Moments in Life: User Profile Synchronization in SharePoint 2010

In following steps I have described how to set up User Profile Synchronization in SharePoint 2010

Service Applications

Service Applications are individual services that can be configured independently and can be shared across other sites within the farm or across farms.

Create User Profile Service Applications

Bellow I have described 2 ways of configuring service applications

1. Configure service applications through Farm configuration wizard

In Central Admin, under farm configuration, click on Launch the Farm configuration wizard

There we can select and automatically configure all service applications

2. Configure service applications manually

1. Go to central admin à Application Management à Manage Service Applications

2. Click on Newà User Profile Service Application

3. Give a name and other properties for the User Profile Service Application

4. There are 3 databases created in this step

· Profile DB– Stores user information and activity feed

· Social DB– Stores tags and notes

· Sync DB– Staging area for FIM while it’s syncing between AD and SharePoint

If we go and check in SQL server there we can see 3 databases which created in above step

Start the User Profile Synchronization service

After creating the user profile service application we need to start the “User Profile Synchronization Service”

1. Go to Application Managementà manage services on Server

2. Start following services

Configure connections and import data from directory services

Create a synchronization connection to a directory service

To import user profiles from Active Directory we need to create a synchronization connection

Go to Central Administration àApplication Management à Manage service applications.
Click on User Profile service application.
On the Manage Profile Service page, in the Synchronization section, click Configure Synchronization Connections.
On the Synchronizations Connections page, click Create New Connection.
On the Add new synchronization connection page, type the synchronization connection name in the Connection Name box

Select a directory service From the Type list, which you want to connect.

Fill in the Connection Settings section according to the directory service to which you are creating a connection

Select the Container and click OK. Then the connection will be created

Define exclusion filters for a synchronization connection

To import user profile information of user accounts that are enabled in Active Directory to SharePoint Server 2010, follow these steps:

1. On the Synchronization Connections page, click the Active Directory connection that you want to edit, and then click Edit Connection Filters.

2. On the Edit Connection Filters page, follow these steps:

In the Exclusion Filter for Users section do following

a. In Exclusion Filter for Users, change the Attribute drop-down to userAccountControl.

b. In Exclusion Filter for Users, change the Operator drop-down to Bit on equals.

c. Select Filter box type to 2.

d. Click Add.

3. Click OK.

Start profile synchronization

Go to Manage Profile Service page. There in right hand side we can see the profile details. The Number of user profiles are 0. We need to start profile synchronization service.