MOSS 2007 and OpenID: a beautiful marriage for multi-state collaboration

Slide 1: MOSS 2007 AND OPENID: A BEAUTIFUL MARRIAGE FOR MULTI-STATE COLLABORATION Louisiana State University Agricultural Center Katina Hester, Summer Prisock and Sam Razi

Slide 2: PRESENTATION SUMMARY By using SharePoint 2007 and integrating OpenId support, the LSU AgCenter has been able to enhance collaboration amongst faculty and staff internally and externally with other Universities and Extension personnel. We will discuss the steps taken to implement an OpenId login process on the new Microsoft Office SharePoint Server and share examples of existing cross-collaboration projects.

Slide 3: THE PROBLEM Staff and faculty need secure, centralized methods for sharing documents, data, tasks and timelines. Staff and faculty need expanded solutions that allow them to collaborate with both internal and external users. Collaboration is done with Universities, research centers, government entities and private companies.

Slide 4: THE SOLUTION Upgrade from SharePoint 2003 to Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 (MOSS) Enterprise with the internet license. Many users already have eXtensionIDs, leverage existing ids and integrate openID login within MOSS.

Slide 5: WHAT IS OPENID? OpenID is a shared identity service, which allows internet users to log on to many different web sites using a single digital identity, eliminating the need for a different user name and password for each site. OpenID is a decentralized, free and open standard that lets users control the amount of personal information they provide. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OpenID) The relying website and the openID producer establish communication by passing parameters via browser redirects or directly by establishing a shared key. The openID is a URL or XRI provided by the openID provider.

Slide 6: ADVANTAGES AND SHORTCUTS The consumer site does not need to handle authentication or worry about storing passwords or personal information. Open source openID .NET login control (http://code.google.com/p/dotnetopenid). ExtremeSwank

Slide 7: WHAT IS MOSS 2007? Content management Document repository Extended workflow process Report center Wiki and blog templates Site analytics Search Essentially, it’s a super content management system!

Slide 9: INTEGRATING OPENID AND MOSS Objective: Build a single portal that will support windows authentication and forms based authentication. Login external users using openID. Maintain only 1 content database for both sets of users. Solution Configure multiple authentication providers for MOSS 2007. Implementation steps provided by the SharePoint Product Group blog. http://blogs.msdn.com/sharepoint/archive/2006/08/16 /702010.aspx

Slide 10: DEPLOYMENT Multiple authentication providers. One content database, two web applications. ASP.Net 2.0 SQL Server membership provider. Intranet MOSS Portal Extranet

Slide 11: STEPS TAKEN – CREATE WEB APPLICATIONS Create a web application using windows authentication Extend that web application and create a new web application using forms authentication and map it to the extranet zone.

Slide 12: STEPS TAKEN – MEMBERSHIP PROVIDER Create ASP.Net SQL Server membership provider and add users. Modify the web.config files for the extranet web application and the SharePoint Central Administration website.

Slide 13: STEPS TAKEN – WEB.CONFIG Add the connection string for the SQL membership database to the web.config files. <add name=“SPSqlConnString" connectionString="server=yourSqlServerName; database=aspnetdb; Trusted_Connection=True" /> Add the provider information to the People Picker Wildcards node. <PeoplePickerWildcards> <clear /> <add key="SPAspNetSqlMembershipProvider" value="%" />

Slide 14: STEPS TAKEN – WEB.CONFIG Add the membership and role provider information to the web.config files. Information is added to web.config files for each web application that you want to access users. Note: There is a slight difference in the role provider section for the Central Administration web.config. <system.web> <membership defaultProvider="SPAspNetSqlMembershipProvider"> <providers> <add name="SPAspNetSqlMembershipProvider" type="System.Web.Security.SqlMembershipProvider, System.Web, Version=2.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=b03f5f7f11d50a3a" connectionStringName="SPSqlConnString" enablePasswordRetrieval="false" enablePasswordReset="false" requiresQuestionAndAnswer="false" applicationName="/" requiresUniqueEmail="false" passwordFormat="Hashed" maxInvalidPasswordAttempts="1" minRequiredPasswordLength="1" minRequiredNonalphanumericCharacters="0" passwordAttemptWindow="10" passwordStrengthRegularExpression="" /> </providers> </membership> <!-- role provider --> <roleManager enabled="true" defaultProvider="SPAspNetSqlRoleProvider"> <providers> <add name="SPAspNetSqlRoleProvider" type="System.Web.Security.SqlRoleProvider, System.Web, Version=2.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=b03f5f7f11d50a3a" connectionStringName="SPSqlConnString" applicationName="/" /> </providers> </roleManager>

