Enterprise Features Exposed

I've been in some rather deep discussions on Enterprise features, so I thought I would share some findings on what they are, where they are, and what they do.

First, there are three different Enterprise features that can be enabled within a farm.  They are:

-Office SharePoint Server Enterprise Web application features
-Office SharePoint Server Enterprise Site Collection features
-Office SharePoint Server Enterprise Site features

Unlike most of SharePoint, these features are not hierarchical in nature (per se).  For instance, if you enable the Enterprise Web application features "feature", this does not mean that KPI lists will be available for all sites within that web application.  Likewise, enabling Enterprise Site Collection features "feature" will not install the Slide Library list template for all webs under your site collection.

So what DO the features do?

First a small plug for using PowerShell to help manage your SharePoint environments.  If you need a good place to start, check out my post on PowerShell Pack for SharePoint (PSP4SP) for a starter script with common SharePoint functions.  I used this script to generate the information within this post.

Ok, on to Enterprise Features:

Office SharePoint Server Enterprise Web application features

Internal Feature Name:  PremiumWebApplication
Feature Id:  0EA1C3B6-6AC0-44aa-9F3F-05E8DBE6D70B

Office SharePoint Server Enterprise Site Collection features

Internal Feature Name:  PremiumSite
Feature Id:  8581A8A7-CF16-4770-AC54-260265DDB0B2

Office SharePoint Server Enterprise Site features

Internal Feature Name:  PremiumWeb
Feature Id:  0806D127-06E6-447a-980E-2E90B03101B8

IMPORTANT: Keep in mind that by enabling any one of these features requires that users have an enterprise client access license (ECAL).  An argument has been made whether or not users are actually "using" the enterprise feature.  Unofficially, for an "audit", an ACL list controlled area where enterprise features are enabled is a good practice.  Control who can/cannot access your site or web application using permissions.  Also see: Web Application Policies to deny users who only have a Standard-CAL.

For mixed environments (standard and enterprise in same farm)...another issue that has come up is around governance.  This is one area where the solution cannot be 100% technical...you MUST implement a process into your environment to control who will have access.

In summary, there are 4 major "features" that require enterprise functionality Excel Services, InfoPath Forms Server, Business Data (BDC), and BI tools/web parts.  With the first three, it is easy.  Excel Services, IPFS, and BDC all require administrative (Central Admin) configuration in order for users to utilize these features in their sites.  With BI tools: List templates and web parts are provisioned down to the Site Collection/Web level.  So, at an admin level, it may be more difficult to report on enterprise feature "usage" at the site level. 

IMPORTANT:  The process of deactivating the Enterprise Site features "feature" will remove web parts from the web part gallery, but it will NOT remove a list that is provisioned on the site (e.g.  KPI List).

Comments

• Anonymous
  August 13, 2008
  PingBack from http://hubsfunnywallpaper.cn/?p=519

• Anonymous
  January 30, 2009
  Eric Kraus has a good post on the various GUIDs associated with the Enterprise features of Microsoft

• Anonymous
  February 23, 2009
  I discovered a while back that it is not possible to hide the Enterprise Features “Features” because