Approval Workflows in Extranet Collaboration Manager for SharePoint 2010 (ExCM) – Part 1 – Basic Approval Workflows

by Matthew McBride

Extranet Collaboration Manager for SharePoint 2010 (ExCM) allows you to create users in three ways:

1.      Manually

2.      Invitation Registration (via e-mail)

3.      Anonymous Registration (potential users visit the Extranet site and click “Sign Up”)

The most common of these is via invitation.  When using invitations, there is most likely an existing business relationship with the invitee and the general thinking is that “if you’re invited, you’re approved.”  However, there may be certain scenarios where you want to add an approval step for invited users as well.

Approval Workflows in Extranet Collaboration Manager for SharePoint 2010 (ExCM) – Part 2 – Advanced Approval Workflow

by Matthew McBride

In Part 1 of this series, we discussed how using workflows along with the Approval feature of Extranet Collaboration Manager for SharePoint 2010  (ExCM) can add an additional layer of security to your site when using both Invitation and Anonymous Registrations.  We also discussed that when using invitations, there is most likely an existing business relationship with the invitee, and in general the thinking would be “if you’re invited, you’re approved.”  But what if we only wanted to approve ANONYMOUS Registrations and allow invited users immediate access to the Extranet site?

SharePoint 2013 Licensing: What is the one thing that would really help customers?

By Jeff Cate, Founder and President, PremierPoint Solutions

This post falls into the “my two cents worth” category.

As most know, starting with the 2007 version of SharePoint, the product is available in three editions. In the 2010 version of SharePoint, those three are SharePoint Foundation, Server Standard, and Server Enterprise.  Microsoft publishes a good comparison of what you get in each edition here for SharePoint 2010.

I think most people know that the Foundation edition of SharePoint does not require any additional license purchase other than Windows Server licenses and Windows Server CALs.  People often talk about the Foundation Edition being “free.”  We could debate whether or not this is really true given that Windows Server licenses are still required, but that debate is not for this post.

Advanced SharePoint Extranet Management: Implementing Extranet Collaboration Manager (ExCM) 2010 Advanced Features – Part 3 - User Automation

by Matthew McBride, SharePoint Solutions

One problem that SharePoint Server Administrators regularly encounter is this:
How can I know when an extranet user from a partner company leaves the company, and how can I avoid accumulating inactive accounts for users that no longer exist that are just “sitting out there?” 

Unfortunately, it is nearly impossible to keep up with the “comings and goings” of extranet users who are employees of partner companies.

But Extranet Collaboration Manager 2010 (ExCM) contains within it the capability of helping our clients with specific extranet user security needs like this. The ExCM User Automation (UA) feature can be used to apply recurring policies to accounts residing in the ExCM user database.  These policies are applied by a SharePoint Timer Job, which periodically inspects each account.  UA can be used to expire user accounts based on attributes such as periods of inactivity or failure to update their password within a specified period, solving the problem of user account “housekeeping.”

The Missing Pieces in Most SharePoint Server Administrators’ Skill Sets

Last year a four-year-old boy made national news when he took his mother’s SUV for a joyride. For a boy his age, he had some impressive driving skills. He managed to maneuver onto a busy Southern California street during rush hour, making his way through several turns and intersections.

Eventually, though, his lack of training caught up with him and he crashed into a fence after crossing into oncoming traffic. Fortunately, the daring lad wasn’t badly hurt, but his mom’s vehicle didn’t fare nearly as well. He had enough skill to get the car running down the street and to make a few panicky turns, but he didn’t have the training to control his speed, keep the SUV headed in the right direction or even stay in his lane.

I often hear students tell me, “I just want to learn to configure and administer SharePoint. I’m the Server Administrator and I’m not going to be involved in the day-to-day business use of it.” Or an IT Manager may tell me, “Kelly is going to be our new SharePoint Server Administrator. She just needs to know how to administer and configure the server—she doesn’t need all that end-user stuff.”

Implementing SharePoint Extranet Collaboration Manager 2010 (ExCM) Advanced Features– Part 2 – Extranet Account Managers

By Matthew McBride

Overview of Extranet Account Managers

In the 2007 version of Extranet Collaboration Manager (ExCM), we received a lot of feedback from customers regarding Site Collection Administrators and their ability to delete external accounts.  Many of them experienced inadvertent user deletion due to the elevated permissions a Site Collection Administrator has by default.

In Extranet Collaboration Manager for SharePoint 2010, users can only be deleted from the following Users tab ribbon in the ExCM Extranet Users menu:

Implementing SharePoint Extranet Collaboration Manager 2010 (ExCM) Advanced Features – Part 1 – Authentication Provider Mapping

By Matthew McBride

Overview of Authentication Provider Mapping

SharePoint Extranet Collaboration Manager 2010 (ExCM) can streamline the experience for users located inside your corporate network by implementing a feature called Authentication Provider Mapping (APM).  This simply maps an IP address to a specific authentication provider.  When APM is enabled and configured, it will determine whether the request for your ExCM page is coming from inside your network or from an external user.  This is achieved by specifying a range of IP addresses belonging to your internal network and then specifying the authentication provider that is to be used (Windows in this case).

Applying Master Pages with Extranet Collaboration Manager 2010

by Matthew McBride, Software Division

Extranet Collaboration Manager 2010  (ExCM) is a SharePoint add-in developed by SharePoint Solutions that streamlines SharePoint extranet collaboration and simplifies SharePoint extranet administration. In ExCM, a master page can be applied to the anonymous pages (registration, sign-in, and password reset) to achieve a desired look and feel.  There are three options when selecting a master page:

• ExCM anonymous master page (vanilla)
• Site default master page
• Custom master page

You should consider two factors when choosing the master page for your site:  branding and anonymous access.  You also need to take into account the anonymous access configuration of your Web Application and the site that will run the anonymous pages.

SharePoint Life Cycle Management

Most organizations lack a formal SharePoint life cycle management process. What frequently happens is a company finds itself facing uncontrolled SharePoint growth. SharePoint quickly becomes a disheveled mass of new sites, old sites, stale sites, and even duplicate sites. Left to their own devices, users begin creating business-critical applications in obscure SharePoint sites that IT doesn’t even know about. Without proper guidance and controls for style, navigation or branding, every team, department and business unit has a site that looks and feels different from everybody else’s. Further complicating the matter, SharePoint users (you know, those folks who have to do their jobs in order to keep the doors open and the paychecks flowing) become disillusioned because the uncontrolled SharePoint growth negatively impacts the relevance of search results, making it more difficult for them to find the content they are looking for. Decision-makers come to realize that without the proper tools, it is costly to manage SharePoint.

SharePoint Governance Plan

Is SharePoint 2010 Governance Planning on your mind?  Not sure where to start? In the Microsoft TechNet topic entitled Plan site creation and maintenance (SharePoint Server 2010), Microsoft is quick to point out that before you deploy and make sites available to users, you will need to answer questions such as:

• Do you want to tightly control site creation or to allow many users to create sites?
• At which level in the site hierarchy should additional sites be created?
• How do you find and remove unused sites in your environment?