Thinking out aloud - Dave Hunter's SharePoint Blog

In SharePoint there are two types of modifications to sites; customisation and personalisation.  Customisation relates to changes for all users, this view of SharePoint is the "shared view".  The Shared View is a standard view of the page available to everyone.  Personalisation relates to a change made by an individual user on a per user basis, this view is the "personal view".

Enabling Personalised Views

Before you can start personalising pages you will need to enabling personalisation for users.  Personalisation features are enabled by granting rights for users in the Shared Services Provider.

Personal Features allows users to personalise pages.  Personal Site allows users to have a MySite.

Please note: If you have NT Authority\Authenticated Users group listed with Personal Features you are allowing all domain users to personalise pages.

Now we have granted users the correct rights for personalisation, lets move onto personalising pages.

Personalising the page (personal views)

1. Navigate to the desired page that you wish to personalise.
2. Click on the "Welcome User Name" down arrow and select "Personalize this page". 
3. The page can now be customised to your needs.
4. After you have finished making changes, click on "exit personal view".

The screenshot below shows a personalised team site homepage with a new webpart for user's tasks.

When you personalise a page it will show up as the default view.  To show the "Shared View" again, click the "Show Shared View".

Resetting page content

1. Navigate to the page that you wish to reset back to the "Shared View".
2. Click on the "Welcome User Name" down arrow and select "Reset Page Content". 
3. Click OK on the dialog.

When navigating back to this page the "Shared View" will be shown as the default (the "Personal View" no longer exists).

The screenshot below shows the shared view of the team site homepage.

Personalisation with WebParts

WebParts have configuration properties, typically these are set by the site collection owner or a user with the correct rights. These settings are applied to the "Shared View". When you create properties for webparts you can set the scope whether they are "Shared" or "User" personalisable properties. For example:

A Shared Property

[Personalizable(PersonalizationScope.Shared),
WebBrowsable(true),
WebDisplayName("RSS Feed Url"),
WebDescription("Location of RSS feed for control to display")]
public string RssFeedUrl
{
  get { return rssFeedUrl; }
  set { rssFeedUrl = value; }
}

A User Personalisable Property

[Personalizable(PersonalizationScope.User),
WebBrowsable(true),
WebDisplayName("Post Content"),
WebDescription("Show Titles or Full body of the post")]
public DisplayMode PostContent
{
  get { return postContent; }
  set { postContent = value; }
}

The enumeration PersonalizationScope controls whether the property is a shared customisation or a user customisation.

Considerations regarding enabling personalisation

Personalisation has a higher cost on performance than customisation.  For each user request SharePoint needs to decide which view to display to the user (whether the user has customised the page and needs to see the "personal view" or "shared view").  Because of this personalisation should be planned for and implemented with a good level of control / caution.

The content database stores shared and personalised versions of pages.  When a page is personalised the user personalised version is stored seperately in the content database to the shared version.  If 10 users personalise the homepage of a team site, the content database will hold 11 versions of the team site homepage (10 user personalised versions and 1 shared version).

MySites are a personalisable area for users.  They are designed for uses to modify and customise to help them carry out their daily jobs.  They have their personal view and shared view.  You should look into utilising MySites instead of enabling personal views, both have pros and cons.

Troubleshooting

• The "Personalize this page" link may not appear if the page is checked out.
• Whilst personalising the page if users can't move webparts between zones you may need to perform the following:
• Verify the webparts have "Allow Close" and "Allow Hide".
• Make sure the webpart zones allow personalization.  This is set using SharePoint Designer.
• If user personalisation breaks the user's view and you can no longer see the page in order to reset the page content, pasting in the following command into the address bar of the web browser will call the same command.

javascript:MSOWebPartPage_RestorePageDefault();

Hope this helps