First we need that the Internet Information Server (IIS) is installed on the server that will host the intranet pages, we also need that ASP extension is enabled on the server and, obviously, that the pages will be secured.

Once we have installed the IIS and enabled the ASP extension, open the IIS manager disable the Anonymous access and enable Windows authentication; this must be done because doing so only domain users (or the ones that you will add/remove from the security tab, will be able to read these pages.

In one of my previous jobs where I was asked to manage the licensing for the company software I accomplished to this by managing the licenses only for users in certain groups so in order to do this I suggest you creating security groups for your licensed software (E.g. MSProject, MSAccess etc), by creating these groups it will be easy for you to add/remove the users to the groups and have them download/install the software only if they belong to this groups. So, for example, only if a user is a member of MSAccess will be enabled to access the Microsoft Access download and install page and, in the future, it will be easy for you to create your auditing scripts that will check which software the users have installed on their computer and if they have the right to do that.

In the next article we will start with a simple ASP page that will show which are the groups and their member present on the computer visiting the Intranet page.

The project was a complex one but at the end of it the satisfaction level grew up from ~60% to more than 85%!

A lot of actions were made at that moment, such as:

• Implementing costs visibility (and subsequent costs lowering) for telecommunications
• Better management of company’s software licenses
• Self service intranet pages and tools
• Many other stuff

In the next posts I’ll cover the idea and the design of a self service portal that you can build at no costs and that will give the users a feeling of “personalized solutions” and on the other hand will lower the calls load on your helpdesk.

Stay tuned and see how to pump up your environment!