Recently, a collegue and I were helping a client enable Forms Based Authentication.  He sent out an email on how you lose client integration functionality when you have Forms Based Authentication enabled.

SharePoint Buzz Twitter Community is Great

I tweeted earlier today that I was working on a draft version of this post and the SharePoint Twitter community immediately chimed in with some helpful tweets:

• NickKellett @sharepointbuzz just wrote a blog on FBA for #SharePoint Intranets - saying bad idea. http://is.gd/kzyL For extranets u still might want AD about 11 hours ago from twhirl
• dmcwee @sharepointbuzz User profiles and user display names are a bit quirky. People picker has different actions compared to windows auth.  about 11 hours ago from digsby
• WinDeveloper @sharepointbuzz: FBA-just positive experiences. The login-cookie is mandatory for SharePoint<->Office 2007 interaction. No FBA GUI onboard. about 8 hours ago from Witty

Thank you very much!   Twitter has become very useful and although this post is about SharePoint and Forms Based Authentication, I'd like to invite all SharePoint Buzz visitors to join twitter.  If you follow sharepointbuzz your tweet might be mentioned here.  Without further adue, here is a quick overview of what is available with Forms Based Authentication. By default when configuring Forms Based Authentication on a SharePoint web application you need to make sure the "Enable Client Integration" option is turned off when you create a new zone.  

What does Client Integration mean?

When the above option is turned off, certain client integration features are unavailable.  Below is a listing of some toolbar items no longer appear:

• New Document
• Open in Outlook
• Open In Windows Explorer
• Export to Spreadsheet
• Open with Database Program
• Explorer View option is hidden
• Create an Access View option is hidden

Here's a quick screen cap showing the different between when client integration is turned on: Here is the same menu with client integration turned off: In picture libraries, the following functionality is removed

• Upload Multiple
• Edit Picture
• Download
• Send To

On the Edit Control Block (ECB) menu, the drop-down menu that appears when you click items in document libraries, the following items are removed:

• Edit in Word
• Edit in Excel
• Edit in PowerPoint
• Discuss
• Connect To Outlook

In slide libraries the following functionality is removed:

• Publish Slide
• Send to PowerPoint

Not just that, but syncing SharePoint data with Microsoft Office Outlook no longer works.  Majority of this functionality is what makes SharePoint so great.   Although there is a workaround to enabling some client side integration with forms based authentication it is a difficult to consider FBA for internet facing sites where Active Directory is not the authentication store.  Maybe the possible Claims based authentication in the upcoming SharePoint 14 will make the SharePoint clients happy.  Watch SharePoint Buzz for the latest Microsoft SharePoint Server 2010 news. 

Resources

• Configuring Forms Based Authentication
• Plan authentication settings for Web applications in Office SharePoint Server
• Forms Base Authentication Tools and Utils for SharePoint 2007
• Forms Based Authentication (FBA) Walk-through - Part 1
• Forms Authentication in SharePoint Products and Technologies (Part 1): Introduction source: @emilysc
• Authentication Resource Center for SharePoint Products and Technologies source: @emilysc