Social Tagging and Clouding – Part 2

In this post, we are going to discuss more on social features of SharePoint 2010. If you have not gone through part 1 of this, then I would recommend you reading it first and then continue reading here on.

We are going to see privacy and security features in social features. There are three key features available in SharePoint 2010 for privacy and security. Privacy related to an individual user’s data and security is related to organization related data.

1) Private Tag
2) Security trimming
3) Rating control

Let’s see each option in details.

1) Private tagging

We can define tag to be private or public when we are tagging any item. Private tags as name suggest are visible to only individual users. If the tag is public, it can be seen by all authenticated users.

2) Rating control

Rating control shows us the aggregated rating. It does not show a rating given by individual user and what rating given by individual rating.

3) Security Trimming

When any user adds tag, note or rate any item, it creates an activity inside SharePoint. SharePoint 2010 uses security trimming feature while displaying these activities. If a user does not have permission to view a web page, it does not show the activity.


Where can we see all these social tagging features in SharePoint? Well, the answer is very simple. We can see them on individual user’s profile page; result of following a tag and on a web page.

1) My Profile Page

When a user views my profile page of his / her own, then user can view the entire information about him / her, However when user views some other user’s my profile page, then the security trimming comes into a picture to display information.
When you view Tags and Notes of your own, then you view every tag in the cloud that you have defined. However in other tags and notes you can view only tags that are defined as public. Notes are by default public, so you can view all notes by other user as well.

When you select any tag, then all activities which are associated with this tag displays on a page. When you view an activity page, then that is also security trimmed.

Overview tab inside my profile page shows all activities done by a user and again that is security trimmed. If you are viewing of your own, then there is no restriction; however when you view of someone else’s then it is a security trimmed.

2) Following

You can follow a specific tag that you are interested in. you are notified when someone adds a tag to a web page. Again this notification is security trimmed. That means if someone adds a tag on a web page on which you do not have an access, then you do not get a notification.

When you add a person as a colleague, then you can get notification every time your colleague adds a tag to a web page.

3) Web Page

You can view all public tags defined on a web page and all notes defined on a page. Notes are always public.

Read Social Tagging and Clouding Part-3 for more reading.