Sharepoint 2013 : My Sites (part 5) - My Content

My Content

SharePoint 2010 used the concept of “My Content” and provided a link on the top menu of your My Site that linked the user to stored content. SharePoint 2013 also allows stored content and is one of the main reasons to provision a My Site (in addition to newsfeeds, etc.). Unlike SharePoint 2010, SharePoint 2013 integrates your My Site content in with your User Profile page and newsfeed, as part of the social space that belongs to you in the SharePoint farm. SharePoint no longer views personal storage as a separate entity from a user’s profile, even though from a technical perspective they are. When you view your profile, or someone else views your profile, in SharePoint 2013, the expectation is to see everything about you, which includes any personal stored content, assuming you have shared it.

Notice the absence of a “My Content” link anywhere on your My Site or profile pages. This is because your content combines in with your profile information. To see what I mean, click the Blog link in the left navigation. You should see a page like that in Figure 8. Look carefully at the URL and you should see that your blog hosts under your My Site location, which indicates that you have personal content in your My Site.

Just like any other site collection for which you have owner or site collection administration rights, you can click the gear icon in the top right corner and see all site content and site settings for your My Site.

As a simple example to demonstrate further hosting your own personal content in your My Site, I shall demonstrate creating a new document library in your My Site (there already exists document libraries and lists, which you can access from the gear icon and site content).

1. Click the gear icon in the top right of any of your profile pages.
2. Click the Site Contents menu item.
3. You should see a familiar page, like that in Figure 9.

   

   Figure 9. My Site Contents

4. Click the Add an App tile (remember lists and libraries are apps).
5. Click the Document Library tab.
6. Give the document library a name and click the OK button.
7. Notice that a new link to the document library appears in the left navigation, under Recent.

SharePoint tracks recent activity and maintains links to recently created apps in the left navigation. I can of course make my new document library a permanent fixture in the left navigation by changing the library settings to display in quick links.