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Americo Perez's avatar
Americo Perez
Iron Contributor
Jan 24, 2019

Configuring My Site in SharePoint 2016 on prem, help!

Hi,

Today I was presented to a SP 2016 on prem with an webapplication used to host My sites. 

The customer asked me how to disable or block the site settings link that exists in the gear link (to the left of the username) when a user is visiting his My site page, the customer does't want that the user goes into site settings page and if is possible disabled the other links inside the gear link too (site content, etc...)

He also asked me how to hide/disable the Blog and Apps links from the quicklaunch. Is that possible?

 

Right now the customer has tried to hide the links by injecting a custom css to the master page but I think that should be a better way to do it. I am thinking what would happen if MS launch an update and the classes and id used on the css file are changed. The css will stop doing its jobb. 

 

Best regards

Americo

  • Hey Americo! I think it all comes down to permission in this caso. First, if your users can see the site settings option, they probably have Edit permissions in the site, which isn't ideal. You should make sure common are inserted in the Site Members group. Usually this group has Collaboration permission. I just tested in my tenant and my user with this permission coouldn't see the site settings options. Using CSS or modifying the master page to hide content can be tricky, so I wouldn't recommend that.
    Go to Site Settings > People and Groups > If the page is showing a specific group rather than the list of groups, hit the More button at the left pane. That will give you the list of groups in the site. From there you can edit permissions for each group and insert users in them. Also, you can go to Site Settings > Site Permissions and click the "Check Permissions" button at the top pane to see which permissions a specific user or group has, and what is granting its permissions.

    Regards,.
    • Americo Perez's avatar
      Americo Perez
      Iron Contributor

      Hi again,

       

      I was all this morning trying to manage permissions in the My site but I can't make it works :-(

       

      I took some screenshots to illustrate better what I am trying to do: 

      I took a sample user, Hernan Perez, which I created in AD. I have not done anything else to this user, I haven't managed permission in any way. Just created it in AD. 

       

      The first printscreen shows how Hernan sees its "About Me" site: 

      The red marks shows what I want disabled/hide so he doesn't use it. 

       

      This second printscreen show his "One Drive" site:

      Here, as you can see, the user Hernan has given Admin permissions, that's why he can see the site settings link. I don't want that this user has access to the site settings page. 

      I took a look to the site settings page logged in with the same account and the to the permission's settings and surprise, Hernan was given Full access to the One drive site: 

      What I don't understand is that I, as the web application admin, I've never managed the permissions for this user, how can he get Full access? 

      The web application that host the personal sites has the Self site creation activated as the settings are the standard one. 

      I was testing what you said about create a new permission policy in this web application but I didn't find any settings that acomodates to my needs (allow the user upload, read, edit documents in one drive site but without Full access permissions).

       

      This is a Sharepoint 2016 on prem environment by the way. 

       

      Best regards

      Americo

      • Trevor Seward's avatar
        Trevor Seward
        MVP
        The user has Site Collection Admin access for their own MySite, this is why they can do "anything".

        This is by design. Customizing MySites is no longer supported, as well.
    • Americo Perez's avatar
      Americo Perez
      Iron Contributor

      Hi Carlis,

       

      thanks for your answer, I will check the settings you mentioned during this weekend. 

       

      Have a nice weekend,

      Americo 

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