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Leveraging Social Networking Tools in SharePoint 2010 : Reviewing the Components of a Healthy My Site Configuration

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3/28/2011 6:16:31 PM
A My Site environment contains a number of “moving parts,” and this section reviews these from a high level. Although in most cases a My Site environment will be “up and running,” it is important for the farm administrator to understand the various components that need to be in place for the My Site environment to function. This will be especially useful if users report errors or issues with their personal sites.

The User Profile service application is generally created when the farm is provisioned, unless either something goes wrong in the process or the person configuring the farm decides not to allow the wizard to configure the User Profile service application automatically. It is certainly possible to damage a User Profile service application so that, for example, the synchronization connection simply won’t run, or other errors are encountered when trying to create My Site sites.

An initial step to take is to verify that My Site sites can be created and that all basic features are working. Continue through this article to get a better sense of the depth and breadth of these services; there are quite a few. Assuming that My Site and the social networking features are in fact working, the farm administrator should still review the components and their configurations in Central Administration and then validate that they meet the overall requirements of the organization. For example, is the same web application hosting the production SharePoint 2010 intranet as well as all My Site sites? And will all users be getting My Site sites? Are all the fields being used in AD being mapped to SharePoint 2010 My Site, or only a subset?

The following sections help a farm administrator understand the steps involved in setting up a new web application to house My Site sites, as well as to create a new User Profile service application. Because of variables in the process, the full complement of steps won’t be covered, but the high-level requirements are summarized and references to the lengthy and detailed Microsoft TechNet documents that provide the full steps are provided.

From a high level, the following need to be in place in the Central Administration site:

  • One or more My Site hosts is required.

  • One or more User Profile service applications needs to be in place and working.

  • The User Profile service application must be synchronizing properly with AD.

Caution

User Profile synchronization cannot be used in a single-server SharePoint 2010 configuration that uses the built-in database installation.


High-Level Review of Steps Required to Create a New My Site Host

A key component for a functional My Site implementation is the My Site host. As mentioned in the next section, “High-Level Steps Required to Create a New User Profile Service Application,” one of the steps involves specifying the My Site host. So, before starting that process, a My Site host needs to be in place.

Note

Creating a new My Site host may not be required. These steps are for administrators who know they need to perform these steps because no My Site host was created by the Installation Wizard, or My Site and the User Profile Service aren’t operating properly, or for administrators who want the experience of creating a new My Site host.


Step 1: Create a New Web Application

When testing, it is a recommended best practice to create a new web application and then create the My Site host location. Many organizations choose to do this in their production environments as well as for My Site. This provides separation between the My Site sites and the production site collection that houses the SharePoint sites and resources that will be used every day by the organization. In addition, every time a user creates a My Site site, a site collection is created, so from a management standpoint, having these organized in a separate web application has its advantages.

The full process of creating a new web application is covered in the Microsoft document at http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc261875.aspx. This allows the administrator to determine the following:

  • The type of authentication to be used

  • Whether to use an existing or create a new IIS website

  • Set the port number to use

  • Set the path for the virtual directory in IIS

  • Set the URL that will be used to access the web application

  • Whether to use a new or existing application pool

  • Specify the database server, database name, and type of authentication

  • Specify the failover database server, if any

Step 2: Reviewing the Settings from the Manage Web Applications Page

Once the new web application is created, by clicking Application Management from the Quick Launch in Central Administration and then clicking Manage Web Applications, the farm administrator can manage the new (and existing) web applications. It is a best practice to review these setting thoroughly to better understand the settings and what is permitted within the new web application.

An example is shown in Figure 1 of the Manage Web Applications page, where a sample web application was created to house the My Site site collection (SharePoint – 8080), along with the other existing web applications (Central Administration web application and the web application that houses the SharePoint site collections [SharePoint – 80]).

Figure 1. Manage Web Applications page.

A quick review of the managed paths settings for the web application is accomplished by clicking the Managed Paths button. This shows that for this new web application that the Sites path is a Wildcard Inclusion type, and the Personal path is also a Wildcard Inclusion. This allows for the creation of site collections beneath /sites and /personal in the web application, which is required for users to create their own My Site sites.

