How to setup alerts on User Information List in Sharepoint

Hi,

I got a request where a site collection administrator wanted to track the changes in "User Information List" without using any custom code. The very first way is to enable auditing under site collection administration for "Editing users and permissions". However this will fill the database and will result in performance issues. So this was not acceptable to the site administrators. Moreover his requirement was to track only when a user is added or removed from site collection. Hence we approached to setup the alerts.

When we reached to the User Information List we do not find any option to setup alerts or go to setting etc as normal lists.

Now we used the following method to get it through:
1. Our first requirement was 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'
3.Make a note of this ID.
4. Now go to any other list in the top site in your site collection and click on Alert Me under Actions.
5. In the next page in URL remove the contents after ?List= and add the GUID noted in step 3.
6. Press enter and now you will find that the fields are populated with User Information List and you can create the alerts.

I hope this will help you out.

Thanks,
Rahul Rashu