Configuring User Profiles and Social Computing

Configuring User Profiles & Social Computing

What’s new in Enterprise Social

SharePoint 2013 has social networking features such as microblogging, posting to an activity feed, liking posts, communities, and targeting users. As well as several additional features that make it very attractive to enterprises that want to implement some sort of enterprise social capability.

Some of these new features include:

-          My Sites

-          Distributed Cache

-          Communities

-          User Profile Synchronization

-          User Profile Replication Engine

My Sites

In SharePoint 2013, My Sites have a new look, some improved capability of the activity feed, new functionality in the form of SkyDrive Pro, and some significant infrastructure changes.

My Sites include three different sets of components:

-          A Web application, content databases, and services

-          A My Sites host site collection

-          A Personal site collection

a)      Activity Feed

With SharePoint 2013, the new activity feed finally supports two-way conversations; therefore, it is more fully functional microblogging environment.

A big change from SharePoint 2010 is that all activity feed content is stored in the user’s personal site, and this content is stored in one or more content databases. This means every user needs to have a personal site to use this capability.

b)      Hashtags

A Hashtag (#) is simply a keyword or topic that can be added to a microblog entry to enable other users to consume and filter content from the activity feed.

In SharePoint 2013, hashtags can be followed as well as searched and the tagging capability has been enhanced with this new hashtag capability in the activity feed.

c)       Personal Site

The personal site collection is also a site collection, just like the My Site host site collection. This site contains the two different SharePoint lists that contain the activity feed information, the SkyDrive Pro page and content, a page displaying the documents being followed, and a page displaying the sites being followed.

d)      SkyDrive Pro

It is a private, personal file storage for the enterprise. SkyDrive Pro(SDP) provides a central location for storing all a user’s documents, and sharing them with other employees.

In addition to the SharePoint library, there is also a desktop application called SkyDrive Pro that is installed when Office 2013 is installed on the user’s desktop.

The library and desktop application work together to deliver the following functionality:

-          An improved user interface and easer process for sharing documents with other people in the organization.

-          Synchronization of the SkyDrive Pro library to your computer or mobile device.

Distributed Cache

New to SharePoint 2013, the Distribution Cache service provides caching to various features in SharePoint 2013. This service is built on top of Windows Server AppFabric, which is installed as one of the SharePoint 2013 prerequisites. If you plan to use activity feeds, you farm must have the Distributed Cache service enabled. This cache temporarily stores the microblog entries so that they are immediately available to others in the environment.

Communities

SharePoint 2013 introduces a new site template called Community Site. This template builds upon the standard site template by adding a specifically tailored, moderated discussion board that helps to facilitate conversations between members of the community.

Another new template associated with communities is the community portal template. This enterprise site template provides results for any sites that uses the community site template in the SharePoint farm.

SharePoint introduces another new feature in the social toolbox, Reputation. Reputation enables users to find and engage experts, and encourages enterprise-wide social media adoption. An important part of the reputation system is badging, where a site owner can configure automatically assigning a badge to users when they reach an achievement level, or users can manually assign badges to other users.

User Profile Synchronization

SharePoint 2013 introduces a new option for synchronizing user profiles from Active Directory. Called Active Directory Import, this capability is like SharePoint 2007 import process.

User Profile Synchronization using Forefront Identity Manager(FIM) is still available in SharePoint 2013.  

User Profile Replication Engine

The only real change to the User Profile Replication Engine is that it has been absorbed by the SharePoint team. This means that it is included with the other SharePoint 2013 components and therefore doesn’t require a separate download. Presumably, this also means that it will be given a little more attention in the future if updates or changes are needed.

Managing and Configuring profile synchronization

The User Profile Service in SharePoint 2013 is a shared service just as it was in SharePoint 2010, and it enables administrators to create and edit user profiles.

User Profile Service Application (UPSA) web page in Central Administration is shown below

Profile Synchronization

User profile information represents a collection of properties or attributes of the user, My Sites, search, Azure Workflow, and the new server-to-server authentication all rely on user profiles. For this information to be available, the user profile data must be imported into SharePoint.

Choosing a Synchronization Method

Summarizing the synchronizing options available to the administrator. Choosing Sync options as shown below:

SharePoint 2013 Synchronization Options

OPTION	DESCRIPTION
SharePoint Profile Synchronization	Full-featured option using FIM. This option allows two-way synchronization and the use of BCS to augment property import. This approach is more difficult to set up and slower than Active Directory Import
Active Directory Import	This approach is easy to set up and very fast compared to other options. Only one-way Active Directory Import is supported, and you can use LDAP filters for users and groups. This approach allows one connection per domain, and custom property mapping for simple data types. Mapping to SharePoint system properties and BCS import is not supported.
External Identity Manager	This approach disables profile synchronization features from SharePoint. You must use a custom solution that utilizes the SharePoint API to create user profiles

a)      Active Directory Import

The Active Directory Import(ADI) synchronization method provide administrators with a new option for syncing profiles. One of the benefits of choosing this method is that you don’t have to provision the User Profile Synchronization Service. This synchronization process runs entirely in the context of the User Profile Service application.

