6. Basic Testing

While there are many more configuration and customizations that you will likely want to make to ExCM before launching your new extranet (see our How-To Articles), you can (and should) do some basic testing at this point to confirm that your installation and basic configuration is correct.

Here are some things you can test at this point:

• That your ASP.NET Membership settings have been made to the web.config files and are correct
• Connectivity to your extranet user account database in SQL Server
• That the extranet user invitation and registration process works
• That a new extranet user can successfully login to the site using the custom Sign In form
• That Security Policies work and get applied automatically to new extranet users as they register for access to a site

Follow the steps below to complete these tests:

Check ASP.NET Membership Settings

1. Logged in as a Site Collection Administrator in your root extranet site, navigate to Site Collection Administration and click on the Extranet Settings link in the Extranet Management group:
   
2. On the Manage Extranet Settings page, click on Membership Settings:
   
3. If the View Membership Settings page loads without producing an error and the Membership Name and Role Name shown match to the names you chose when you ran the Setup Wizard, you can be assured that the Extranet Global Configuration Timer Job has made some of the basic web.config edits on your servers:
   

Check Connectivity to Extranet User Account store in SQL Server

1. Navigate back to Site Collection Administration and click on the Extranet Users link in the Extranet Management group:
   
2. If SQL connectivity is working properly, the page should load without errors, but there should be no external user accounts shown at this point:
   

Test External User Invitations, Registration and Security Policies

1. Navigate back to Site Collection Administration and click on the Registration Settings link in the Extranet Management group:
   
2. On the Global Registration Settings page, click on Invitation Settings:
   
3. On the Edit Invitation Registration Settings dialog, check the box for Allow Invitations and click Save:
   
4. Navigate back to Site Collection Administration and click on the Extranet Settings link in the Extranet Management group:
   
5. On the Manage Extranet Settings page, click on the Security Policies link:
   
6. On the Manage Security Policies page, click on the Security Policies group in the Ribbon and then create a new Security Policy:
   
7. On the New Security Dialog, use the People Picker to search for the SharePoint Members group in you extranet root site collection and add it to the Security Definition field.  Leave the Field Type value set to "Site Collection" and click Save (Note: for more information about Security Policies, see this How-To Article):
   
8. Now you are ready to invite your first external user.  Navigate back to the site you plan to invite the user to, and then, from the Site Actions menu, click on Invite Users.

1. Enter the email address of an external user you would like to invite to register for this site and click Save (Note: since you are only doing testing at this time, it is probably best to use an email address for a gmail or hotmail account that you have access to):
   
2. Assuming your email settings are correct and you have access to the email mailbox, you should find a message inviting the external user to register for the site.  You can test the registration process by copying the URL in the Register link and pasting it into a new InPrivate browser window or a different browser window (perhaps Chrome or Firefox)  (Note: you need to use a private browser window or a different browser since you are already logged into the extranet site as a domain user in your normal browser):
   
3. After the page finishes caching, you should see the Registration form.  Complete the required information and click Finish:
   
4. You should immediately see that your registration has been accepted.  Next, click on the login link:
   
5. Log in as the new external user:
   
6. The external user should be able to login and should have Contribute permissions in the site since you previously set the Security Policy to automatically add the user to the Members Group of the site:
   
7. You can switch back to the browser window where you are logged in as a Site Collection Administrator and check the Extranet Users, Registrations, and Peoples and Groups pages to further confirm the work that ExCM has done:
   
   
   
   
   

Congratulations!  You have now completed ExCM Installation and Basic Configuration!

Now you can consider what other features of ExCM you need to configure and customize to support your specific extranet use case.  

If one of the extranet sites you set up is a modern SharePoint site, you may want to set up an application to get access to the Invite Users and Manage Accounts links you are used to seeing in other versions of ExCM. You can find out why you might need this application here, and how to set it up in the next step 7. Modern SItes Configuration.

Recommended Next Steps:

1. Read "Understanding External vs. Internal Accounts and End-user Experience"
2. Consider what role the Site Sponsor feature should play in your extranet, by reviewing Configure Extranet Site Sponsors
3. Browse How-To Articles to get ideas about other customizations you would benefit from

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