An Intranet Based on MOSS


In the previous section, you saw that a simple but useful an intranet could be based on WSS can be. However, you were forced to make several adjustments just to make the lists suitable for containing news. There was no way to target news items for specific groups of users; they saw either everything or nothing.

If you have a MOSS installation, then it contains a ton more features than WSS, such as global search capability, many more Web Parts, and advanced site templates. You really get something for your money when you invest in MOSS. Even though WSS 3.0 is very good, the difference between WSS 3.0 and MOSS 2007 is even greater than the difference between WSS 2.0 and SPS 2003. The options when building an intranet portal using MOSS are almost endless, so this section of the book will only describe the basic steps to show you how to build a complete intranet from scratch. As stated before, much of the information in this chapter is discussed in several other chapters as well, but here you will see it in context. Hopefully, it will appear more logical here, and you will understand how and why certain steps must be performed, and in what order.

The General Features of the Intranet

This section uses the same example as above for WSS - to build one company-wide intranet and then several local intranets for HR, IT, and so on. Comparing these two case studies will give you a better understanding of the differences between WSS and MOSS. As before, you will do this by following an example. In this case, the manager of your company, Filobit, wants you to create an intranet with support for web content management on its Publishing Pages. It must have advanced searching, a news section, and a list of all sites and workspaces, such as departmental web sites, project web sites, and meeting workspaces. The intranet should also have a diagram displaying the current sales statistics, using a MS Excel file. Users must be able to send copies of documents to a shared document archive.

This time, we will skip features like advanced document management, forms management of MS InfoPath files, and building a custom workflow solution to keep the example easier for you to follow. These topics are discussed in other chapters of this book. Note that the suggested solution in this example does not use any third-party products; everything is based on the standard features and Web Parts of MOSS 2007 Enterprise Edition.

Building the Intranet

In this example, assume that MOSS 2007 Enterprise Edition is installed and configured, but there is no site collection for the intranet created yet. Now follow the steps in the Try It Out below.

Try It Out Create the Site Collection for the Intranet

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  1. Start the SharePoint Central Administration tool, then switch to the Application Management page. The first site collection to be used for this intranet is based on the Collaboration Portal site template.

  2. Click Create site collection in the SharePoint Site Management section, then enter these values:

    1. Web Application: http://srv1 (if you need to change the web application, click on the current URL and then click Change Web Application).

    2. Title: Home.

    3. Description: Welcome to Filobit's Intranet.

    4. URL: Accept the default, http://srv1/ in this example.

    5. Template Selection: Switch to the Publishing tab, then select Collaboration Portal.

    6. Primary Site Collection Administrator: Enter the name of the user who will be the main administrator for this site collection. In this example, enter Filobit\administrator. You may also want to add another site collection administrator here, but in this example you can leave this field now.

    7. Quota Template: Accept the default, No Quota, (i.e., there is no size limit for this site collection).

    8. Click OK to save and start creating this site collection.

When the process is completed, you will have a new site collection with the following characteristics (see Figure 11-7):

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Figure 11-7

  • q A top site named Home.

  • q Five subsites named Document Center, News, Reports, Search, and Sites.

  • q All of the sites are based on MOSS site templates, so they have more functionality than ordinary WSS sites.

  • q Some of these sites display "Publishing Pages;" that is, the content of the pages must be checked in and sometimes even approved before going public. These pages also support a version history, so it is easy to back to a previous version of the page.

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Web Content Management

This intranet will use web content management to control the process of adding content to its pages. In many other content management systems, you use a separate server for developing new content (sometimes called a "stage server"), or other content management systems force the web content authors to use a separate application for creating and adding content. With MOSS 2007, you add and edit web content directly on the production server, using only a web browser such as Internet Explorer. To assist web content authors, SharePoint offers a number of features to control the editing process, such as:

  • q Automatic checkout when you start editing a page; for example, the start page of the intranet.

  • q Automatic version history tracking, with major and minor version numbers.

  • q Capability to revert to a previous version of the a page.

  • q Modifications must be published to be made public.

  • q Draft versions can start workflows; for example, to send an e-mail asking another web content author to check a new version of a page.

