How to Allow Schwab Portfolio Center

There are two components to making Schwab Performance Technologies Portfolio Center work with ISA 2004, 1 workstation and 1 server. Portfolio Center uses DCOM to communicate between the clients and the server. DCOM must be allowed on both ends for it to work. This means changing the firewall configuration on both the workstation and the server.

On the workstation you need to allow DCOM through the XP SP2 firewall. Schwab has created a little utility that you can download from the support tools site on their website here. You'll need your customer ID.

On the server, we've also got to allow DCOM communications. By default ISA 2004 is configured with strict RPC compliance in the system policy. This will have to be turned off. Open the ISA Management MMC, Click on Firewall Policy. Click View, System Policy. The System Policy will be displayed above the Firewall Policy. Look for the system policy item called Allow RPC from ISA to Trusted Servers. Right click on it and select edit System Policy. Uncheck Enforce Strict RPC Compliance. This will allow the DCOM communications between the workstations and the server that Portfolio Center requires.