SharePoint 2010 Cookbook: Programmer's Guide to User Profiles, Part 1 - How to Check Admin Rights & Get All UserProfile Properties

This is the first of a four-part series of blog entries in which I will describe how to read and modify SharePoint UserProfile using the SharePoint Object Model.

The series will consist of the following:

Part 1: How to Check Admin Rights and Get All UserProfile Properties
Part 2: How to Get the UserProfile Object
Part 3: How to Update UserProfile Properties
Part 4: How to Push Changes in Active Directory to the SharePoint User Profile

Before we begin, I want to say that for these articles, the knowledge about the User Profile in 2010 has been collected from various blogs, forums, and Microsoft's online documentation. I have pulled them together, provided my own procedures, and have built a working program based on my sample Web Part.

Challenge:

In many situations, you want to check the permissions of a logged-in user. How can you check permissions on SharePoint Server 2007 and SharePoint Server 2010? Specifically, how do you get all properties of the UserProfile object?

Solution:

Let's get started. First, you will need to assign an Administrator for the User Profile Service Application:

Go to your Central Administration site.
Choose "Manage service applications" in the "Application Management" section.
In the Manage service applications page, make sure the status of User Profile Service Application is "Started". Click User Profile Service Application to enable the "Administrator" Ribbon:

Add your Administrator and set "Manager Profiles" permissions for that account:

You should add references to the following in your Microsoft Visual Studio project:

Microsoft.Office.Server
Microsoft.Office.Server.UserProfiles
Microsoft.SharePoint
Microsoft.SharePoint.Portal
Microsoft.SharePoint.Security

In SharePoint 2007, you can use a feature called SiteAccessChecker to check the portal rights:

public bool CheckUserPortalRight()

    //Can't pass Portal enum in since calling function will throw exception if it is run on WSS

    PortalRight portalRight = PortalRight.ManagePeople;

try

        SiteAccessChecker sac = new SiteAccessChecker(this.portalContext, portalRight);

        sac.Demand();

        return true;

    catch (Microsoft.SharePoint.Portal.Security.AccessDeniedException)

        return false;

But in SharePoint 2010, that feature is not available. So, how can we check the portal rights of the logged-in user? I'm using the following method:

public bool CheckUserPortalRight()

    bool flag = true;

try

        UserProfile userInfo = null;

        userInfo = GetUserByAccountName("the account name of login user");

        object obj = userInfo["FirstName"].Value;

        userInfo["FirstName"].Value = obj;

    catch (Exception ex)

        string targetSite = ex.TargetSite.ToString().ToLower();

        if (targetSite.Contains("checkupdatepermissions"))

            flag = false;

    return flag;

Next, how do you get all properties of the User Profile?

SharePoint 2010 gets UserProfileManager by using both SPServiceContext and ServerContext, but I haven't yet determined which way is better. In this article, I use the SPServerContext to get UserProfileManager for SharePoint 2010:

public Microsoft.Office.Server.UserProfiles.PropertyCollection GetUserProperties()

            Microsoft.Office.Server.UserProfiles.PropertyCollection oPropertyCollection = null;

try

                System.Security.PermissionSet ps =

                    new System.Security.PermissionSet(System.Security.Permissions.PermissionState.Unrestricted);

                ps.Assert();

                Microsoft.SharePoint.SPServiceContext serviceContext =

                    Microsoft.SharePoint.SPServiceContext.Current;

                Microsoft.Office.Server.UserProfiles.UserProfileManager upm =

                    new Microsoft.Office.Server.UserProfiles.UserProfileManager(serviceContext);

                oPropertyCollection = upm.PropertiesWithSection;

            catch (Exception ex)

                this.WriteInfoLog("GetUserProperties: " + ex.Message);

            finally

                System.Security.CodeAccessPermission.RevertAssert();

            return oPropertyCollection;

And for SharePoint 2007:

public Microsoft.Office.Server.UserProfiles.PropertyCollection GetUserProperties()

    Microsoft.Office.Server.UserProfiles.PropertyCollection oPropertyCollection = null;

try

        ServerContext context = ServerContext.Current;

        UserProfileManager upm = new UserProfileManager(context);

        oPropertyCollection = upm.PropertiesWithSection;

    catch (Exception ex)

        this.WriteErrorLog("GetUserProperties: " + ex.Message);

    return oPropertyCollection;

Some default properties:

Name	DisplayName
UserProfile_GUID	Id
SID	SID
ADGuid	Active Directory Id
AccountName	Account name
FirstName	First name
LastName	Last name
PreferredName	Name
WorkPhone	Work phone
Office	Office
Department	Department
Title	Title
Manager	Manager
AboutMe	About me
PersonalSpace	Personal site
PictureURL	Picture
UserName	User name
QuickLinks	Quick links
WebSite	Web site
PublicSiteRedirect	Public site redirect
SPS-Dotted-line	Dotted-line Manager
SPS-Peers	Peers
SPS-Responsibility	Responsibilities
SPS-Skills	Skills
SPS-PastProjects	Past projects
SPS-Interests	Interests
SPS-School	Schools
SPS-SipAddress	SIP Address
SPS-Birthday	Birthday
SPS-MySiteUpgrade	My Site Upgrade
SPS-DontSuggestList	Don't Suggest List
SPS-ProxyAddresses	Proxy addresses
SPS-HireDate	Hire date
SPS-LastColleagueAdded	Last Colleague Added
SPS-OWAUrl	Outlook Web Access URL
SPS-ResourceSID	Resource Forest SID
SPS-ResourceAccountName	Resource Forest Account Name
SPS-MasterAccountName	Master Account Name
Assistant	Assistant
WorkEmail	Work e-mail
CellPhone	Mobile phone
Fax	Fax
HomePhone	Home phone

Notes:

User Profile is only available on MOSS 2007 and SharePoint 2010 Server. You cannot use this on Windows SharePoint Services or SharePoint Foundation 2010.
This code may require permissions you don't currently possess. To make these calls, you need to change the trust level from WSS_Custom to Full in web.config (bad solution), or write the following code and put it in your GAC:

SPSUserProfileHelper.cs

using System;

using System.Collections.Generic;

using System.Linq;

using System.Text;

namespace YourNamespace

    [Serializable]

    [Microsoft.SharePoint.Security.SharePointPermission(System.Security.Permissions.SecurityAction.InheritanceDemand,

        ObjectModel = true),

     Microsoft.SharePoint.Security.SharePointPermission(System.Security.Permissions.SecurityAction.Demand,

        ObjectModel = true)]

    public class SPSUserProfileHelper

        public Microsoft.Office.Server.UserProfiles.PropertyCollection YourMethods()

try

                System.Security.PermissionSet ps =

                    new System.Security.PermissionSet(System.Security.Permissions.PermissionState.Unrestricted);

                ps.Assert();

                //Put your code here

            catch (Exception ex)

                //throw something

            finally

                System.Security.CodeAccessPermission.RevertAssert();

See Also:

Configuring the User Profile Service in SharePoint 2010 [sharepointgeorge]
Getting User Profile Properties from SharePoint SSP using PowerShell [SharePoint Dev Wiki]
ProfileValueCollectionBase.CheckUpdatePermissions Method [MSDN]

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