Portal site users can customize the content on their personal sites in several ways. They can create new lists, sites, or pages; modify the settings and columns of existing lists; and configure some of the properties of their user profiles that appear in the public view of their personal sites. They can also add links to the home page of their personal sites and share them with other users.

Portal site managers can edit all of the user profile properties, decide whether the values for those properties can be changed by users of personal sites, and determine which properties appear in the public view. They can also target content to users of personal sites based on the audiences of which they are members.

Viewing Site Settings for Personal Sites

You can view and change the settings of a personal site from the Site Settings page of the personal site, either for your own site or for the sites of others if you're a portal site administrator.

To access the Site Settings page of your own personal site, click Site Settings on the home page of the personal site.

As a portal site administrator, you can access the Site Settings for personal sites of other users:

1. On the home page of the portal site, click Site Settings.
2. On the Site Settings page, in the User Profile, Audiences, and Personal Sites section, click Manage profile database.
3. On the Manage Profile Database page, in the Profile and Import Settings section, click the user's account name, and then click Manage Personal Site.

Alternatively, you can enter the URL for the public view of a user's personal site directly into your browser's address bar, and then click Site Settings on the navigation bar of the public view of the site. The file name and parameters for the URL for the public view of personal sites is in the form: \Public.aspx?accountname=DOMAIN\user.

On the Site Settings page, you have several administration and customization options. Some of these options are described in this paper. For more information on Site Settings, see the Microsoft Windows SharePoint Services 2.0 Help.

Creating and Customizing Lists and Pages

One of the most straightforward ways to customize your personal site is by creating new lists, sites, and pages and customizing them to fit your needs and the needs of other people in the organization who visit your personal site. A personal site with many lists, sites, and pages is not just a place for people in the organization to discover basic information about you or a starting place for you to see the portal site; it can be the central place where you work and collaborate with others.

Both portal site administrators and users of personal sites with the Create Sites right can create lists, sites, and pages.

Create Lists, Sites, and Pages

Users can customize the content of their personal sites by creating new lists, sites, and pages from the Create Page page.

1. On the home page of the personal site, click Documents and Lists.

    Note   If you're an administrator adding a list to someone else's personal site, click Documents and Lists from the public view of the personal site. You can view the site settings for the personal site of any user by using the Manage Personal Site command in the user profile database of the portal site, or view the personal sites of users directly by changing the value for the user's account name at the end of the URL for the public view of personal sites.

2. On the Documents and Lists page, click Create.

    Note   You can also get to the Create Page page from the Site Settings page of the personal site by clicking Modify site content in the Customization section, and then clicking Create new content on the Modify Site Content page.

3. On the Create Page page, click one of the pre-defined template types. The templates are organized into broad categories depending upon whether they're libraries, lists, discussion boards, surveys, or Web pages. Follow the directions on the creation page that appears.

Lists, libraries, and discussion boards are created on a single page. Web pages require additional information, such as the selection of a layout template for Web Part Pages, sites, and workspaces.

To add a link to a list or page on the home page of the personal site, click Yes in the Navigation section of the creation page. All of your current lists (not including Web pages, sites, and workspaces) appear on the Documents and Lists page, with links to your sites and workspaces. Shared workspaces and sites show up in the Shared Workspace Sites Web Part in the public view of the personal site for users with rights to those workspaces and sites. Web pages that are not sites or workspaces appear in the My Pages list in the private view of your personal site, and are shared in the Shared Pages section of the public view of your personal site.

For more information about creating lists, sites, and pages, see the Microsoft Windows SharePoint Services 2.0 Help.

Customize Lists

From the Site Settings page for your personal site, you can customize the columns and views of the lists, libraries, discussion boards, and surveys on your personal site.

1. Open the Site Settings page for the personal site:

• To view your own personal site, use the Site Settings link on the home page of the personal site.
• As a portal site user with the Manage User Profiles right, you can edit the site settings for the personal site of any user in the portal site from the View User Profiles page of the portal site:
  1. On the home page of the portal site, click Site Settings.
  2. On the Site Settings page, in the User Profile, Audiences, and Personal Sites section, click Manage profile database.
  3. On the Manage Profile Database page, in the Profile and Import Settings section, click the user's account name, and then click Manage Personal Site.

1. On the Site Settings page of the personal site, in the Customization section, click Modify site content.
2. On the Modify Site Content page, click one of the customization links for existing content.

    Note   You can also get to this page directly from any list, library, discussion board, or survey by clicking Modify settings and columns in the Actions list.

Several options appear on the Customize List page. These options apply only to the list that you selected, and not to other lists. Items that you can customize include:

• The name and description for the list, and other general settings
• The rights and permissions of other users to use the list
• The type and order of columns in the list
• Default and custom views for the list

You can also delete unwanted lists, associate a list with areas on the portal site, or save the customized list as a template to use when creating new lists. Each list on the personal site can be customized with different settings.

