This article is an example on how you can combine various features of .Net framework to display server or domain users and groups in an ASP.Net DataGrid control. This grid is implemented based on our previous article, Embdding DataList in DataGrid, where we showed how a DataList control can be embedded inside DataGrid. In this article we show members of a group in DataList embedded master grid showing group details. And in NTUsers.aspx page we show user's group memebership in a DataList embedded in master grid showing windows user information.

Store Server Groups and Users in an ADO.Net DataSet

The very first thing that you would need to build an application to display users and groups information is to get this data from the system. We used DirectoryServices classes with WinNT provider to get the data. Instead of getting the data every time, we have built a set of DataTable objects stored in a DataSet. This data set is stored in Cache for 30 minutes. After that we refresh the information. In the demo project you will see that there are following DataTable objects with complete set of constraints and unique primary keys.

• NTUsers - This DataTable contains all the users. The primary key of this table is user's SID.
• NTGroups - This DataTable contains all the groups in your system. The primary key for this table id groups SID.
• GroupMembers - This DataTable contains records for memebers of a every group. This table has a combined primary key based on user's SID and group SID.

Both NTUsers and NTGroups tables have relation with GroupMembers table in the data set.

The rest of the implementation is based on our previous grid formatting articles. The grids are bound to tables in the data set. The embeded data list controls are populated in ItemDataBound event of the data grid controls. In the event handler we use CreateChildView method to get data from relational tables.

private void OnUserGridDataBound(object sender, System.Web.UI.WebControls.DataGridItemEventArgs e)
{
	if (e.Item.ItemType == ListItemType.AlternatingItem ||
		e.Item.ItemType == ListItemType.Item)
	{
		Control obCtl = e.Item.FindControl("Members_DataList");
		if (null != obCtl && obCtl is DataList)
		{
			DataRowView drv = (DataRowView)e.Item.DataItem;
			DataView dv = drv.CreateChildView("rel_Groups");
			if (null != dv)
			{
				Members_DataList = (DataList)obCtl;
				Members_DataList.ItemDataBound +=
				 new DataListItemEventHandler(this.Groups_DataList_ItemDataBound);
				Members_DataList.DataSource = dv;
				Members_DataList.DataBind();
			}
		}
	}
}