SharePoint 2013 User Profile synchronization versus import
Reference is : 2013 advanced Training
User
Profile Service administrators in SharePoint 2013 can use profile
synchronization to manage and synchronize the user and group profile data
stored in the SharePoint 2013 profile store with profile data stored in
directory services and BDC systems.
There
are two distinct forms of profile import and synchronization available in
SharePoint 2013:
·
One-way
profile import. This is a new implementation of a simple import process that was
first provided in SharePoint Server 2007. It uses the SharePoint Active
Directory Import option to import user profile data from Active Directory
Domain Services (AD DS).
Note: One-way
profile import only works with Active Directory and does not support other
directory services.
·
Two-way
profile synchronization. This uses the SharePoint Server 2013 profile
synchronization method that was first introduced in SharePoint Server 2010. It
uses Microsoft Forefront Identity Manager (FIM) to synchronize profile data
with external directory services and BDC systems.
Note: Important:
The term two-way synchronization can be a little misleading. Although the
mapping direction of profile properties can be either an import or export
mapping, you cannot set both types of mapping on an individual property; for
each property, it is one or the other, not both.
The one-way
profile import method is considered to be a simpler approach to importing
profile data in SharePoint 2013 compared to the two-way profile import. It uses
the SharePoint Active Directory Import option to import user profile properties
from Active Directory into SharePoint 2013 user profiles.
Advantages of this import method
One-way
profile import is the ideal solution for environments where a simple import
method is needed with no requirements to write back to the source. This method
is an import-only method and only supports Active Directory. It is very simple
to set up and has minimal requirements to make it work.
Other key
benefits of this method include:
· The User Profile
Synchronization Service does not need to be deployed because one-way profile
import runs under the User Profile Service instance.
· It is faster than the
FIM-based two-way profile synchronization method.
· It runs incremental imports
automatically every five minutes.
· It is much easier to
configure than two-way profile import.
Configuring SharePoint Active Directory Import
There are
only a few steps to configuring the Active Directory Import method in
SharePoint 2013.
You must
begin by selecting the SharePoint Active Directory Import option in Central
Administration. Note that this is a unidirectional process and that any changes
you make to user profiles in SharePoint 2013 are not synchronized back to
Active Directory.
Perform the
following steps to select the SharePoint Active Directory Import option:
1. Log on with a user account
that is a member of the Farm Administrators group.
2. In Central Administration,
under System Settings, open the Manage services on server page,
and ensure that the User Profile Service is started.
3. In Central Administration,
open the Manage service applications page.
4. Click on the name of the
User Profile service application.
5. On the Manage Profile
Service page, click Configure Synchronization Settings.
6. On the Configure
Synchronization Settings page, in the Synchronization Options section,
select the Use SharePoint Active Directory Import option.
Next, you
need to create a connection to the directory service. In this step, you create
a connection the relevant directory service. When you do this, you specify the
items that you want to synchronize, and the credentials used to make the
connection to the directory service.
Perform the
following steps to create a connection to the directory service:
1. On the Manage Profile
Service page, in the Synchronization section, click Configure
Synchronization Connections.
2. On the Synchronizations
Connections page, click Create New Connection.
3. On the Add new synchronization
connection page:
a. Provide a name for the
synchronization connection.
b. Select Active Directory
Import as the synchronization type.
c. Specify the settings
contained in the Connection Settings section. These include the name of
the domain, the authentication method to use, the synchronization account
credentials, port settings and any require import filters.
d. In the Containers
section, click Populate Containers.
e. Select the containers from
the directory service that you want to synchronize.
Next, you
need to map user profile properties. In this step, you define the mappings for
SharePoint user profiles to user attributes retrieved from the directory
service.
Perform the
following steps to map user profile properties to user attributes:
1. On the Manage Profile
Service page, in the People section, click Manage User Properties.
2. On the Manage User
Properties page, click the name of the property that you want to map to a
directory service attribute, and then click Edit.
3. To remove an existing
mapping:
a. In the Property Mapping
for Synchronization section, select the mapping that you want to remove,
and then click Remove.
4. To add a new mapping:
a. In the Add New Mapping
section, in the Source Data Connection list, select the data connection
that represents the directory service to which you want to map the user profile
property.
b. Type the name of the
directory service attribute to which you want to map the property.
c. Add the import mapping.
d.
Repeat this
process to map additional user profile properties.
Note: You
cannot edit an existing mapping; to change mapping settings for a property,
remove the existing mapping first and then create a new mapping.
Finally,
you can either wait for the five minutes to elapse when the scheduled
synchronization job will run, or you can start the profile synchronization
process manually. For this step, you need to have configured at least one
synchronization connection to a directory service. If you have configured
multiple connections, you can either choose to synchronize after you create
each connection, or you can synchronize them all at one time after you create
all of your connections. If you synchronize each connection independently, it
does take longer to do, but it is makes troubleshooting any issues that occur
much easier.
