What is the IT Productivity Pack?
The IT Productivity Pack includes three of our most popular Administrative Web Parts: User Account Setup, Password Change and Password Reset. These three Web Parts together save SharePoint Administrators countless hours by allowing users to "serve themselves" on user administration tasks such as changing their own password, resetting their own password and even creating users in both SharePoint and Active Directory Services (or NT) from one location - all while adhering to your security policy. Along with support for multiple security zones and forms based authentication, The Web Parts in the IT Productivity Pack provide the following features:
User Account Setup: Automatically create a user account in Active Directory (or NT) and SharePoint at the same time. The user can enter Active Directory information as well as designate which SharePoint groups and permissions are assigned to the user account.
Restrict which Active Directory Organizational Unit the user is created in as well as restrict which SharePoint groups the user has to choose from when setting up the account. You can also restrict which users can create user accounts by designating a specific permission level for those who can create user accounts.
Password Change: Users can change their own Active Directory (or NT) password from a SharePoint web page.
Display password policy text (in HTML) on the Web Part user interface to help users create a new password that adheres to your security policies. You can also designate a specific domain in which the user can change their password.
Password Reset: Resets both Active Directory (or NT) passwords and issues a new temporary password via email to the user that adheres to your password security policy.
Implement this functionality as a Web Part on an anonymous access SharePoint site OR as a customized, standalone ASP.NET application accessed outside of SharePoint where users can go to reset their Active Directory or Local NT passwords on their own. Configure the confirmation email message as well as the new password email message that is sent out to users. You can also designate users who are restricted from resetting their password for security reasons (such as executives, administrators, etc.).
Who should use the IT Productivity Pack?
If you host SharePoint sites for multiple clients, the IT Productivity Pack can save you a significant amount of time by allowing you to designate a User Administrator at the client site as a point of contact for managing their own users and passwords. Since you can restrict where users are created in Active Directory, which users who can create users, and which SharePoint groups the new user can be assigned to, you won't have to worry about an on-site User Administrator or end-user gaining access to other SharePoint applications or private resources on your network.
If you are a SharePoint solution consultant who creates proposals for and manages multiple custom SharePoint solutions, offering your customers the time-saving, cost-effective features of "self-service" user account creation and password management shows that you are concerned about your client's time and well-informed on the latest technology available to best meet your client's needs.
Network Administrators for small, medium and large companies who manage a SharePoint portal for their entire company also benefit from the IT Productivity Pack. For users who need to manage their own SharePoint site on your portal, just set up a separate Active Directory organizational unit specifically for these users and configure the User Account Setup Web Part to create users only in that organizational unit as well as restrict who can create users and which SharePoint groups to which they can assign new users. Then set up Password Change and Password Reset to allow these users to manage their own passwords.
