Manage Shared Services (SSP) Administrators

How do I give an administrator his (or hers :0) Shared Services (SSP) permissions?

1. Login into the SSP admin site.
2. Add the user just like you would to any other site. Click Site Actions -> Site Settings
3. Under Users and Permissions click Advanced permissions
4. Click New -> Add Users
5. Enter your user and put them in the Viewers group and hit OK

i Note!
Now your user can log into the SSP and manage search settings, the Excel Service
Settings, and can view the various links list.

How do you give them more permissions? In order to do that you need to give them some more access:
1. Under User Profiles and My Sites click Personalization services permissions.
2. Click Add Users/Groups
3. Enter your users name select which permissions you would like to bestow upon them and click Save.

i Note!
What are all of these different permissions?

Create personal site gives the user the capability to create and use a My Site. Denying this permission makes the My Site link disappear take away this right from the users. All authenticated users were given this right by default.

Use personal features is not further discussed, but essentially this provides the My Links functionality and allows users to manage their Colleagues.

Manage user profiles this allows users to manage user profiles. Granting this permission lets users modify the profiles for this SSP. When you give users this right, they can access the links: User profiles and properties, Profile services policies, and My Site Settings.

Manage audiences lets a users click that handy little Audiences link. Once users are granted this permission you can set the schedule or define the rules for building global audiences.

Manage permissions this will let users modify Personalization services permissions. This is the same permission that’s needed to change these settings.

Manage usage analytics this gives the user access to make changes to Usage reporting. This feature contains a small bug. If the user doesn't have this right they can still open up the screen. Then if they make a change and hit ok they get a 403
forbidden error.

If you have MOSS Enterprise users still can't manage the BDC.
1. Click Business Data Catalog permissions from the main screen of the SSP
2. Click Add Users/Groups
3. Enter your user, select their permissions and click Save

Source: The SharePoint Farmer's Almanac