AD User Editor

Written by Alexis | 12 August 2009

AD User Editor is a webpart for MOSS 2007 that allows to easily modify any profile property of any person in Active Directory. Il can also be configured as "self-service" for a user to be able to modify his properties only.

• 5 different types of properties fields: Simple TextBox, DropDownList/ListBox (with predefined values), People Picker, Date Picker with calendar.
• Multi-domain compatible.
• Nearly Any Active Directory property can be easily added or removed of the edit form, directly trough the webpart configuration (nothing "hard-coded").
• SharePoint "look & feel"
  

Download AD User Editor (CodePlex)

Setup

1. Download the archive and unzip it to the server where MOSS 2007 is installed. Then run setup.exe to install (*).
2. Go the site collection where you installed it.
3. Go to "Site Actions>Modify all parameters" and click on "Site Collection Features". If everything went well, you should find the feature you've just installed (Nomine SharePoint Tools).
4. Push the button "Activate" in front of it.
5. Create a new webpart page or modify the one you want and add the webpart "AD User Editor".
6. You're almost done!

cd <path_to_installer>
stsadm -o addsolution -filename NomineSharePointTools.wsp

It's over for Central Administration. Now, It's time to go to the site collection you want to add the WebPart.

1. Go to its parameters (Site Actions>Modify all parameters).
2. Click on "Site Collection Features". If everything went well, you should find the feature you've just installed (Nomine SharePoint Tools).
3. Push the button "Activate" in front of it.
4. Create a new webpart page or modify the one you want and add the webpart "AD User Editor".
5. You're almost done!

Configuring of the WebPart

AD Controller(s)

You can click the three dots to view it better (and maybe copy-paste it to your favourite text editor).

This is for the webpart to understand which domain controller it should connect in order to edit an user.

Here is an example configuration for 2 domains:

<domains>
   <domain name="PESSAC" path="LDAP://srvpscinfo.pessac.mydomain.com/DC=pessac,DC=mydomain,DC=com" usr="xxxx" pwd="yyyy">
   <domain name="VENISSIEUX" path="LDAP://srvvnxinfo.venissieux.mydomain.com/DC=venissieux,DC=mydomain,DC=com" usr="xxxx" pwd="yyyy">
</domains>

There are 4 parameters:

• name: It is the Netbios domain name (the netbios name is what you type before your login. eg: if you type VENISSIEUX\nomine, then the netbios name is VENISSIEUX)
• path: It's the path to connect to the corresponding Active Directory controller (eg: "LDAP://adserver1.domain.com/DC=domain,DC=com").
• usr: Username of an account that has Read/Write access to this Active Directory controller.
• pwd: Password of this account.

AD Properties

Here you can configure all the profile properties that you want to appera in the edit form.

Here is an example configuration:

<properties>
   <property adname="displayName" name="Full Name" type="textbox" values="" />
   <property adname="sn" name="Last Name" type="textbox" values="" />
   <property adname="givenName" name="First Name" type="textbox" values="" />
   <property adname="manager" name="Manager" type="person" values="" />
   <property adname="assistant" name="Assistant" type="person" values="" />
   <property adname="department" name="Service" type="listbox" values="IT;Human Resources;Bio;Security" />
   <property adname="title" name="Title" type="textbox" values="" />
   <property adname="employeeType" name="Employee Type" type="dropdown" values="Technician,tech;Manager,mgr;Director,dir" />
   <property adname="telephoneNumber" name="Telephone number" type="textbox" values="" />
   <property adname="mobile" name="Mobile" type="textbox" values="" />
   <property adname="facsimileTelephoneNumber" name="Fax" type="textbox" values="" />
   <property adname="l" name="Town" type="dropdown" values="New-York;Washington" />
   <property adname="physicalDeliveryOfficeName" name="Office" type="textbox" values="" />
   <property adname="company" name="Company" type="textbox" values="" />
   <property adname="accountExpires" name="Departure Date" type="date" values="" />
</properties>

A "property" field has 4 different properties:

• adname: The LDAP name of the property you want to modify.
  (You can find a list of all LDAP property names on www.imibo.com)
• name: The name you want to display in the edit form
• type: Which type you want the field to be:
  • textbox: Simple text-box. Comon way of editing things.
  • dropdown: Dropdown list with a choice of predefined values.
  • listbox: If a dropdown list would be too long, this is the best solution. It works as "dropdown".
  • person: People Picker to select any people that SharePoint will find in Active Directory.
  • date: Date Picker with calendar.
• values: The predefined values in ListBox and DropDownList. Can be defined two ways:
  • Values separated by semicolons(;)
  • OR Pair of displayed_title/inserted_value. Each item separated by semicolon (;) and each pair divided by a comma (,)

I tried to be as clear as possible. Don't hesitate to put your question in comments if your not sure...

Edit current user only

Check the box to transform the WebPart into "self-service".

References

I picked a lot of infos and get inspirated by some bits of source code googling the web. My most important sources of inspiration and help were:

• ActiveDirectoryTools of Burke Holland
• SharePoint solution created by the STSDEV utility
• Right way webpart coding on Ishai Sagi's blog
• Sharepoint Web Controls (User picker, Date picker) from Karine Bosch's blog

Wishes List

• More friendly property editor in webpart configuration (like toolpart in this webpart, or from an external list)
• Encode connexion strings (no more clear text)
• Make it really multilingual (cf here)
• Code it the MVC way (at least separate presentation elements from data)
• Add multi-valued field to properties control types (find the sharepoint one which does this task)
• Package it with SharePoint Solution Installer

Before trying to compile something

1. Use a server with MOSS 2007 and Visual Studio 2008 installed on it (not tested with VS2005 and WSS3 alone)
2. Install Visual Studio Extensions for Sharepoint from here
3. Download and install STSDEV from here
4. Unzip the project archive and open NomineSharePointTools.sln with Visual Studio
5. Edit DeploymentFiles/Microsoft.SharePoint.targets to make targetUrl, WssRootFilesFolder, STSADM and STSDEV match your server config.
6. Click the menu "Generate>Config Manager" and select DebugDeploy or DebugUdate depending on what you did before.
7. Press F5: It should compile and install (don't care if VS tells you a class can't be directly launched)
8. You just have to activate the feature on you site collection and then add the webpart to a test page.
9. Next, each time you'll update, the webpart will be automagically updated.

Conclusion

Thank you for trying my WebPart. It's my first real developement for SharePoint 2007, so feel free to send any constructive comment to help me making it even better.