List templates and site templates are discussed in "Customizing Themes, Styles, and Templates," later in this paper. For more information about the details of these procedures and other information about lists, see the Microsoft Windows SharePoint Services 2.0 Help.

Customize Sites

You customize the SharePoint sites that are available from your personal site by making changes to the site settings for those sites, just as you customize the personal site from its Site Settings page. You can modify views, add lists, and apply themes. For more information, read the rest of this paper, and see the Microsoft Windows SharePoint Services 2.0 Help.

If you want to customize your site more extensively than you can simply by changing the settings and themes of the site, you can use Microsoft Office FrontPage 2003 or another Web page editor to customize the site and save those changes to your site. Note that unless you are a portal site administrator, you cannot use a Web page editor to customize the public or private views of the home page of your personal site; however, you can use the editor to customize other pages or sites created on your personal site.

Adding and Sharing Content

Even without adding new lists or sites and without adding or customizing Web Parts, you can customize your personal site simply by adding content to your site and sharing it with others.

You can add links for your own use and share them with others. You can also add documents, pictures, and other items to lists, document libraries, discussion boards, and surveys, and then share these lists with others.

When you add lists and sites, you can customize the look of your personal site by choosing whether to make the sites available on the Quick Launch bar, which makes them easier for you to find and easier for other people to find from the public view of your personal site. You may also share lists and sites by using Web Parts in the public view of your personal site.

Add and Share Links

You can use the My Links Summary Web Part on the home page of your personal site to add and manage links to content on the portal site and elsewhere on your personal site. When you add links, you can choose to share them with other users in the Shared Links Web Part.

To add a link to the My Links Summary Web Part

1. On the home page of the personal site, in the My Links Summary Web Part, click Add new link.
2. On the Add Link page, type a title and address for the link.
3. Click New group to create a group under which to add this link, or click Existing group, and then click a group in the list to add the item to that group.
4. To allow other users to see this link, select the Share on public view of My Site check box.

    Note   Shared links appear in the Shared Links Web Part in the public view of the personal site.

5. Click OK.

   After you add links, you can manage them from the same Web Part. You can add or remove links, edit their properties, and change whether they can be seen in the public view of your personal site.

To manage links

1. On the home page of the personal site, in the My Links Summary Web Part, click Manage Links.
2. On the My Links page, you have several options:
   • Click New Link on the toolbar to add a link.
   • Click Delete on the toolbar to delete a link.
   • Select an item on the Group member to change how links are grouped.
   • Rest the pointer on the link, click the arrow that appears, and then click Edit to change the properties of an existing link, such as whether the link is shared.
3. Click OK after managing links to return to the home page of the personal site.

Share Lists and Sites

Although the content in any of your lists and on any of your sites is available to all users who have rights to access those lists and sites, it can be hard to find and use those lists and sites. To make them easier to find and more convenient to use, you may share links on the Quick Launch bar of the personal site and in Web Parts in the public view of your personal site.

You can select the option to display lists on the Quick Launch bar from the Navigation section of the list creation page. When you select this option, a link to the list appears in your private view in the My Lists section, and a link appears in the Shared Lists section in the public view of your personal site for users who have access to those lists.

By default, all simple Web Part Pages that you create appear in the My Pages section of the Quick Launch bar in the private view, and in the Shared Pages section of the Quick Launch bar in the public view. However, if you choose a different document library for their location, they do not appear in this section.

Sites and workspaces appear in the Shared Workspace Sites Web Part in the public view of your personal site for users who have access to those sites, and are not visible to users without rights to view the sites.

Any items that you add to the Shared Documents list are available to other users with the proper rights. The most recent five documents in that list or published to the portal site appear in the Recent Document Web Part in the public view of the personal site.

Customizing the Public View of Personal Sites

The public view of a personal site contains a public view of the user profile and Web Parts that share information with other users. The public user profile includes all properties that have been selected by portal site managers to appear publicly.

The public user profile is divided into three sections: the business card, the Details section, and the Organization section. The sections contain the following information:

• The business card section contains all the public properties that have been selected to appear in the public user profile that are not placed in the Details section, except for organizational information such as reporting manager. It includes a space for a personal picture, information about the person, organization, and basic contact information.
• The Details section contains expanded contact information such as mobile phone, fax, and home phone numbers.
• The Organization section contains information on reporting manager and direct reports.

Portal site administrators can change the information in the public view of the user profile, and they can also allow users to change the value of some properties in the public view of the user profile.

The Web Parts in the public view are described in "Share Lists and Sites," earlier in this paper. Portal site administrators can customize the Web Parts and user profile in the public view of the portal site using a Web editor such as FrontPage.

