User Profiles in SharePoint 2013 (part 3) - A Custom Profile Property and Subtype in Action - Audiences

Audiences

An audience defines a set of people who see targeted content. Do not confuse audiences with SharePoint security groups—although both combine a set of users, audiences define only those users who see specific content in lists and list items, and you define membership of an audience by rule criteria, not explicit inclusion.

For example, a publishing page on a SharePoint site may include a specific content area that only certain users see. Users who are not in the audience get to see all other content areas on the page, and the page itself. Only members of the audience can view the specific content area with designated audience assigned. To accomplish this same behavior without audiences would involve multiple page instances with different security permissions and duplicate content across these pages.

You must compile audiences before use, and they can allow targeting of content at the list or list item level. The following steps demonstrate how to create a new audience from the User Profile Service application and use the audience in targeted areas. Start configuration in Central Administration.

1. Open Central Administration.
2. Click the Manage Applications link.
3. Click the Manage Service Applications link, under Service Applications.
4. Scroll down to the User Profile Service application.
5. Click to the right of the name and then click Manage from the ribbon.
6. From the User Profile Service Admin page, click the link Manage Audiences.
7. The page shown in Figure 5 displays the total existing audiences and any non-compiled audiences.

   

   Figure 5. Audience list

8. Click the New Audience button.
9. Give the audience a name, description, and owner.
10. Decide whether members must satisfy all criteria or some criteria of the rules.
11. Click the OK button.
12. In the next screen, shown in Figure 6, Create a rule based on the value of a user/group property or user association.

    

    Figure 6. Rule creation for an audience

13. In my example, I created a rule that all users of my audience must have the profile property Office set as Rockville.
14. Click the OK button when ready to save your rule.

The Audience Properties page, shown in Figure 7, details the audience you just created and the rule(s) you applied for inclusion of users in the audience. Notice that the status of the audience shows as not compiled. I mentioned earlier that any audience requires compilation. This compilation process allows SharePoint to process the rules and process existing user accounts, such that SharePoint can deliver audience targeted content efficiently for any member of the audience who views a page with targeted content based on this audience. Compilation is an important process; without it, SharePoint would have to process rules for every audience definition applied to targeted content. Compilation provides efficiency because SharePoint has processed rules ahead of time. Of course, this means SharePoint must continually compile audiences as new users join the farm and audience criteria change.

In the prior steps, I demonstrated creating an audience with a single criteria rule—based on a user profile property. Feel free to experiment by adding additional rules for more complex inclusion criteria. With the audience defined, I shall now demonstrate how to compile your audience.

1. Click the Compile Audience link.
2. SharePoint will now include members in the audience that satisfy the audience inclusion criteria.
3. Once compilation completes (without error), click the View Membership link to see all those members in the audience.

Once you complete the compilation of an audience, you may then use this audience to target content to those members for list items and Web Parts. The following steps configure audience targeting for a list:

1. For a list in your site collection, click the List Settings from the ribbon.
2. Click the Audience Targeting Settings link in the General Settings section.
3. Check the check box to enable audience targeting for the list.
4. Click the OK button.

To apply audience targeting for a specific list item, follow these steps:

1. View the properties of the list item.
2. Find the item field named Target Audiences.
3. Choose a compiled target audience and save the item.

Web Parts provide a location in their Web Part properties to assign targeted audiences.