Things to ask the client about before working on My Site

In a MOSS project the RSD may say: “out of the box My Site”, but you have to make sure that the system analyst has asked the client the below questions:

1. Do you really need My Site, or can the requirements be developed?
Sometimes the user just wants to display the user information, but he heared that there is something called MY SITE and he wants it.

2. What is the expected number of users that will create My Site?
The expected number of MY SITEs is very important, as it is a factor of space and performance, as each My Site is a site collection and the default quota is 100 MB for each site. I was working on a project for a big organization that has 15000 users, but for obviously not all of those users will create My Site.

3. Will all the users be able to create "My Site"?
Some organizations like the 15k users case, for obviously not all of them will be able to create My Site as some of them are contractors that are doing a task and will leave after two or three months and may be more, but they will not be allowed to create My Site.

4. Do we need the 100MB for each site?
100MB is a very large space, and may be very small for others, but the expected or the planed size is very important to make your hardware architecture regarding the performance and the storage space and the storage place (this is another question but you will need to answer it yourself, as you may need to create a group of My Sites that belong to a group of users in a place and another group in another place).

5. Do you have only one AD domain or more?
More domains means that a username may be duplicated, so you must configure the settings to take the domain name in site URL, not just the username.

6. What is the authentication type of the OWA, In Case you will use Outlook webparts?
You will need to know this, as the forms authentication will display the login window inside each webpart iframe with a scroll if the webpart size is smaller, you may decide to pass the credentials using JavaScript and submit the form (you have to configure the trusted sites in the browser and make the OWA and the intranet site on the same domain but using a different sub-domains) , also what is the used version of the Exchange Server

7. Is the email address the same as the username?
Some organizations are using username like domain\usr24hr and the email for this user is ramy.fawzy@domain.com for security reasons. In this case take care while working on customizing Outlook webparts automatically to set the exchange server address and the email inbox name.

8. Will you allow the user to select his "My Site" language or not?
In multiple language websites it may be a needed to allow the user to select his My Site interface language. The client may imagine that it can be English/Arabic the same as his portal for example.

9. Do you need to customize in the layout or not?
Some customers ask for My Site, but they don ‘t know that it will not inherit the portal MasterPage, and they will be shocked after the site deployment, so make it clear from the beginning for him and for yourself.