The Optimal People Picker is a vendor supported federated claims provider that re-enables search capabilities for users and groups in SharePoint within on-premise directories.
Interested in the features and benefits of Optimal IdM? Request a demo!
When deploying SharePoint with Federated Claims Authentication, the out of the box “People Picker” no longer searches your directory. Instead, it simply resolves whatever you type and accepts this as a claim value. This functionality is “as designed” by Microsoft, where SharePoint no longer has a physical connection to your Active Directory. While this makes sense when federating with external organizations where you wouldn’t search their directories for users and groups, SharePoint People Picker doesn’t allow users to search the on-premise directory. 
This is an especially frustrating problem for the many organizations that deploy SharePoint with Federated Claims Authentication with no intention of ever federating with external organizations. The Optimal People Picker/Claims Provider is a vendor-supported claims provider that re-enables SharePoint’s advanced claims search capabilities. This allows end users to confidently search for and select users and groups from their on-premise directory. Optimal People Picker/Claims Provider leverages Optimal IdM’s Virtual Identity Server (VIS). In doing so, it not only supports multiple AD forests, but it also allows users to exist in any directory or database. Finding and selecting the right object using the out-of-the-box SharePoint People Picker can be difficult, confusing and time-consuming. This increases costs and end-user frustration. To make matters worse, security can be compromised if the wrong user or group is selected with the People Picker.
The Optimal People Picker/Claims Provider is a vendor-supported claims provider that provides advanced claims search functionality in SharePoint.
Greater search functionality improves productivity, which increases the value of your existing Microsoft environment. To help you keep costs down, VIS:
– Leverages the existing investment in Microsoft technology, extending it with increased functionality.is developed in .NET technology and is designed to seamless integrate with your Microsoft environment.
– Is developed in .NET technology and is designed to seamless integrate with your Microsoft environment.
– Is a platform that continues to grow with an organization’s needs.
– Has proven solutions for Microsoft applications such as SharePoint and MIIS/ILM.
Optimal SharePoint People Picker is equipped with additional security features that:
– Provide administrators the capability to provide increased security to a SharePoint deployment.
– Ensure that the correct user/group is assigned permissions in SharePoint.
- When deployed as an advanced claims search for SharePoint, Virtual Identity Server can eliminate deployment barriers.
VIS allows organizations to rapidly and easily deploy applications to users existing in multiple Active Directory forests or directories.
– The VIS Schema Manager™ eliminates the need to extend the Active Directory schema for third party LDAP applications.
– VIS allows you to rapidly deploy applications to users existing in multiple Active Directory Forests without any forest trusts.
– VIS simplifies your identity management deployment by accessing data at its source directly.
– VIS provides multiple views of data, allowing for easy discreet application views of enterprise data.
Optimal People Picker for SharePoint is a full-featured application designed to provide safe and effective advanced claims searching. It:
The Virtual Identity Server (VIS) allows organizations to rapidly and easily to deploy SharePoint across multiple forests without the need for forest trusts with full Office integration. Many companies have multiple internal Active Directory forests that do not have any forest trust relationships. There are many valid reasons for separating and isolating these forests. However, this often conflicts with the business need to share and collaborate data across these forests. The Virtual Identity Server makes this once difficult task, easy to achieve. VIS bridges the gap of these siloed directories. This provides a single enterprise view of these isolated directories, while maintaining the security and control of the existing Active Directory infrastructure. [wpex more= “Read more” less= “Read less”] 
VIS for SharePoint includes an advanced cross-forest Windows authentication module. This module leverages a user’s existing Active Directory credentials, providing a seamless multi-forest Single Sign-On solution without requiring forest trusts. User’s who are logged into an Active Directory domain are automatically authenticated to SharePoint when accessing the site. Users who have not authenticated to an Active Directory domain are prompted for a user id and password. This enables organizations to quickly and easily deploy one instance of SharePoint to external and internal users without creating a forest trust or requiring internal users to re-authenticate and full Office integration. 
[/wpex]
When deploying SharePoint with Federated Claims Authentication, the out of the box “People Picker” no longer searches your directory. This functionality is “as designed” by Microsoft, where SharePoint no longer has a physical connection to your Active Directory. While this makes sense when federating with external organizations where you wouldn’t search their directories for users and groups, it doesn’t allow users to search the on-premise directory. In fact, many organizations deploy SharePoint with federated claims authentication with no intention of ever federating with external organizations. The Optimal People Picker/Claims Provider is a vendor supported Claims Provider that re-enables the search capability for SharePoint. This allows end users to confidently search for and select users and groups from their on-premise directory. The claims provider leverages the Virtual Identity Server, so the claims provider not only supports multiple AD forests; users can exist in any directory or database.
Yes, VIS supports Kerberos, NTLM and Negotiate as authentication options on both the listing side as well as the back-end connection sides.
Yes. Please fill out a demo form with your contact information.
The Virtual Identity Server supports a number of data stores directly with out of the box adapters. Additionally, a customer or integrator can create adapters utilizing our built-in extensibility.
Yes. Our software is running in both non-secure and secure government networks. [wpex more= “Read more” less= “Read less”]