Self-Service Site Creation is required for My Site site provisioning and is managed from the Manage Web Applications page, also shown in Figure 23.1. By default, Self-Service Site Creation is enabled in SharePoint Server 2010 for all authenticated users. To verify that this is on, with the User Profile Services web application selected, click the Self-Service Site Creation button and review the settings. If this is set to Off for the My Site web application, when end users click the link to My Site the first time, their My Site site will appear to be created and they will see the My Newsfeed page, but when they click the link for My Content, an error message will display that states the following: “Your personal site cannot be created because Self-Service Site Creation is not enabled. Contact your site administrator for more information.”

Step 3: Create a New My Site Host Site Collection

For testing purposes and in many production environments, it is also recommended to then create a new My Site host location. The steps required to create a My Site host are covered in the following Microsoft document: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ff729456.aspx. From a high level, this requires creating a new site collection that references the web application created, which involves the following steps:

  • Providing a title, description, and URL for the site

  • Selecting My Site Host as the site collection template

  • Entering the primary and secondary site collection administrators

The site collection will then be created using the My Site Host template, and should then be ready for the User Profile service application to be created. The farm administrator can verify the site collection by visiting the Central Administration site, clicking Application Management on the Quick Launch, and then clicking View All Site Collections in the Site Collections section. Make sure the web application is selected from the Web Application drop-down menu, and all site collections that exist within the web application will be shown. Figure 2 shows the contents of a web application created for My Site management and the site collections created within it after several test users have created their own My Site sites.

Figure 2. Site collection list for a My Site web application.

High-Level Review of Steps Required to Create a New User Profile Service Application

Although it is generally not required to create a new User Profile service application, a farm administrator may choose to do so during the testing process, and to better understand the inner workings of My Site and profiles, or to change the default configuration that results when the wizard is used to configure the farm. The previous sections should be reviewed because they cover the steps required to create a new web application and site collection to house the My Site sites, which is a generally recommended configuration.

The steps required to create a new User Profile service application are covered in detail in the following Microsoft site:

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ee721052.aspx#createapp

The process to create the service application using PowerShell is also covered. From a high level, the steps are as follows:

1.
Create a new User Profile service application from the Manage Service Applications page.

2.
Use an existing application pool or create a new one.

3.
Choose the database server and provide a name for the profile database that will be created.

4.
Choose the database server and provide a name for the synchronization database that will be created.

5.
Choose the database server and provide a name for the social tagging database that will be created.

6.
Provide failover database server names if database mirroring is being used for the profile, synchronization, and social tagging databases.

7.
Provide the URL of the site collection where the My Site host has been provisioned.

8.
Provide the managed path where individual My Site web sites will be created.

9.
Determine which type of username will be used to create My Site sites: User Name (Do Not Resolve Conflicts), User Name (Resolve Conflicts by Using domain_username), or Domain and User Name (Will Not Have Conflicts).

10.
Select whether the proxy of this User Profile Service will be a part of the default proxy group on this farm.

Once the service application is created, it will appear in the list of service applications on the Service Applications page in Central Administration (accessible by clicking Application Management in the Quick Launch and then clicking Manage Service Applications in the Service Applications section). Clicking the User Profile service application that was created will take the administrator to the Manage Profile Service page for the User Profile service application.

Verify the User Profile Service and User Profile Synchronization Service Are Started

After the User Profile service application is created, or for general troubleshooting of User Profile service application, visit the Services on Server page, by clicking System Settings in the Quick Launch from Central Administration site and then clicking Manage Services on Server.

User Profile Service and User Profile Synchronization Service should show as Started. If User Profile Synchronization Service is shown as Stopped, which often happens after the creation of a new User Profile service application, click the Start link and enter the information requested. This involves selecting the User Profile application, which will be the one just created, and providing passwords for the service account used. The process of starting the User Profile Synchronization Service can take 5 to 10 minutes, and an IIS reset command from the command prompt is also required.

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