Access denied – when trying to Open Shared Service Provider “Audiences” Link in MOSS 2007

Recently I discovered an interesting behavior with Shared Service providers when I was setting up a new environment. I’m the farm administrator and has been added to the policy for the SSP, as well as the site collection owner, but when I click on User Profiles in SSP, I got “Access Denied”

I tried the following settings:

1. Added my self to the Farm Administrator’s group
2. Site collection admin for SSP Web App
3. Central Admin->Application Management-> Policy for Web Application (I chose Full Control)

hmm. No luck. 

Finally, figured out the Problem is my account has not been added with Personalization services permissions.

So the Solution is:

Create a Web Application Policy with FULL control for SSP web application. Also, Click on Personalization Services Permissions in SSP, Add the account and give Manage User Profiles permissions.