Central Administration roadmap

Central Administration in SharePoint Server 2013 is where you go to perform administration tasks from a central location. Central Administration is divided into nine parts: Application Management, System Settings, Monitoring, Backup and Restore, Security, Upgrade and Migration, General Application Settings, Apps, and Configuration Wizards.

Application Management

These articles listed will assist you with managing web applications, service applications, site collections, and content databases.

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Manage web applications
Create a web application.	Create claims-based web applications in SharePoint 2013
Extend a web application using additional IIS Websites that host the same content.	Extend claims-based web applications in SharePoint 2013
Create, delete, view, or manage actions on a site collection.	See articles in this section: Manage site collections.
Create a new web application that uses forms-based authentication.	Configure forms-based authentication for a claims-based web application
Create and configure a web application with the AD FS identity provider.	Configure SAML-based claims authentication with ADFS in SharePoint 2013
Rename service applications. You may need to do this if you remove the GUID from the database name after the SharePoint Products SharePoint Products Configuration Wizard creates the databases. You may also want to rename service applications database to align the databases with your organization's naming standards. Renaming service applications includes all the service databases: App Management Service Business Data Connectivity Managed Metadata Service PerformancePoint Services Search Service Secure Store Service SharePoint Translation Services State Service Usage and Health Data Collection SharePoint Foundation Subscription Settings Service	See articles in this section: Rename service application databases in SharePoint 2013
Extend a web application that uses claims-based authentication. You do this when you need to expose the same content to different sets of users by using an additional IIS web site to host the same content.	Extend claims-based web applications in SharePoint 2013
Configure and edit mobile accounts for a web application so users can subscribe to alerts when changes are made to a SharePoint list or item. To configure or edit a mobile account for a server farm, see the Email and Text Messages (SMS) section.	Configure a mobile account in SharePoint 2013
Synchronize user and group profile information stored in the profile store. This allows you to create user profiles by importing information from other systems that are used in your organization.	Manage user profile synchronizations in SharePoint Server 2013.
Manage search including: Viewing, adding, editing, mapping, and deleting crawled properties, crawled property categories, and managed properties in the search schema Configuring settings to provide the most relevant search results Crawling content that you want users to be able to search for Learning about search and usage reports, query health reports, crawl health reports and the crawl log to analyze the health of the search system	See the articles in this section: See the articles in this section: Administer search in SharePoint 2013.
Service Applicatio ns:
Create a Secure Store Service service application and generate or refresh an encryption key to use the Secure Store service application.	Configure the Secure Store Service in SharePoint 2013
Create and configure a search service application to crawl content and provide search results to users.	Create and configure a Search service application in SharePoint Server 2013
Create and configure a Machine Translation service application so users can automatically translate documents.	Create and configure Machine Translation services in SharePoint Server 2013
Configure Following settings for My Sites so users can follow specified items in newsfeeds on their My Sites.	Configure My Sites in SharePoint Server 2013
Start and stop the distributed Cache service to perform management and operational tasks on the Distributed Cache.	Manage the Distributed Cache service in SharePoint Server 2013
Configure user permissions for personal and social features.	Enable or disable personal and social features for users or groups in SharePoint Server 2013 Preview
Upgrade the service application databases by starting service application instances and start the User Profile Synchronization service.	Attach databases and upgrade to SharePoint 2013
Configure a User Profile service application to manage personalization settings such as user profile properties, audiences, profile synchronization settings, organization browsing and administration settings, and My Site settings.	Create, edit, or delete User Profile service applications in SharePoint Server 2013
Administer the User Profile service. This includes: Creating, editing, or deleting a User Profile service application Assigning administration of a User Profile service application, features, and user profiles Removing an administrator for a User Profile service application Adding, editing, or deleting custom properties for a user profile	See the articles in this section: Administer the User Profile service in SharePoint Server 2013
Operate and manage search in SharePoint 2013. This includes: Viewing, adding, editing, mapping, and deleting crawled property categories and managed properties in the search schema Configuring settings to provide the most relevant search results Managing how to crawl content that you want users to be able to search for Using search and usage reports, query health reports, crawling health reports, and the crawl log to analyze the health of the search system	See the articles in this section: See the articles in this section: Administer search in SharePoint 2013.
