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In this blog I explore the possibilities of using information stored in SharePoint Services V3.0 lists to drive provisioning processes (specifically integration with Active Directory). The idea behind this approach is to merge provisioning and synchronization capabilities of ILM with collaboration and workflow components of SharePoint Services 3.0.
Please, follow this link for a complete walkthrough.
This is my second posting on this subject. In my first post “Adding workflow components into your MIIS solutions” I examined the scenario of integration of ILM with SharePoint InfoPath Libraries. Both solutions have similar goals: to utilize workflow capabilities of WSS 3.0 and to propagate information stored in SharePoint throughout the enterprise. At the same time the underlying extensible management agents utilize different technologies to accomplish the integration with WSS 3.0. The connector for InfoPath libraries utilizes Microsoft.SharePoint.dll and the connector for SharePoint Lists leverages SharePoint Web Services. Since Microsoft.SharePoint.dll can only be utilized on the same server where WSS is running, the first solution is ideal for scenarios where Workflow needs to be added to ILM provisioning processes (in other words MIIS and WSS need to be running on the same box), also InfoPath forms provide richer capabilities to workflow (ex. Digital signatures, Role based views, data validation, etc). The List Connector, on the other hand, uses SharePoint Web Services; therefore MIIS and WSS could be running on different servers, this connector is ideal for scenarios where extracting employee information from WSS is required. I am hoping one day to combine those two connectors into one, so that we don’t have be concerned whether the data resides in a list or a InfoPath library. For now depending on what you are trying to accomplish you will have to choose the appropriate solution.
Additional Links
Walkthrough: How to build an extensible management agent for MIIS
Adding workflow components into your MIIS solutions