In general, ADI is configured in three steps:

-          Selecting ADI as the sync option

-          Creating a connection

-          Mapping user profile properties

Creating a connection:

The final configuration steps involve mapping user properties in the user directory to SharePoint properties. Once completed, the farm administrator can initiate an incremental or full sync from the start profile synchronization page. The sync is initiated by choosing one of the following:

-          Start Full Synchronization: Use this if syncing for the first time or if connections have been added or modified since the last sync

-          Start Incremental Synchronization: Use this to synchronize only information that has changed since the last sync

b)     SharePoint Profile Synchronization

-         Configuring the User Profile Synchronization Service

The first step in the process requires configuring an Active Directory user account that will be used to perform the sync. This account needs to be granted “Replicating Directory Changes” permissions on the domain. Once this is done, you need to perform two other tasks to ensure that the User Profile Synchronization Service starts correctly:

1.       Ensure that the farm account is a member of the Local Administrators group on the server that hosts the synchronization service

2.       Ensure that the farm account has been granted “Allow log on locally” right in the local security policy on the server that hosts the synchronization service

Then begin the process of starting the User Profile Synchronization service

-         Configuring the Synchronization Connection

-         Editing Connection Filters

Common Exclusion Filters

ATTRIBUTE	OPERATOR	FILTER	DESCRIPTION
userAccountControl	Bit on equals	2	Excludes accounts that have been marked as disabled
userAccountControl	Bit on equals	17	Excludes accounts whose passwords never expire
Mail	Is not present		Excludes accounts that do not have an e-mail address

Below is the configuration of exclusion filters for users

-     Configuring the User Profile Image Export

-      Managing User Properties

Property mapping is one of the steps involved in the profile import or sync process. User properties are mapped to SharePoint properties, and this constitutes the SharePoint user profile. User properties are comprised of the attributes or fields associated with the database of users in the organization. This information is stored in a directory service, such as Active Directory.  

     

Creating a new sub type as shown below

-         Managing User Profiles

-         Managing Policies

-         Managing User Subtypes

Organization Profiles

The concept of organization profiles in the User Profile Service Application is like the user profiles, with the difference that organization properties are related to the entire organizations. Organization subtypes can be used to more granularly categorize multiple organizations, such as a company’s major divisions or subsidiaries. This capability is still supported in SharePoint 2013, but only for backward compatibility; companies are encouraged to focus on user profiles.

Audiences

SharePoint audiences are used to target content to specific sets of users. Audiences are not a security setting, but a filtering mechanism used to display pertinent information to specific people. Audiences can only be used to their full advantage when the user data is accurate in the user profiles. Whether this information comes from Active Directory or another line-of-business directory service such as PeopleSoft, accurate and up-to-date profile data is imperative. The following is a list of places in SharePoint 2013 where audiences are applicable:

-          Personalization site links

-          Publish links to Office client applications

-          Web Parts

-          Web Part pages

-          Navigation links

a)      Configuring Audiences

b)      Audience Targeting Rules and Logic

c)       Audience Compilation

d)      Targeting Content to Audiences

Managing and Configuring My Sites

SharePoint 2013 reorganizes how users access their newsfeeds and other social networking capabilities. SharePoint 2013 divides the My Site in to two sites, a personal site that includes SkyDrive Pro for documents sharing, and a newsfeed site for social networking, task management, and other functions.

a)      Configuring My Sites

     A user’s My Site is a site collection, and each user is the site collection owner of his or her My Site. My Sites architecture includes a web application that hosts My Sites, a My Site host site collection, the user’s personal site collections, and several required service applications.

-          Dedicated Web Application

-          My Site Host Site Collection

-          Setting Up My Sites

-          Enabling the Activity Feed Job

-          Trusted My Site Host Locations

-          Promoted Sites

-          Publishing Links to Office Client Applications

-          Managing Social Tags and Notes

-          Manage Following

b)     SkyDrive Pro

Managing and Configuring Communities

Communities provide an environment that encourages open communication between people who want to share their expertise and get help from others who share their common interests. Many different types of communities can be created, such as the following examples:

-          Communities of practice

-          Communities of purpose

-          Communities of interest

-          Communities of social interaction

a)      Community Templates

b)     Creating and Using Community Sites