SharePoint 2010: Disabling “I Like It” and “Tags & Notes”

 

In my SharePoint governance classes I often say that you should not release a SharePoint feature until you have a plan for it…

• is governance required (is there a risk through misuse)?
• who will support it”
• how will you train users?
• what’s the impact on performance?

So what about:

   

 

In SharePoint 2010 this topic often comes up around the new social features, including “I Like It” and “Tags & Notes”. So until you have a “plan”, how can you disable these features?

 

Hide the Ribbon Links

One step might be to disable the “I Like It” and “Tags & Notes” in the ribbon. Just keep in mind that this is done at the farm level, so you will be removing it for everyone. This part of the ribbon is implemented as a feature named “Social Tags and Note Board Ribbon Controls”, so all you need to do is disable the feature from Central Administration or by using PowerShell. See the following TechNet article for details:

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ee721062.aspx

 

Disable the feature for selected users and groups

A better option might be to disable “I Like It” and “Tags & Notes” for selected users by changing a permission. I had expected to find this “permission” in the list of user and group permissions, but this one is part of Profile Services.

Here’s the TechNet article:

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ee721064.aspx

 

Central Administration

–> Application Management section

    –> Manage service applications

      –> User Profile Service Application link.

         –> in the People section, click Manage User Permissions.

 

 

Note system administrators will still see the “I Like It” and “Tags & Notes”. Users, Site Owners and  Site Collection Administrators will not, unless granted access in Profile Services.

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