Create some user accounts in the local network directory, and group them for service access purposes or just to keep the accounts easy to find.

1. Create a user account for each employee, by selecting Users in the Server app sidebar.

2. Choose Local Network Users from the pop-up menu, then click Add.

   For more information, see Create a user account in Server Help.

3. After creating the users, create groups for them such as “Sales” or “Contractors.”

4. Select Groups in the Server app sidebar, choose Local Network Groups from the pop-up menu, then click Add..

   For more information, see Create a group in Server Help.

You use the accounts to authenticate to services, but if you want you can also use them to store the users’ home folders on the server. For more information about network home directories, see Choose a user’s home folder location in Server Help.

OS X Server can provide Time Machine backup service to all of the computers on your local network. This gives added data protection to the client computers and peace of mind to your users.

For added protection, make sure your server itself is being backed up to yet another disk using Time Machine.

• To set up Time Machine backup service for your computers, see the Provide centralized backup tutorial.

Configuration profiles provide an easy way to distribute service settings to client computers and devices. Profile Manager in OS X Server provides a service to create the profiles and post them to a website for your organization, so users can install their own profiles, thereby configuring their computers instantly.

• To set up Profile Manager and make configuration profiles for your users and devices, see the Manage devices tutorial.

  Since you set up Time Machine in the previous step, remember to add the Time Machine settings to the profile. The computers will be automatically configured to use the Time Machine service once they install the profile.