Category: SharePoint 2010

Microsoft SharePoint 2010

Network Topology Add-In for Visio 2010

On March 16, 2012

In SharePoint 2010

Spence Harbar mentioned this topic on his blog briefly but I didn’t fully understand what he was talking about. I thought it was simply an add-in to Visio 2010 for SharePoint-specific shapes to incorporate into my next SharePoint network topology Visio. I could always use more cute and helpful shapes in my Shapes menu. I was wrong.

This add-in enables SharePoint administrators to create and publish dynamically refreshing Visio Services diagrams to monitor the performance of their infrastructure.

Use this add-in to simplify the maintenance and troubleshooting of your Microsoft SharePoint farm infrastructure. This add-in delivers a near real-time, online view of the status of your SharePoint farm, its servers, and their services using Microsoft Visio 2010 and Visio Services in Microsoft SharePoint Server 2010.

Click here to download the add-in and the corresponding timer job that updates the content.

This is a value-add for us SharePoint administrators to offer both our business leaders and our IT bosses.

Another hidden feature: the user list

By Doug

On March 15, 2012

In SharePoint 2010

After finding the hidden “set up groups” page that was openly available in MOSS 2007, I was reminded of another feature from the past that’s now hidden, but available, in SharePoint 2010: the user list. In a site collection or site, when you go to look at the Users, you are only given the various user groups to choose from but not a comprehensive list of ALL site users and their respective rights. But it’s there. Simply append this url:

…/_catalogs/users/simple.aspx

Note: This list is only visible to and accessible by administrators.

[The above information was gleaned from Tobias Zimmergren’s site.]

Setting up default groups in SharePoint 2010

By Doug

On March 15, 2012

In SharePoint 2010

In MOSS, you could use the “Set up groups” option within a site to create and assign the default Member, Owner, and Visitor groups.

In 2010, the “Set up groups” link does not appear.

The “Set up Groups for this Site” page is hidden for SharePoint 2010. You can still get to this page by url:

…/_layouts/permsetup.aspx

[The above was excerpted from this technet article.]

Integrating AD RMS with SharePoint 2010

By Doug

On March 13, 2012

In AD RMS, SharePoint 2010

After I finally got AD RMS up and running, the next task was then to integrate it with SharePoint 2010. This seemed simple:

1. Go into Central Admin in SharePoint 2010 on a Web Front End (WFE) Server,

2. Click Security,

3. In the section Information Policy, click Configure information rights management,

4. Choose one of the three options:

Do not use IRM on this server
Use the default RMS server specified in Active Directory
Use this RMS server (it then allows you to type in the url for your AD RMS server)

My initial choice was the third option.

I typed in my AD RMS url and then clicked the OK button. It failed. I double-checked the url and it was right. What could be the problem?? After careful reading of Google’s findings on the subject, I chose the second option (“use the default RMS server specified in Active Directory”)… and it failed again. After going back to Google again, I found this article about integrating SharePoint 2007 with IRM which gives the important steps of Permissions – you must enable the SharePoint 2010 WFEs to access the AD RMS server certificate. Got it. Here are the steps from the above article by David Lim which are as relevant to SharePoint 2010 as they were to SharePoint 2007.

Log on to the AD RMS server as a local administrator
Click Start, and then click Computer
Navigate to c:\Inetpub\wwwroot\_wmcs\Certification
Right-click ServerCertification.asmx, click Properties, and then click the Security tab
Click Advanced, click Edit, select the Include inheritable permissions from this object’s parent check box, and then click OK two times
Click Edit
Click Add
Click Object Types, select the Computers check box, and then click OK
Type the name of the SharePoint web front-end server, and then click OK twice.
Repeat the above three steps for other web front-end servers
Click OK to close the ServerCertification.asmx Properties sheet. By default the Read & Execute and the Read permissions are configured
Reset IIS

Now you can go back into Central Admin on a WFE, Security section, Configure information rights management, and select the 2nd option: Use the default RMS server specified in Active Directory.

It should work this time. For me it did.

Final Step: After you take these above steps, site and document library administrators are able to enable IRM on any document library to which they have the appropriate permissions.