In some organizations, portal site administrators may decide that they don't want every user to have a powerful personal site. Fully enabled personal sites consume server resources and can create administration and support requests, particularly in large organizations with a wide range of expertise in managing sites.

Those same organizations may still want to allow users without full-featured personal sites to have a personal view on portal site content and share their personal information with other users in the organization through the user profile.

To allow for this option, two distinct rights exist in SharePoint Portal Server 2003 for personal sites. These rights are the Use Personal Features right and the Create

Personal Site right.

Users with both rights have the full My Site experience with all of its features and all of the customization options described in this paper.

Users with only the Use Personal Features right can still use a personal site. When they first click My Site, a personal site is created for them. But this personal site has only some of the features of personal sites. For this reason, this configuration can be considered a "personal page" configuration, or "My Page." Users in this configuration can:

• Edit their user profiles
• Manage alerts
• Add and share links
• View targeted news and links for the audiences of which they are a member
• Add and modify Web Parts for their personal views of the personal site

Users in a personal page configuration cannot:

• Create or customize lists or sites or share them with other users
• Store documents, pictures, and other items on lists or sites
• Manage any of the site settings for the site or customize its look or content beyond the customization allowed by adding or removing Web Parts

Users in a personal page configuration can work with documents and other content on the portal site, but they cannot use their personal sites to add content to the portal site. Other users can see a public view of their personal sites, but no information about lists or sites.

Depending upon the needs of your organization, you can use a personal page configuration for all personal sites, some personal sites, or no personal sites. You may decide to allow for full-featured personal sites for some users, but not others.

Changing Rights for the Personal Page Configuration

For all users whom you want to use the personal page configuration of personal sites instead of full-featured personal sites, you must change their rights in SharePoint Portal Server 2003. You must be a portal site administrator or have the Manage Portal Site right to change these rights.

1. On the home page of the portal site, click Site Settings.
2. On the Site Settings page, in the General Settings section, click Manage security and additional settings.
3. On the Manage security and additional settings page, in the Users and Permissions section, click Manage site groups.
4. On the Manage Site Groups page, click Add a Site Group.

    Note   Alternatively, you can click a group such as Member or Contributor and change the rights for that site group. This is a simple way to make the change for most or all users if you want to use the personal page configuration for everyone. However, if you later want to convert some but not all users to full-featured personal sites, you may have to create another site group for them or make them a member of an existing site group that has the Create Personal Site right.

5. On the Create Site Group page, in the Site Group Name and Description section, type a name and description for the new site group.
6. In the Rights section, select the rights that you want this site group to have. For the personal page configuration, be sure to clear the Create Personal Site check box and select the Use Personal Features check box.

    Note   A good practice is to use the existing site groups, such as Member or Contributor, as an example when creating a site group, so that only a small number of rights differ between users. This is particularly useful when the only difference is the functionality of personal sites, when only one right needs to be changed.

You can disable personal sites completely for any user by removing the Use Personal Sites right. Users without this right do not see the My Site link on the portal site.

Converting Personal Pages to Personal Sites

To convert a personal page configuration of the personal site to a full-featured personal site, simply grant the Create Personal Site right in the portal site to the person whose site you want to convert, and the other features of personal sites will appear the next time he or she refreshes the view of the personal site.

Converting a personal site to a personal page configuration can be difficult. Simply removing the Create Personal Site right from a user with a personal site does not remove the additional features of personal sites. You must delete the original personal site and create a new personal page after the rights of the user have been changed.

Because most users of personal sites have created lists and sites and filled them with content, deleting their sites requires that you spend the time moving content from those lists and sites to the portal site, or to the personal sites of users who have personal sites that use the full features of personal sites. For that reason, it is recommended that you avoid converting sites in this way.

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