Taking Advantage of User Profiles

The key to most (all?) successful SharePoint deployments is achieving a high level of user adoption. One of the mail goals of a SharePoint deployment is collaboration, and if a large portion of the user base isn’t using SharePoint, there isn’t necessarily a reason for anyone else to either.

Towards that end, one of the things I look for when it comes to deploying SharePoint for the first time in an organization are little things that I can do for “big wins” – things that are simple for me to set up and configure that my users will hopefully love and help drive them into SharePoint. Implementing user profiles is one of those things.

If you’re not familiar with a user profile, the simplest way to think of it is to picture a Facebook profile. Just like Facebook, users can post status updates, share information about themselves, and find and connect with other people. While at first glance that can seem like a small thing, it actually has many applications throughout your users’ day to day lives.

The most obvious use case for a user profile is simply trying to figure out who someone is. When you’re a larger organization, it’s simply not possible to know everyone. It can be embarrassing to attend a meeting with a senior manager and not realize who that person is. Taking advantage of user profiles to find out who’s participating in a meeting or who’s included in an email can be very helpful.

You may also have times when you need to figure out who works with a particular coworker. I wish I could tell you the number of times I’ll receive an out of office reply without alternate contact information, or the alternate contact is also out of the office. If I am in need of finding someone to get in touch with, I can fire up the person’s profile and see who else works in their department or who their manager might be.

While those are typical day-to-day uses for user profiles, there are other, more subtle, uses as well.

Let’s say our organization is considering implementing a new internal rewards program for sales, or ------. Inviting managers to those planning meetings is pretty obvious, but it could also be good to get input from other employees as well – maybe ones that have been with the organization for a long period of time, or ones that have recently worked for a competitor; they can offer valuable insight. Finding those types of employees in the past would typically require contacting HR and digging up their records. With user profiles, it’s a quick search and I can identify the perfect people to help contribute.

And it even goes beyond direct business needs as well. I’m a big believer that happy employees are productive employees. User profiles can help drive different morale building activities. Users can add personal interests as well, so I can find people that share common passions. Forming a basketball or kickball team can be as easy as looking to see who enjoys those sports. Or, as a runner, if there’s a race coming up I can do a search to find fellow runners to train with, and maybe raise money for a charity as well.

User profiles will quickly become a heavily used resource for your users. It’s a great way for users to connect, find one another for both business and nonbusiness needs, and share information about themselves. Plus, it’s one of those little things that will be a big win (and a big hit) for your SharePoint implementation.