I am trying to customise users profiles so that the profile database can be nursed into becoming the corporate directory. Once I have setup the profile properties I can configure some custom search pages to give a pretty good corporate directory. However I have come across some pretty major limitations that I can't seem to get around.
1. Profile Syncing is one way, from AD to MOSS. If I let a user update their own information (all users should be able to update all their own details) then this will not be sync'd back to AD and the next import could overwrite the user entered data. Because of this, we probably won't store this user data in AD, but just pull in basic uneditable information (such as account and email details) and use MOSS at the authoritative source for everything else (not my personal preference, but not many choices without AD write back). This will require me to go through all profile properties and remove their bindings to AD fields, a long laborious job!
2. Reordering the Profile Properties is a right royal pain in the backside. Moving items up and down one by one with a refresh in between clicks takes foooooooorrrrevvvveeeeerrr.... I have written a small Windows App to make this a bit quicker that I will make available on CodePlex when I tidy a couple of bits up and add in support for editing sections and not just properties.
3. Changing the default properties. A lot of the default properties are locked so I cannot edit them. A Key example is Office. I have a choice list that I want users to select from, but since this was implemented at set to inherit from AD I cannot modify this Property to allow a choice list. I also am unable to delete it so I can create my own Office Property. My only option left is to disable the default property and create a new one with a different name, since Office will be used. Rubbish, what a waste of space and storage. Does anyone know how I can unlock these properties to make use of them?
4. Deploying Profile Settings between environments. There is no way that I know at the moment of deploying profile property settings between environments, which opens the door to days of manual editing to synchronize the settings between multiple environments. I will also guarantee that some errors or mis-configurations WILL get incorporated into this process. We are humans after all. Chris O'Brien has made a start on some code to move properties between environments, but this needs a bit more work, such as exporting sections and maintaining these section / relationship properties. I will endeavor to extend this and include it in the Profile Manager windows app I mentioned above.
5. User Profile Editing Page. Since I will have a lot of Profile Properties, and they are grouped into Sections, the Mange profile page for users ignores these sections completely. So they just have one long page of options. I will need to create a custom manage profile page to implement a reasonable user experience.