Configuring the User Profile Service
The user profile service application is
the life blood of the user and social experience in SharePoint. Even if
you feel tempted to skip this service application because you think you
don’t need it, every SharePoint farm should have the user profile
service set up and configured. There are numerous fun reasons why
you should be excited about what this service application brings to the
table. Although you need to perform a lot of little steps in order to
get the service application provisioned properly before you can import
profiles, if you did this with your SharePoint 2010 farm the process
remains the same.
Before you provision the service application, you
need to create a My Site web application and a My Site host site
collection. You will create the web application as http://my.contoso.com:
1. In Central Administration, click Application Management from the left-hand menu.
2. Under Web Applications, click Manage web applications.
3. From the Ribbon, click New.
4. Ensure that the port is 80.
5. For Host Header, type in my.contoso.com. Remember that whatever you use for a host header needs to resolve in DNS.
6. For authentication, leave the defaults of Integrated Windows authentication and NTLM.
7. Scroll down to the Application Pool section and select Create new application pool.
8. For Application pool name, set it to Default SharePoint Web App Pool or any other fancy name you like.
9. In the Select a security account for this application pool, select Configurable.
10. From the
drop-down menu, select Contoso\SP_WebApp. If that name doesn’t appear
in your list, then you need to return to the section, “Creating a
Managed Account,” as you skipped a step.
11. Scroll down to Database Name and set it to WSS_Content_My.
12. Leave everything else at their default, scroll to the bottom of the page, and click OK.
Now create the host site collection:
1. When the
Application Created page pops up, don’t click OK. At the bottom of the
window, in blue, is a link to Create Site Collection. Click that.
2. In the Create Site Collection dialog, enter Contoso My Sites for Title.
3. For URL, accept the default of http://my.contoso.com.
4. For Select a template, click the Enterprise tab.
5. From the list of templates, select My Site Host.
6. You should
always have both a primary and a secondary site collection
administrator. In this example, for primary User name: enter Contoso\sp_install. For secondary site collection administrator User name:, enter Contoso\Administrator.
7. Scroll to the bottom of the page and click OK. Then click OK again when the Site successfully created window appears.
For the web application, you need to also enable self-service site creation to allow users to create their own personal site:
1. In the list of web applications, click SharePoint - my.contoso.com80.
2. From the Ribbon, click Self-Service Site Creation.
3. For Site Collection, click On.
4. Leave all the other settings at their default and click OK.
Now that the web application and site collection
are ready to go, you can create the actual service application. The
main point here is to ensure you don’t end up with ugly database names.
1. Return to Manage service applications (Application Management ⇒ Manage service applications).
2. Click the New button in the Ribbon.
3. From the menu, select User Profile Service Application.
4. For Name:, enter User Profile Service.
5. For Application Pool, select Use existing application pool.
6. From the drop-down, select Default SharePoint Service App Pool.
7. Scroll down to Profile Database section and for Database Name enter User_Profile_DB.
The purpose of this step is to eliminate spaces (which break your DBA’s
scripts) in your database names. Putting User_ in front of all the
database names keeps them together in SQL Management Studio. This isn’t
required but it will prove handy.
8. Scroll down to Synchronization Database, and for Database Name enter User_Sync_DB.
9. Scroll down to Social Tagging Database, and for Database Name enter User_Social_DB.
10. Scroll down to My Site Host URL, and enter the URL of the site collection you created previously. In this example, use http://my.contoso.com.
11. Accept all the other defaults and click Create.
12. When the Site successfully created window appears, click OK.
Now start the service:
1. Switch to the IE tab for Services on Server.
2. Find User Profile Service and then click Start to the right of it.
At this point you may be wondering how to disable
the creation of personal sites by your users. It’s a fair question,
because personal sites can be a breeding ground for craziness if left
unchecked. You don’t want users using their personal site for work that
should be stored and managed in a departmental location. For most new
SharePoint deployments, this feature is best left to phase 2. Keep in
mind that if you do disable personal sites, users will not be able to
use the social features of SharePoint. If disabling the user’s
capability to create a personal site sounds like a good idea to you,
then follow these steps:
1. From the Manage service applications page, click User Profile Service. Remember to click the first one in the list.
2. It is very
likely you will get an error, depending on your farm topology and
SharePoint’s mood. If you do, then you need to do an IISReset on the
SharePoint server hosting Central Administration. If that’s unclear,
then rebooting that server works also.
3. Now that
you have found your way to the Manage Profile Service: User Profile
Service page, find the People section and click Manage User
Permissions.
As shown in Figure 14,
by default Authenticated Users have the permission of Create Personal
Site. To disable My Sites you would deselect that permission for both
user groups and click OK. Note that this action also disables personal
storage, which is what you likely wanted, but it also removes newsfeeds
and followed content. Therefore, weigh this decision before doing
anything rash.
Again navigate back to the Manage service application page. Only three more service applications to go.
Visio Graphics Service
This fabulous service application
enables users to embed Visio diagrams on the page so they can be viewed
by someone without Visio and also provides for those diagrams to have
external data connections that can be refreshed. This service
application is considered one of the many SharePoint BI tools.
Follow these steps to create this service application:
1. From the Manage service applications screen, click the New button in the Ribbon.
2. From the menu, select Visio Graphics Service.
3. For Name, enter Visio Services.
4. Scroll down to Application Pool and select Use existing application pool.
5. From the drop-down, select Default SharePoint Service App Pool.
6. Leave the “Create a Visio Graphics Service Application Proxy and add it to the default proxy group” checked and click OK.
Now start the service:
1. Switch to the IE tab for Services on Server.
2. Find Visio Graphics Service and then click Start to the right of it.
Now you are ready to use Visio services. Note
that there are a few settings for tuning the diagrams you display and
such like. In addition, if you plan to work with data connections, you
will need to look at the Trusted Data Providers section and possibly
provide an unattended account.
Word Automation Service
The Word automation service is used to
automate the conversion of Word documents into other formats. This
isn’t something that just magically happens; it generally requires
developer involvement to make it all run well. As an administrator, you
just need to create the service application, letting other people
handle the automation. This service application is considered highly
optional in your farm.
Follow these steps to create the service application:
1. From the Manage service applications screen, click the New button in the Ribbon.
2. From the menu, select Word Automation Services.
3. For Name, enter Word Automation Service.
4. Scroll down to Application Pool and select Use existing application pool.
5. From the drop-down, select Default SharePoint Service App Pool.
6. Check the box for “Add this service application’s proxy to the farm’s default proxy list.”
7. At the bottom of the page click Next.
8. For Database Name, enter Word_Automation_DB.
9. At the bottom of the page click Finish.
Now start the service:
1. Switch to the IE tab for Services on Server.
2. Find Word Automation Services and then click Start to the right of it.
Work Management Service Application
This final service application, new to
SharePoint 2013, is used to combine the tasks throughout your farm and
beyond and then expose them on your My Site. The beyond might include
Exchange 2013 or Project Server 2013. This cool feature enables users
to keep track of all of those pesky tasks they have been overlooking
(or ignoring).
Even better, no real configuration is required by the administrator; just create the service application as follows:
1. From the Manage service applications screen, click the New button in the Ribbon.
2. From the menu, select Work Management Service Application.
3. For Name, enter Work Management Service.
4. Scroll down to Application Pool and select Use existing application pool.
5. From the drop-down, select Default SharePoint Service App Pool.
6. Leave the box checked for “Create a proxy for this service application?” and click OK.
Now start the service:
1. Switch to the IE tab for Services on Server.
2. Find Work Management Service and then click Start to the right of it.