Edit the Values of Properties in the Public User Profile

By default, the properties of the public user profile cannot be deleted or customized by personal site users. Users of personal sites can only change the values for properties that site managers have allowed them to change.

However, even this level of customization can be useful for personal site users. They can use the About Me description to identify their core organizational roles and provide a personal picture that helps other people in the organization identify them. They can provide a contact name for an assistant to whom they delegate some of their tasks. They can also update their personal contact information so others can find them more easily.

1. On your personal site, in the Actions list, click Edit Profile.
2. On the Edit My Profile page, type or select values for the properties of your public user profile. Some of these properties, such as the About me property, have formatting menus to change the appearance of your user profile.

    Note   The portal site administrator decides which properties are available for you to edit.

3. To save these changes, click Save and Close. To leave your user profile without making changes, click Cancel and Go Back.

Customize the Properties in the Public User Profile

Users of personal sites cannot add or remove properties from the public user profile, and they typically cannot change the value of some of the properties that are publicly available. Portal site administrators and other users with the Manage User Profiles right can change the value of any properties for any user and customize the properties on the public user profile for all users from the user profile database.

To change the values of properties in the public user profile for any user, a portal site manager uses the Edit Profile page.

To change property values in a public user profile

1. On the home page of the portal site, click Site Settings.
2. On the Site Settings page for the portal site, in the User Profile, Audiences, and Personal Sites section, click Manage profile database.
3. On the Manage Profile Database page, in the Profile and Import Settings section, click View user profiles.
4. On the View User Profiles page, click the name of the user whose profile you want to change, and then click Edit on the menu that appears.
5. On the Edit User Profile page, type values for the properties that you want to change. The properties that are in the public user profile are marked with an icon.

To select which properties appear publicly, where and how they appear on the public user profile for all users, and whether users can edit the values of properties, the portal site manager must use the Edit User Profile Property page.

To edit user profile properties

1. On the home page of the portal site, click Site Settings.
2. On the Site Settings page for the portal site, in the User Profile, Audiences, and Personal Sites section, click Manage profile database.
3. On the Manage Profile Database page, in the User Profile Properties section, click View profile properties.
4. On the View Profile Properties page, click the property you want to change, and then click Edit on the menu that appears to edit the user profile property.
5. On the Edit User Profile Property page, in the Display Settings section, select or clear the Show on the Edit My Profile page check box to add or remove a property from the public user profile.
6. In the Edit Settings section, click Allow users to edit this property if you want users to be able to change the property on their public user profile.
7. In the Display Settings section, select Show in the Details section of the user profile to show a property in the Details section of the public user profile.
8. Click OK to return to the View Profile Properties page.
9. On the View Profile Properties page, click New Section to add a new section to the Details section of the public user profile.
10. You can change the order in which properties and section headings appear by clicking the blue arrows next to the property.
11. Click OK when you are finished editing properties.

Customize the Public View of Personal Sites By Using FrontPage

The public view of the personal site does not have a design mode that allows portal site administrators to modify its Web Parts or user profile. However, portal site administrators can add, modify, and remove the Web Parts and user profiles that appear in the public view of personal sites by using a Web page editor such as FrontPage.

The file for the public view of the personal site is Public.aspx. This file is located in the top directory for personal sites (for example, http://portal/MySite/public.aspx). You can also use FrontPage to customize themes. Changes are made for all personal sites on the portal site.

For more information about using FrontPage, see the Help documentation for FrontPage. For more information about customizing themes, see "Customizing Themes, Styles, and Templates," later in this paper.

Managing Targeted Content for My Site

Users with the Manage Portal Site right can target content to the personal sites of portal users. Users who click My Site on the navigation bar to view their personal sites see all of the content that is targeted to their sites for the audiences to which they belong.

Portal site administrators target content to personal sites by adding listings to the Targeted links on the My Site area or the News area, and then editing the display properties of the listings to target specific audiences.

Users see the content that is targeted to them in the Links for You and News for You Web Parts on their personal sites. Content added to the Targeted links on My Site area is displayed in the Links for You Web Part. Content added to the News area is displayed in the News for You Web Part.

 Note   Users can also see targeted content on the home page of the portal site and in areas in the portal site map. Content added to the Home area is displayed on the home page of the portal site. Targeted content added to other areas appears in only those areas in the portal site map.

Although portal site managers can manage targeted content for personal sites from the portal site map just as they do targeted content for the home page of the portal site, they can also manage targeted content from the Targeted Links on My Site page. This page is a list view of all listings in that area.

This topic is part of a six part series.

• Introduction
• Using Web Parts to Customize Personal Sites
• Customizing Content on Personal Sites
• Customizing Themes, Styles, and Templates
• Configuring Personal Sites as Personal Pages
• Managing Personal Sites