Mobile device configuration scenarios for SharePoint Server 2010

With the introduction of Microsoft's new Generation Office 2010, the Mobile solutions it supports are becoming increasingly popular, and these mobile features rely on the mobility support of SharePoint 2010. Here's how to set up a SharePoint server environment so you can take advantage of the mobile Access feature.

Microsoft SharePoint 2010 supports using feature phones to access documents, lists, and calendars on SharePoint 2010, perform people and document searches, and receive SMS notifications about SharePoint content.

Microsoft SharePoint Workspace Mobile 2010,windows Mobile users have access to offline documents on SharePoint 2010.

Microsoft SharePoint Server 2010 supports accessing information from a Web browser-enabled mobile phone or other device. It offers:

• Lightweight interface and navigation for access to document libraries, lists, wikis, blogs, Web part pages, and LOB data;
• Web helper for viewing Word, Excel, and PowerPoint documents;
• Mobile MySite to keep in touch with colleagues;
• Mobile Search experience for finding people, contact information, SharePoint content, and data in a custom database;
• SMS notifications to notify changes to SharePoint content;
• Features can be customized and all information is included in the SDK.

  SharePoint home page with mobile view:

  When you access a Microsoft SharePoint 2010 site from a mobile phone, this view is automatically redirected to the mobile view, as shown in the following picture:

  View All Site content

  Users can click or select the View all Site content link at the top of the home page. It will go to the following types of libraries:

• Parent site
• List of lists
• Document Library
• Photo Gallery
• Sub site

  The following sections describe what you need to know to deploy.

  Previewing the mobile experience on the desktop

  You can preview the mobile experience on your desktop Web browser. To do this, add "? mobile=1" to the end of the SharePoint URL for the document, home page, Web part Page, Wiki page, List view page, list item details/edit/New form page, or Search Center page. This does not apply to all pages/lists/documents, but it can show you the concept of a mobile experience.

  Deploying SharePoint for Mobile Access

  This section walks through the configuration that you need to set up for mobile Access when you deploy SharePoint 2010, and provides a list of mobile browsers that support mobile views.

• Firewall settings
• Enable Mobile Access
• Develop a custom mobile solution
• Browser standards and requirements
• Accessing the Mobile Experience
• Security and privacy
• Firewall considerations

  When a mobile phone is connected to the public Internet, the SharePoint server needs to be accessed outside the corporate firewall. IT administrators can publish SharePoint over an SSL VPN gateway, use a mobile agent, or expose a SharePoint server directly to the Internet.

  SSL VPN Access

  You can choose to use an SSL VPN gateway server, such as Microsoft's upcoming Forefront Unified Access Gateway (UAG) server, to publish a SharePoint site across firewalls, as shown in. The SSL VPN server must also support mobile devices that you plan to allow access to. Microsoft UAG Server (currently a Beta version) supports mobile browsing access. If you are interested in evaluating the UAG server, see "Welcome to Forefront UAG" to learn more about UAG.

  After you publish a SharePoint server outside the firewall, you need to configure alternate access mapping settings in the Central Administration page. In addition, the zone to which the site is to be published should allow cross-firewall access. These settings can be found under central administration. Go to System settings under System Settings, and select Configure cross-firewall access zones (Configure Settings. Firewall access Zone).

  To configure the SharePoint Workspace Mobile client to access offline documents on a SharePoint server, the user needs to enter the UAG server address in the Settings page.

  Figure: Configuring the UAG server address

  Mobile Proxy Server

  Mobile proxy servers, such as Microsoft mobile Device Manager or Blackberry Enterprise server, can also handle access to SharePoint from behind a firewall. The server needs to pass the HTTP header of the mobile browser directly to SharePoint for proper operation.

  The SharePoint Workspace Mobile client uses Microsoft mobile Device Manager.

  Direct access to the Internet

  SharePoint can be placed on an Extranet to allow device access. However, only basic authentication is supported, and for any Internet-facing server, we recommend using both technical and policy security measures, such as SSL.

  Mobile phones located inside the corporate firewall do not have configuration requirements.

  Allow mobile access to content

  Although you have instant access to most mobile-enabled content, some data types are not supported or require additional configuration steps.

  Web part Pages, document library/Picture libraries, lists (such as calendars, contacts, tasks, and so on), blogs, wikis, Office documents, search, and MySite are instantly accessible. The list view and image Web parts themselves are also enabled for mobility. As a reminder, MySite and the search feature are available only on MOSS servers.

  Other Web Parts require you to write a mobile Web Parts adapter to enable the mobility feature. You can find more details about the mobile adapter in the "Developing a Custom Mobile solution" section below. The page under the _layouts folder cannot be used as a mobile Web page.

  Develop a custom mobile solution

  SharePoint provides a mobile WEB parts framework for developing custom solutions. By adding a mobile Web Part adapter rendering class to a Web Part, you can interact with an existing WEB part as part of the mobile experience. Some basic adapter classes are available for common functions. The SharePoint 2007 Mobile SDK is a good starting point for understanding this development option. For SharePoint 2010, you can customize the SharePoint mobile Web page by modifying the underlying layout page. In addition, you can redirect your mobile Web page configuration to an alternate mobile Web page.

  Browser standards and requirements

  SharePoint 2010 supports the various mobile browsers listed below. You do not need to perform any other settings on your mobile device.

• IE Mobile on Windows mobile 5/6/6.1/6.5
• IPhone 3g/s on the Safari4
• BlackBerry 4.x and later
• Nokia S60
• NetFront 3.4, 3.5 and later
• Opera Mobile 8.65 and later
• Openwave 6.2, 7.0, and later

  SharePoint Workspace Mobile clients are available only on Windows phones.

  Access Mobile experience

  The URL used to access a mobile Web page is the same as the URL of a desktop browser page. However, depending on the configuration and state of the WEB proxy, this may vary. If the proxy-enabled URL is unknown, users can select the Send link via e-mail button on the page tab of the SharePoint ribbon on the Web part Page, the Wiki page, and the List view page to get a place in the body of the e-mail message Access. If a user accesses url,sharepoint through a mobile browser, 2010 is automatically redirected to the mobile Web page. The

  Recognition task is performed by useragent to identify the mobile browser that is accessing it to the mobile view, which is managed by the file "Compat.Browser" that is used to manage the device profile in the server's IIS directory (if the Web The application port is 80 and the file path will be "\inetpub\wwwroot\wss\virtualdirectories\80\app_browsers\compat.browser"). You can use a text editor to modify the file to change the redirection behavior. If the mobile browser's IsMobileDevice property is set to False,sharepoint, the mobile view of the browser will be bypassed.

  security and privacy

  Within a firewall, SharePoint Workspace Mobile clients use NTLM or Kerberos authentication schemes. Outside the firewall, use the Basic authentication scheme on SSL to communicate with the SharePoint server published on UAG.

  Recommends that you enable SSL communication for mobile browsing access to ensure secure communication between mobile devices and SharePoint servers.

  When two-factor authentication is required, SSL VPN or proxy servers and mobile devices are required to process them.

  Finally, the administrator should know that the mobile browser may cache information on the device. It is recommended that you set policies for device lockout and the type of information that can be accessed on your mobile device to minimize the risk of privacy or other issues when your device is lost.