Perform
the following steps to start the profile synchronization process manually:
1.
On
the Manage Profile Service page, in the Synchronization section, click Start Profile
Synchronization.
2.
On
the Start Profile Synchronization page, do one of the following:
·
Select
Start
Incremental Synchronization to synchronize only the changes to information
that have occurred since you last synchronized; this include new connections
that you added or existing ones that you modified.
·
Select
Start Full Synchronization if this is the
first time that you are synchronizing, or you want to reset the user profile
data store.
Additional Reading: For more information about using the SharePoint
Active Directory Import method, see Configure profile synchronization by using
SharePoint Active Directory Import in SharePoint Server 2013 at http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?Linkid=302082
The two-way
profile synchronization method is considered to be a more complex approach to
synchronizing user profile information with SharePoint 2013. It relies on
Forefront Identity Manager (FIM) to import and export user profile property
mappings between SharePoint 2013 and directory services and to import user
profile property data from BDC systems.
Advantages of this synchronization method
This
solution is required in SharePoint 2013 environments where changes made to user
profiles must be written back to the directory services source. For example, if
a user updates his or her email address or phone number in SharePoint 2013,
those changes can be synched back to the directory service. This is possible
because you can configure each property mapping to have a direction, which must
be either import or export; it cannot be both.
Two-way
profile synchronization offers other additional benefits over a one-way import.
For example:
· It can be used with
directory services other than Active Directory.
· It enables you to define
exclusion filters for synchronization connections.
· It enables you to import
user profile data from BDC systems.
The two-way
profile synchronization approach will be familiar to SharePoint 2010
administrators, because the process remains largely unchanged.
Configuring SharePoint profile synchronization
There are
several key steps that need to be performed when using the SharePoint profile
synchronization method in SharePoint 2013, and these can be broken into five
main phases. You may need to perform all of the steps in each of these phases,
or you may only need to perform some of them, depending on your particular
environment and situation.
Phase one – Configure farm
prerequisites
This phase
involves the following high-level steps:
1. Create a web application to
host My Sites.
2. Create a managed path for
My Site.
3. Create a My Site Host site
collection.
4. Create a User Profile
service application.
5. Enable NetBIOS domain names
for user profile synchronization by using Windows PowerShell.
Phase two – Start the User Profile
Service and the User Profile Synchronization Service
This phase
involves the following high-level steps:
1. Start the User Profile
Service.
2. Make the SharePoint farm
account a member of the local Administrators group on the server that runs the
User Profile Synchronization service.
3. Start the User Profile
Synchronization Service.
4. Remove the SharePoint farm
account from the local Administrators group.
5. If the User Profile
Synchronization Service is running on the same server as the Central
Administration website, reset IIS.
Phase three – Configure a connection to
the directory service and import data
This phase
involves the following high-level steps:
1. Create a synchronization
connection to a directory service.
2. Define exclusion filters
for a synchronization connection.
3. Map user profile
properties.
4.
Start profile
synchronization.
Additional Reading: To watch a video demonstration of the tasks in this
phase, see Configure a profile synchronization connection in SharePoint Server
2010 (video) at http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?Linkid=302083
Phase four (optional) –
Configure connections to line-of-business systems and import data
If you want
to augment your user profiles with data from line-of-business (LOB) systems,
you can use SharePoint Business Connectivity Services (BCS) to do this. This
phase involves the following high-level steps:
1. Grant the User Profile
service application permission to use the external content type in the BCS.
2. Configure a Business Data
Connectivity synchronization connection.
3. Add or edit user profile
properties.
4. Import data by selecting
full synchronization.
Additional Reading: To watch a video
demonstration of the tasks in this phase, see Configure a synchronization
connection to a SQL Server database in SharePoint Server 2010 (video) at http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?Linkid=302085
Phase five (optional) –
Configure connections to export data to a directory service
If
you want to export profile data from SharePoint to your directory service, you
must perform these high-level steps:
1.
Map
user profile properties by using the export mapping direction.
2.
Start
profile synchronization by selecting incremental synchronization.
The
next time that profile synchronization occurs, the user profile properties will
either be exported or imported, depending on the property mapping directions
you specified in the synchronization connection. When configuring the export of
user profile data to a directory service, you cannot create new synchronization
connections explicitly for the purpose of exporting the data; you must use the
existing synchronization connections and modify the mapping direction for the
relevant properties to export.
Note: You
cannot export user profile data back to business systems using BDC connections.
Additional Reading: For detailed information about all the phases and
all the procedural steps to configure and synchronize user profiles using the
SharePoint Profile Synchronization method, see Synchronize user and group
profiles in SharePoint Server 2013 at http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?Linkid=302086
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