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SharePoint: Track Changes to the User Information List

Introduction

How do you track the changes in "User Information List" without using any custom code? One way is to enable auditing under site collection administration for "Editing users and permissions". However, this adds an extra load to the database and may result in performance issues. Moreover, this requirement was to track only when a user is added or removed from site collection.

Another approach is to setup alerts. However, the User Information List does not have any options to setup alerts or go to settings as normal lists. So, how can we configure alerts on the list?

Solution 1

  1. Our first requirement is to get the GUID. To get this we queried dbo.Lists table in the content database holding this site collection.

  2. The query should be:

Select tp_ID From Lists with(NoLock)where tp_Title = 'User Information List'
  1. Make a note of this ID.

  2. Now go to any other list in the top site in your site collection and click on Alert Me under Actions.

  3. In the next page in the URL remove the contents after ?List= and add the GUID noted in step 3.

  4. Press enter and now you will find that the fields are populated with User Information List and you can create the alerts.

Solution 2

Regarding to the first comment below:

There is a way to get the GUID without going into the backend.

  1. Go to "All People" in your "People and Groups" list on the front page of your site collection.

2. Click on "Settings" - "List Settings".

3. Now you will find the GUID inbetween "?List=" and "&Source=" after the main URL of the site.

4. Then just follow steps 4, 5 & 6 above.

5. Click on "Alert Me" on any other list. Replace the GUID in that list (between "?List=" and "&Source") with the one you recorded. Now you can set alerts!

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