Slide 15: STEPS TAKEN – APPLICATION SETTINGS Set the name of the membership provider for the extranet zone. Central Administration > Application Management > Authentication Providers > Edit Authentication Go to the default zone and grant user permission to sites.

Slide 16: STEPS TAKEN – OPENID LOGIN Place JanRain.OpenID.dll file in the app_bin of the extranet web application. Add assembly reference as a safe control to the web.config for the extranet web application. Add user control to login.aspx form. Modify login.aspx.vb to set forms authentication ticket on successful login.

Slide 17: ISSUES ASP.Net SQL membership provider Limited user profile information People picker search Dependency Security

Slide 18: NEXT STEPS Build custom membership provider that will pull names from a SharePoint list Migrate SharePoint 2003 sites to 2007 Migrate current ASP.Net intranet for internal users to MOSS utilizing MOSS technologies to aggregate data, applications and information in a customizable portal. Leverage MOSS workflows and WWF to create a single workflow foundation for user tasks, application tasks and routing needs.

Slide 19: CROSS-COLLABORATION PROJECTS Applicant Process Project Collaboration between the LSU AgCenter Web and Application group and LSU Pennington Biomedical Information Technology group to share project documentation. Disaster Recovery and Mitigation Unit Sharing documents; using task, contact and event lists; and leveraging MOSS’s ability to make custom lists for data storage and collection. LSU AgCenter Biotechnology Interest Group Forum Used by AgCenter scientists, their collaborators at LSU and other universities, and their administration to provide an interactive environment for the BIG members where one can discuss ideas, find biotechnology-related news, or request help for a particular question.

Slide 20: CROSS-COLLABORATION PROJECTS National MOSS Wiki Wiki used for collaboration between universities implementing or considering implementation of MOSS. Current participants include LSU AgCenter, LSU Libraries, LSU – Baton Rouge, Iowa State University and the University of Wisconsin. Review of Regional Studies Collaborating with members from University of Illinois, LSU – Baton Rouge, and the LSU AgCenter to review papers and abstracts. Users are utilizing document libraries, lists and SharePoint workflows to route papers for review and feedback. Documents are kept in MOSS with versioning allowing users to centrally access the information and review the documents. Contact information for authors is stored in SharePoint instead of a locally owned database as done in past years.

Slide 21: EDEN’S PLANS FOR COLLABORATION What is EDEN? Stands for the Extension Disaster Education Network. It is a federation of land grant and sea grant institutions across the U.S. that provide the cooperative extension system with focus and direction to reduce the impact of disaster through education, expertise, and partnership development.

Slide 22: EDEN’S PLANS FOR COLLABORATION MOSS will provide A centralized location for the delegates of EDEN to collaborate. Using the built-in document libraries, photo galleries, discussion boards, and calendar features. Tight integration with Microsoft products Enterprise Search capability will allow us to leverage an expertise database of our delegates. Team sites for the individual committees to collaborate.

Slide 23: MOSS VS MEDIAWIKI MOSS offers more flexibility. MOSS has a richer WSIWYG type of editor, that most users are more familiar with. MOSS does have a built in wiki feature, but not the best WIKI available. WIKI is great if simple text-based collaboration is all you need. MOSS offers more media-rich collaboration above and beyond simple text-based pages.

Slide 24: CONTACT INFORMATION Sam Razi srazi@agcenter.lsu.edu Summer Prisock sprisock@agcenter.lsu.edu Katina Hester khester@agcenter.lsu.edu