Creating a rich profile helps people find you. The more key information you provide, the more likely that your name will turn up when someone’s search query contains your skills or attributes. When people find you and connect with you, you can add them to your contacts.
This article describes how you can enhance your profile to improve your visibility in search results and expand your contact base.
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How your profile can help people find you
SharePoint users who need to find a colleague with specific expertise usually start by entering a name or keywords in the Search box on their company’s portal site. The SharePoint Search service then crawls user profiles to find the specified criteria. So if you want others to be able to find you when you have information to share, adding profile details that highlight your expertise improves the likelihood of being discovered by people who are looking for someone with your background and know-how.
For example, suppose that Chris needs information from someone in his company’s Northeast Sales division who was also in his graduating class. He does not recall the person’s name, so he might create a SharePoint search query that looks like this:
northeast sales lancaster university ‘09
The SharePoint search service ranks your profile properties according to relevance. The higher the ranking, the more valuable the profile values for those properties.
Therefore, if Deb’s My Site profile includes northeast sales and lancaster university ‘09 in the Ask Me About and Schools text boxes, her name is likely to appear at the top of Chris’ search results. If her profile properties are empty, contain defaults, or show other entries that do not match these search criteria, she may not turn up in this search at all. For instance, if the Ask Me About text box has a value of inventory management and the Schools text box is blank, Deb will not surface in Chris’ search results even though she is the contact that Chris seeks.
Administrators determine which profile properties appear in your profile when they build the personal profile sites for your organization. Typically, administrators pre-populate certain profile details—such as your user name—with static information from a central database. You cannot edit these details.
The following table lists the Search-sensitive profile properties that may appear in your profile. The table also indicates which profile details are likely to be available for edit and which are typically pre-populated. Profile details are listed in the Search order of the SharePoint Server ranking system, starting with the top-rated properties, when All is selected in the SharePoint Search box.
| Relative search ranking |
Profile details |
Typically editable |
Typically pre-populated |
| 5 |
Ask Me About |
Yes |
|
| 4 |
Account name |
No |
Yes |
| 2 |
Skills |
Yes |
|
| 2 |
Interests |
Yes |
|
| 1 |
Past projects |
Yes |
|
| 1 |
Schools |
Yes |
|
| .5 |
About me |
Yes |
|
Update your profile
You can update your profile to improve your visibility in search results at any time, providing that your organization has setup a SharePoint personal profile site for you. You can access your profile from any current-version SharePoint site in your organization. For detailed information about how to edit your profile, see View and set up your profile.
Note Some profile details may draw from contact information in your organization’s employee databases. You may not be able to edit that information, depending on how your organization has customized site permissions.
To improve your position in search results, update your profile as follows:
Note If your My Site has been upgraded from an earlier version or if your organization has customized My Site pages, your pages may differ slightly from those described in the following procedure.
- Click your name at the upper right of one of your organization’s SharePoint Office 365 sites, and then click About Me.
- Click edit your profile.
- On the Edit Details page, click Basic Information, and then enter details that you want others to know about you.
- Click Details, enter additional relevant information, and then, in the Who can see this? boxes, select whom you want to make the information available to.
- Click Save all and close.
To keep your profile fresh, update it whenever you have new relevant information.
Tip When people contact you for information, remember to add them to your contacts list.
Best practices for building a search-worthy profile
The following table shows tips that can help you update editable profile properties.
| Tip |
Example |
| Fill in empty property text boxes when the information might be valuable to people who seek your expertise. |
Update the Ask Me About box with your current areas of expertise. You may even want to include your knowledge of subjects outside your profession. This practice helps people discover you through a shared or unusual hobby. For example, you might list Astronomy, even though you work in a financial services field. |
| Use search-friendly terms to describe yourself. |
In the Ask Me About box, be specific and use likely search topics. For example, enter geochemistry; hydrothermal processes; compositional analysis, as well as more general terms, such as materials research. |
| Consider search ranking when you update profile details. |
If your Interests box includes an area of accomplishment, such as photography, move or copy that information into your Ask Me About box, which has a higher search ranking than Interests. |
| Be specific |
If your Past Projects box contains only ‘Field improvements’, you could update it with specifics. For instance, an employee of Contoso’s Northeast branch office might list projects as follows:
- Contoso Northeast field processes
- Northeast field process automation
- Northeast research mapping
- Contoso local outreach
|
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