Within default SharePoint environment, SharePoint users are not allowed to change their passwords on their own. Therefore, IT administrators have to spend countless hours on helping reset the passwords. This time-consuming and tedious job has made it difficult for IT administrators to focus on tasks of higher priority, which might lower the operation efficiency.
SharePoint Password Change considerably alleviates IT administrator workload while ensuring the access security simultaneously. It contains two Web Parts: SharePoint Password Change Web Part and SharePoint Password Expire Warning Web Part.
Password Change Web Part allows Active Directory users or Local NT users to change their own passwords without administrator intervention. If the password has been changed successfully, a confirmation email will be sent automatically as long as the IT administrator has enabled this feature and completed the configuration.
Besides, to smooth the resetting process, security policies are allowed to be displayed on the Web Part, preventing users from coming up with improper passwords. Moreover, Password Change Web Part offers administrators an option on whether allowing users to specify the domain and account or not. Empowering an individual user to specify different domains and change corresponding passwords will further increase the efficiency, while restricting his or her ability to change the password to the currently logged in account only can guarantee the access security.
Password Expire Warning Web Part can prompt users to change passwords proactively through sending them expiry notification emails beforehand and providing a URL to redirect users to the password change page. Fully customizable settings allow administrators to configure whom to notify, how many days before expiration date to start the notification, the content of the email and also the URL of password changing.
The availability of password log file further enhances the capability of SharePoint Password Change. The downloadable log file stores all password changes and change attempts in one convenient place for IT administrators to view and download. Serving as an information tracker, it allows IT administrators to get a clear idea about the progress of password change without being annoyed by notification emails every day or even every couple hours, which will greatly improve password management.
SharePoint Password Change gives site collection administrators the option to allow AD users or Local NT users to change their own passwords on SharePoint without administrator intervention. Password Change also allows you to send expiration notification emails to warn users before their passwords expire, send confirmation emails after users have successfully changed their passwords, and store all password change attempts in a convenient administrator’s log.
How to Add Password Change Web Part and Password Expiration Warning Web Part
After activating SharePoint Password Change on the site collection features page, an additional button will be available in the users' Welcome menu.
However, you can also choose to add a Password Change Web Part and Password Expiration Warning Web Part to any SharePoint site in your site collection.
To do so, go to the page where you would like to add the web part, click Site Actions at the top of the page, and click Edit Page to modify the site. Click Add a Web Part in any SharePoint web part zone.
Select the Password Change Web Part and Password Expiration Warning Web Part in the Add Web Parts dialog box, and then click Add to confirm.
How to configure Password Change
The Password Change Web Part
SharePoint Password Change provides a settings page that can be found in the SharePoint Site Settings page. Open the Site Actions menu and click the Site Settings button to find the menu in the Site Collection Administration section.
You can also access this settings page via the Password Change Web Part - just follow the link provided in the Web Part Settings section when modifying it.
The settings page is divided into separate sections for SharePoint Password Expiration Notifications, SharePoint Password Change Email Confirmation, the Password Change log, and the Custom SMTP Server Settings. Each of the settings has to be enabled by checking the corresponding checkbox on the left side. Once enabled, the sections are available for editing.
The first section of the settings page lets the administrator select if he or she would like to send a Password Expiration Notification Email.
The first three boxes let the administrator decide when and how often email notifications should be sent before a password expires. Once the feature is activated, the first box must contain a numerical value greater than 0. The other two boxes are optional, the second one specifies when a second notification will be sent, and the third one lets the administrator set when daily expiration notifications will be sent (meaning that users will receive a notification email every day until their passwords have been successfully changed).
The second section lets the administrator exclude users from the notification policy. For example, if somebody is on long-term leave or sabbatical, the administrator has the option to not send them password notification emails.
Furthermore, you can customize the password notification email subject and content the way you want to. The message body supports rich text features and sending emails in HTML format (plain text emails are also possible). The Insert Expression box allows you to insert expressions corresponding to the user name, the time when the password expires, and days left before the password expires, etc. Thus, the administrator has a plethora of options to set up the email to best fit the needs of his or her SharePoint environment.
The last section lets administrators choose if they want to be notified when a notification is sent to a user. Administrations can choose to receive carbon copies (as CC or BCC) of expiration notifications each time an email is sent.
The Password Change Email Confirmation section allows the administrator to specify whether or not a confirmation email should be sent to the users after they have successfully changed their passwords.
As in the Password Expiration Notification section, the administrator can select accounts that should be excluded from receiving confirmation emails. Also, the administrator has the same options to customize email content, and whether or not the administrator should be notified if a user changes his password.
The Password Change Log section allows the administrator to set the password log options.
The SharePoint Password Change Log Schedule Options specify how often a new log file should be created. It can either be set to create a new file monthly, or after a number of days (as specified by the administrator). The Delete Logs checkbox gives the user the option to delete the logs after a specified number of days.
The View Logs button opens a new window that allows you to select and view the log files. It also gives you to option to delete old log files.
The log files will be saved as .log files, so they can be edited in Notepad.
The last section lets the administrator customize the SMTP server settings. There is no need to customize these settings if the SMTP server settings are already configured in SharePoint Central Administration. So, the administrator just has to change these settings when he or she wants to specify customized settings for outgoing emails.
Everything from domain name/IP, port, display name, From address, and Reply-to-address can be customized. The administrator can also set to use either the default Windows login credentials or that of another user. The settings also allow enabling SSL connections.
The administrator also has the option to customize the SharePoint Password Change web part.
Here you can specify whether or not the user is allowed to specify the domain and the account to be changed, and to give more detailed information on the password policy. You can also specify where to display the additional information on the password policy. Please note that this is just a description of the password policy specified in the Default Domain Security Settings. The password policy settings have to be modified in the Default Domain Security Settings.
The SharePoint Password Expiration Warning Web Part
The Password Expiration Warning Web Part can warn you with a message on web pages before your password expires, prompting you to change password and providing a link that takes the user to the Password Change website.
To modify it, click the web part menu, and "Modify Share Web Part".
The SharePoint Password Change web part allows the administrator to customize warning days and input a password change URL.
"Warning days" specifies how many days before the password expires where users will receive a warning message on the web part.
"Password Change URL" redirects users to the password change web page. If you click the link "Click here to change your password" displayed on the page where the password expire web part has been added, you will directly get to the password change page.
Click OK to exit from the settings page.
When you log on to the page, the web part will display a warning message and a link. You can click the link to go to the change password page.
How to Change a password with SharePoint Password Change Web Part
The users can also change their passwords by clicking "Change Password" in welcome menu of the current site to get to the Password Change page, or from within the Password Change Web Part.
On the Password Change page, or from within the web part, the user must enter his current password, his new password, and to confirm his new password.
Based on the settings of the Password Change Web Part, the user might also be required to enter the domain and the account name in order to change the password. Please note that these options are only available in the SharePoint Password Change Web Part, as the Change your own password page just allows changing the current user's password.
After the password is changed successfully, a message will notify the user and prompt the user to log in with the new password.
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