Excel Services is a standalone Service
Application, giving users the ability to render their spreadsheets
through SharePoint into the browser. Some of the benefits that are
derived from this architecture are:
Ability to delegate administration of the
service to particular users. This takes the burden of management from IT
down to a user level. A SharePoint group can be created for users who
will administrate this service.
Dedicate a server to run the service. This provides a level of adaptability and scalability as your organization's needs change.
This gives organizations a place to collaborate and helps prevent the spread of spreadsheets in files shares.
In order to leverage this technology, you must know
how to set up this service application. In this recipe, we cover the
steps necessary to create an Excel Services Service Application.
Getting ready
You must have Farm Administrator privileges to Central Administration.
How to do it...
Open Central Administration and click Application Management.
The third section is Service Applications. Click Manage Service applications.
On the ribbon, click New and Excel Services Application.
You will get the following screen. Fill in the information and click OK when finished.&;&;
Name: This is the name for the service application. Name the Service Application as ExcelService Finance.
Application Pool: Create a new application pool here or use an existing one.
Configurable: This is a domain security account for the application pool.
Check the Add to default proxy list option. Refer to the Creating a Custom Service Application Proxy group recipe. For this recipe, check the box so that it will be tied to the default.
Ensure that there is a running Secure Store Service by checking that the service is started on the Manage Service Applications page. If it is not, follow the Creating the Secure Store recipe.
Set up the unattended service account in the Secure Store. Click on Application Management and then select Manage service applications.
Navigate to the Secure Store Service and click on it. It should appear as a hyperlink.
The screen that displays is where we create the Target Application Settings. Click New on the ribbon. You will be presented with the following screen:&;&;
Fill in the fields as follows:
Target Application ID:CBExcelServices
Display Name: Cook Book Excel Services
E-mail: Use an e-mail address from your domain
Target Application Type: Change to Group from Individual that is set by default
Target Application Page URL: Select the None option
The next screen displays the fields that will be stored in the target application. Leave them as they are and click Next.
Finally, the administrator and members of the group must be input via the following screen:
Now a user credential needs to be set up for this target application. Click Set Credentials on the ribbon with the CBExcelServices option checked. Refer to the following screenshot:
The next screen needs the credential users for Excel Services. Enter the following information:
Click OK.
On the Manage Service Applications page, click to the right of the service application called ExcelService Finance.
The ribbon at the top will light up. Note that the Service Application
is the left-aligned object, whereas the Service Application Proxy is the
indented object with the same name.
Click the Manage option on the ribbon. The following screenshot will appear for configuration:
The Excel Service setting form will appear. At the bottom, there is a spot to fill in Application ID for the unattended service account. Use the account that was set up in step 6.
How it works...
The first important milestone in our recipe happens after Step 4. When we fill out this form and click the Create
button, the Excel Services Application and associated service proxy are
created and started. In SQL, a database is created and now the web
front-end and the application server can communicate using web services
(WCF). Refer to the Managing a service recipe for the explanation on the web service.
In Step 16, we needed an unattended service account
for the ExcelService Finance Service Application. This account gives us
the ability to access our back-end data that is utilized in our
workbooks. This is set up in steps from 5 through 12.
I want to point out that in step 8, there is a Target Application Type setting; for this recipe, we choose Individual. We could have chosen group,
which is the current recommendation. The advantage of doing this is
that we can create a group in Active Directory and apply it to our
unattended service account. Then, we only need to manage the users in
that group instead of coming back to the Secure Store.
Group management is the preferred method, most of the time.
There's more...
Creation of the Excel Services Application can be
achieved using scripts, through the use of PowerShell. Here are the
associated PowerShell commands:
Get-SPExcelServiceApplication -identity <name of service app>
Set-SPExcelServiceApplication -identity <name of service app>
New-SPExcelServiceApplication -name <name>
More info
As seen in Step 8, there are a few more configuration options that can be set. The one that is important to be aware of is Trusted File Locations.
By default, the root site is set. This is significant because it means
that workbooks can be loaded from anywhere in the farm. This is a new
behavior in SharePoint 2010.
