Site Owner. The new owner has two weeks to retrieve content from the My Site before it is deleted.

    Note

    This option is available only after installing SharePoint Server 2010 with SP1.

For more information about additional timer jobs for My Sites, see Planning for jobs and schedules in the "Plan for My Sites" article.

Enable the User Profile Service Activity Feed Job

The User Profile Service Activity Feed Job populates users' newsfeeds. After you configure My Sites, you should enable the User Profile Service activity feed job so that users will receive updates about activities in the My Newsfeed view of their My Sites.

This procedure is required to enable newsfeeds before SharePoint Server 2010 with SP1. After you apply SharePoint Server 2010 with SP1, configure the activity feed job and the additional Newsfeed option as described in Configure My Site settings for the User Profile service application above. You might still refer to this procedure after you apply SharePoint Server 2010 with SP1 to change the schedule of the activity feed timer job or to force the job to run between its scheduled intervals.

There are other timer jobs related to My Sites that you might want to review and change default settings for. For more information about jobs related to My Sites functionality, see Planning for jobs and schedules in the "Plan for My Sites" article.

To enable the User Profile Service Activity Feed Job

1. Verify that you have the following administrative credentials:

   • To configure timer jobs, you must be a member of the Farm Administrators group on the computer running the SharePoint Central Administration Web site.

2. In SharePoint Central Administration, click Monitoring and then click Review job definitions. The Job Definitions page opens.

3. In the View list, select Service. The Service list appears.

   • If the Service list does not display User Profile Service, click Change Service. The Select Service page opens. Use the arrows in the upper-right corner to locate User Profile Service and then click it. The Job Definitions page updates with the User Profile Service jobs.

4. Click the activity feed job for the User Profile service application that you created in the prerequisites section of this task. The job name is in the format User_Profile_Service_name - Activity Feed Job, where the User Profile Service name is the name that you specified for your User Profile service application. The Edit Timer Job page opens.

5. In Recurring Schedule, select the interval that you want the job to run. Available intervals are Minutes, Hourly, Daily, Weekly, and Monthly. Selecting a shorter interval, such as Minutes or Hourly, ensures that activities appear on users' My Site newsfeeds more frequently. However, it can also place a heavy load on the system depending on how many activities are available. Selecting a longer interval, such as Daily, Weekly, or Monthly reduces the number of times the job runs and processes feeds. However, it also means that users receive less frequent updates to activities in their newsfeeds.

6. Click Enable.

7. Optionally, click Run Now to run the job immediately without waiting for the next scheduled interval.

Next Steps

After you configure My Sites by using the procedures in this article, consider whether you require the following optional procedures:

• Configure trusted My Site host locations

• Configure links to Office client applications

• Add personalization site links on My Sites (SharePoint Server 2010)

• Start related services

Configure trusted My Site host locations

Trusted My Site Host Locations is an optional feature that prevents a user from creating more than one My Site in an organization with multiple User Profile Service applications. For more information, see Add or delete a trusted My Site host location (SharePoint Server 2010).

Configure links to Office client applications

A user's My Site is a convenient location for a user to save files that they work on in Office client applications, such as Microsoft Office Word, Excel, and PowerPoint. After you configure an environment for My Sites, you can add a link to the Favorite Links section that users see when they save documents in the Save As dialog box in Office client applications. A user can then select his or her My Site and save files to the Shared Documents library, Personal Documents library, or other libraries that are available in the My Content section of his or her My Site. For more information, see Add or delete links to Office client applications (SharePoint Server 2010).

Add personalization site links on My Sites

If your organization wants to provide important information to users, it can do so by adding personalization site links to a user's My Site. For more information, see Add or delete personalization site links on My Sites (SharePoint Server 2010).

Start related services

If the related services for My Sites have not been started yet, start them so that My Sites functionality is available in your environment. For more information, see Manage services on the server (SharePoint Server 2010).

See Also

Concepts

Manage My Sites settings (SharePoint Server 2010)
Plan for My Sites (SharePoint Server 2010)
Plan user profiles (SharePoint Server 2010)
User Profile service application overview (SharePoint Server 2010)
Plan for profile synchronization (SharePoint Server 2010)
Configure profile synchronization (SharePoint Server 2010)
Managing personal and social features (SharePoint Server 2010)

Other Resources

Resource Center: Social Computing in SharePoint Server 2010