Administer Excel Services in SharePoint. Includes details on how to: Create an Excel Services application and deploy Excel Services to a farm Locate and update Excel Services global settings which includes settings for security, load balancing, session management, memory utilization, workbook cache, and external data Adding, configuring, or deleting and Excel Services trusted file location. A trusted file location is a SharePoint Server location, network file share, or Web folder address that the administration has explicitly enabled workbooks to be loaded from. Add, configure, or delete Excel Services trusted data providers. Trusted data providers are data providers from which Excel Services accesses data. Add, configure, or delete trusted data connection libraries. Excel Services can only use data connection files that are stored in a trusted data connection library Add, edit, or delete user-defined function assemblies. If your deployment scenarios include workbooks that contain user-defined functions to extend the capabilities of Excel Calculation Services, you must register the user-defined function assemblies on the Excel Services user-defined function assembly list. Register, edit, and unregister instances of SQL Server 2012 Analysis Services for use by Excel Services in performing advanced data analysis calculations.	See the articles in this section: Excel Services administration.
Administer PerformancePoint Services in SharePoint Server. Includes details on how to: Configure the unattended service account for PerformancePoint Services. The Unattended Service Account is an Active Directory account used for accessing PerformancePoint Services data sources. Delete a PerformancePoint Services service application Limit PerformancePoint Services features that use trusted locations by allowing only designated sites, lists or document libraries rather than the entire site collection Learn how to customize PerformancePoint Services application settings such as cache durations, filter behavior, and query time-out that affect performance, security, and connections to external data.	See the articles in this section: PerformancePoint Services administration.
Administer Visio Graphics Service. Includes details on how to: Create, delete, and list all Visio Graphics Service service applications Create, delete, and list all Visio Graphics Service service application proxies Configure global settings for parameters such as diagram size, cache age, cache size, recalculation durations, and external data Create, edit, and delete trusted data providers	See the articles in this section: Visio Graphics Service administration.
Configure data model settings in Excel Services	Configure Analysis Services for processing data models in Excel Services
Connect to an external list in Visio by using Microsoft Business Connectivity Services and render the diagram in a browser by using Visio Services. To make this connection you need to do the following: Create a Secure Store target application so the Business Data Connectivity service External Content Type can access credentials stored in the Secure Store. Configure Business Data Connectivity service metadata store permissions and grant users permissions to the Business Data Connectivity service metadata store. Configure Business Data Connectivity service object permissions and grant permissions to the External Content Type	Use Visio Services with external lists in SharePoint 2013
Use the EffectiveUserName option in Excel Services or PerformancePoint Services for per-user authentication with Analysis Services data sources.	Use Analysis Services EffectiveUserName in SharePoint Server 2013
Create a target application for an unattended service account.	Configure Excel Services data refresh by using the unattended service account (SharePoint Server 2010) or Configure the Visio Services unattended service account in a BI test environment
Site Collections and Settings
Create a Search Center site and grant access to users.	Create a Search Center site in SharePoint Server 2013
Configure My Sites. This includes details on how to: Create a My Site host site collection Add a wildcard inclusion managed path to a web application Connect the web application to service applications Enable self-service site creation for the Web application Configure My Site settings for the User Profile service application	Configure My Sites in SharePoint Server 2013
Create a community site or portal.	Create and configure communities in SharePoint Server 2013
Create or delete a site collection, view all site collections, or manage the lock status for site collections to control what users can and cannot do on a site collection.	See the articles in this section: See articles in the section Manage site collections.
Manage unused site collections and delete site collections automatically. This article includes information on setting up a schedule to notify site collection owners of site collection inactivity before deleting unused site collections.	Manage unused site collections in SharePoint 2013
Create a Business Intelligence Center with the Business Intelligence Center enterprise template to store items such as reports and dashboards.	Configure a Business Intelligence Center in SharePoint Server 2013
Databases
Add a content database to a farm.	Add content databases in SharePoint 2013
Attach or detach content databases.	Attach or detach content databases in SharePoint 2013
Renaming the App Management Service application and pointing to the renamed database.	Rename the App Management Service service application databases in SharePoint 2013
E-Mail and Text Messages (SMS)
Configure and edit mobile accounts for a server farm so users can subscribe to alerts when changes are made to a SharePoint list or item. To configure or edit a mobile account for a web application, see the Manage web applications section.	Configure a mobile account in SharePoint 2013