Create the My Site Web Application
We begin by first creating a Web Application that will eventually house our My Site Host and subsequent site collections.
Navigate to Central Administration / Application Management / Web Applications
Click New
Authentication: Select either Claims or Classic depending on your requirements. I will select “Classic”
IIS Web Site: Create a new IIS web site (enter your details as per your requirements)
Authentication Provider: Select your preferred provider based on your requirements.
Public URL: Specify the URL that users will type to access their My Sites.
Application Pool: Create a new application pool and give it a descriptive name
As we have been utilizing the least privilege model whilst configuring our SharePoint farm in this series, we will click on Register a new managed account and enter the details for our My Site Application Pool Identity. Note: This account will be required to be provisioned in Active Directory before you can proceed. e.g. In my example I have created an account called DOMAIN\sp_mysite.
Click OK
Database Name and Authentication: Specify your Database server and Database name.
Failover Server: Specify your failover server if you are utilising SQL Server database mirroring.
Click OK
You should receive the below confirmation that the Web Application has been successfully created.
Click on our newly created “SharePoint – My Site” Web Application and click on General Settings. Proceed to fill out your Web Application specific settings such as the Default Time Zone etc.
Create the My Site Host Site Collection
Now that we have successfully created our My Site Web Application, we can now proceed to create our My Site Host Site Collection. This will be the top level site that will house our individual user’s site collections.
Navigate to Central Administration / Application Management / Create site collections.
Ensure that the recently created My Site Web Application is selected, enter in a Title and click select the My Site Host Template located under the Enterprise Tab. Lastly, specify your site collection administrators and click OK.
You should then receive confirmation that the top level My Site Host has been successfully created.
Setup My Sites
Now that we have successfully provisioned our My Site Web Application and Top Level Site Collection that will host our My Sites, we can continue to configure our My Site Settings.
Navigate to Central Administration / Application Management / Manage service applications.
Click on User Profiles.
Click on Setup My Sites located under My Site Settings.
Enter the details of your Preferred Search Center if you have one setup already.
Enter the URL of your My Site Host that we have just created in the previous step and the personal site location.
Finally, select your Site Naming format, configure your Language Options, Permissions and My Site Email Notifications.
Click OK.
Add our Managed Path
Because we have specified “personal” as our Personal Site Location, we will need to define our managed path against our My Site Web Application.
Navigate to Central Administration / Application Management / Manage Web Applications.
Click on your My Site Web Application and click on Managed Paths from the Ribbon.
Add “personal” as a Wildcard inclusion, click Add Path and click OK
Enable Self-Service Creation
Our last configuration step provides our users with the privilege to provision their own My Site’s by enabling the Self-Service Creation.
Navigate back to Central Administration / Application Management / Manage Web Applications.
Click on your My Site Web Application and click on Self-Service Site Creation.
Select On and click OK.
If I now browse to my My Site URL I will be presented with the following “What’s New” Page.
It is only until I click on “My Content”, that SharePoint will proceed to create my personal site as per SharePoint 2007.
My Content
As you can see, we have now successfully completed our setup of a My Site Host which will house our user’s My Sites.
We begin by first creating a Web Application that will eventually house our My Site Host and subsequent site collections.
Navigate to Central Administration / Application Management / Web Applications
Click New
Authentication: Select either Claims or Classic depending on your requirements. I will select “Classic”
IIS Web Site: Create a new IIS web site (enter your details as per your requirements)
Authentication Provider: Select your preferred provider based on your requirements.
Public URL: Specify the URL that users will type to access their My Sites.
Application Pool: Create a new application pool and give it a descriptive name
As we have been utilizing the least privilege model whilst configuring our SharePoint farm in this series, we will click on Register a new managed account and enter the details for our My Site Application Pool Identity. Note: This account will be required to be provisioned in Active Directory before you can proceed. e.g. In my example I have created an account called DOMAIN\sp_mysite.
Click OK
Database Name and Authentication: Specify your Database server and Database name.
Failover Server: Specify your failover server if you are utilising SQL Server database mirroring.
Click OK
You should receive the below confirmation that the Web Application has been successfully created.
Click on our newly created “SharePoint – My Site” Web Application and click on General Settings. Proceed to fill out your Web Application specific settings such as the Default Time Zone etc.
Create the My Site Host Site Collection
Now that we have successfully created our My Site Web Application, we can now proceed to create our My Site Host Site Collection. This will be the top level site that will house our individual user’s site collections.
Navigate to Central Administration / Application Management / Create site collections.
Ensure that the recently created My Site Web Application is selected, enter in a Title and click select the My Site Host Template located under the Enterprise Tab. Lastly, specify your site collection administrators and click OK.
You should then receive confirmation that the top level My Site Host has been successfully created.
Setup My Sites
Now that we have successfully provisioned our My Site Web Application and Top Level Site Collection that will host our My Sites, we can continue to configure our My Site Settings.
Navigate to Central Administration / Application Management / Manage service applications.
Click on User Profiles.
Click on Setup My Sites located under My Site Settings.
Enter the details of your Preferred Search Center if you have one setup already.
Enter the URL of your My Site Host that we have just created in the previous step and the personal site location.
Finally, select your Site Naming format, configure your Language Options, Permissions and My Site Email Notifications.
Click OK.
Add our Managed Path
Because we have specified “personal” as our Personal Site Location, we will need to define our managed path against our My Site Web Application.
Navigate to Central Administration / Application Management / Manage Web Applications.
Click on your My Site Web Application and click on Managed Paths from the Ribbon.
Add “personal” as a Wildcard inclusion, click Add Path and click OK
Enable Self-Service Creation
Our last configuration step provides our users with the privilege to provision their own My Site’s by enabling the Self-Service Creation.
Navigate back to Central Administration / Application Management / Manage Web Applications.
Click on your My Site Web Application and click on Self-Service Site Creation.
Select On and click OK.
If I now browse to my My Site URL I will be presented with the following “What’s New” Page.
It is only until I click on “My Content”, that SharePoint will proceed to create my personal site as per SharePoint 2007.
My Content
As you can see, we have now successfully completed our setup of a My Site Host which will house our user’s My Sites.
