Tracy van der Schyff

#Office365Challenge While we’re on web parts, let’s chat about applying target audience on Lists and Libraries – and the items in them.

Target Audience allows you to set the audience for a List or Library and then of course the items inside that list or library.

Now I’m not a fan of permissions on item levels – because people lose sight of who’s got access to what. But I am pleasantly surprised by the target audiences. I’ll tell you why in a bit.

To use Target Audience on a list or library, go to the Settings Page > Audience Targeting Settings:

Here you have to enable it:

Once enabled, you are now able to set a target audience on a specific item. Click on the ellipses next to the item, click on the second ellipses, then click on Properties:

You will now see the “Target Audience” field as part of the form:
What’s really nice is that it now displays this field as well when new content is uploaded – so you can immediately apply the target audience.

Even better, you can now add this as a column in your view, so it will be visible who the target audience is – that’s what bothered me about permissions on items. It’s not “visible”.

Keep in mind, target audience is not permissions, if the user has the URL to the item they will still be able to open it. This is about visibility – not permissions.

Note:  I’ve tested this on the New Look libraries as well as the old. Navigation is a bit different, you can still switch on the Audience Targeting in the Library settings. In the library when you select the document though – you need to open the “info panel” on the right to see the properties. You still won’t see the field here, you need to click on “Edit all” to open the form:

Here you can add the Target Audience:

Join me tomorrow when I’ll chat about Target Audiences on Navigation links.

Overview of my challenge: As an absolute lover of all things Microsoft, I’ve decided to undertake the challenge, of writing a blog every single day, for the next 365 days. Crazy, I know. And I’ll try my best, but if I cannot find something good to say about Office 365 and the Tools it includes for 365 days, I’m changing my profession. So let’s write this epic tale of “Around the Office in 365 Days”. My ode to Microsoft Office 365.

Keep in mind that these tips and tricks do not only apply to Office 365 – but where applicable, to the overall Microsoft Office Suite and SharePoint.