  • q Capability to force all modifications to be approved before being published.

  • q Capability to define when the page will be displayed, and when it will be removed.

  • q Spellchecking of content.

  • q Previewing of the modified page in a new window.

  • q Capability to compare text changes between versions.

All of these features will ensure that even an organization with very high content management requirements will find that MOSS is a very attractive solution, both for the web content authors and for administrators.

When you open a site based on a MOSS template, it will display a page file of type .aspx. This page is usually stored in the current site's page library. This is a new type of library, not found in SharePoint 2003, and its purpose is to be a repository for web page files. This page library can contain any number of pages, but the web site will only display one of them, at any given time. For example, look at the Home site in your intranet; its URL is http://srv1/pages/default.aspx. Let's divide the URL into its single parts:

  • q http://srv1 is the URL to the Home site (i.e., the top site in the site).

  • q /pages is the name of the page library.

  • q Default.aspx is the current page displayed for the site.

So let's look at this page library. Click View All Site Content at the top of the Quick Launch navigation bar; this will display all the lists and libraries in this Home site. Click on Pages (in the Document Libraries section), and you will find the Default.aspx page mentioned above. Since this page library is like any other document library, you work with its files in the same way; for example, if you want to modify the Default.aspx file, click with the mouse just to the right of this file, to open its quick menu (see Figure 11-8). Then click Edit Properties. Now you must click OK to accept the option to check out the page file before it can be modified.

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Figure 11-8

The form displayed now has all the content you previously saw on the Home page for this intranet, plus a number of properties you did not see, such as Target Audience, Contact Name, and Contact Picture. Now edit the content of the page. Click anywhere inside the Page Content area, for example, change the headline color to red, then click OK. Now go back to the Home page again. Note that the page is now checked out, and you will see a number of buttons on the editing toolbar. Since this modification (i.e., the red headline) has not yet been checked in, or published, only you can see the new look of this page. Now you can choose any of these actions:

  • q Discard the modification: Click the toolbar buttons Page image from book Discard Check Out.

  • q Continue to edit the page: Click the Edit Page button.

  • q Check in, but do not publish the modified page: Click the Check in to Share Draft button. This allows another web content author to continue to edit the page.

  • q Publish the modified page: Click the Publish button. Any user with Read access to the site can now see the modified page.

In this example, discard the modifications, and click OK to confirm the operation. The original content of this page is now displayed again. You can actually start editing a content page much more easily than by using the procedure described above. Simply click Site Actions image from book Edit Page, and once again, the Default.aspx page file is automatically checked out and is ready to be edited. Now discard the modifications again (even if you did not do anything): Click Page image from book Discard Check Out, and click OK to accept this.

Let's test this with another page. Click on the News tab on the top bar, then click Site Actions image from book Edit Page. The page will be checked out, and its content will be editable. Be sure to discard the checkout of this page. Obviously, this is also a Publishing Page. In fact, all of these MOSS sites in this intranet are Publishing Pages, thanks to the site template it was built on: the Collaboration Portal site template. It is safe to say that Filobit's new intranet will fulfill the requirements for web content management.

Did you note that there is more information on the Home site than defined in the Default.aspx file, such as menus, logotypes, and navigation links? It is clear that the Home site must display more than just the Default.aspx page, and this is true! The other type of information on this page is stored in a Master Page; this is a new type of layout file that did not exist in SPS 2003. It comes with the new ASP.NET 2.0 environment, and defines the exact layout for a SharePoint site. You will learn more about Master Pages in Chapters 12 and 13.

The News Site

Another requirement from your manager was that Filobit's intranet must support news items. Luckily, the Collaboration Portal site template comes with a News site, ready to be used. Its news items are built on pages very similar to the page files discussed in previous section. So, let's create a news item to see how this works.

Try It Out Create News Items

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  1. Open the News site in the intranet.

  2. Click Site Actions image from book Create Page. This will open a form where you define the content of the news items. For example, to create a news item about dinosaurs you would make these entries:

    1. Title: The Death of Dinosaurs. This will be the headline of the news item.

    2. Description: "All of them were killed when a giant meteorite hit the Earth 65 million years ago." This will be the beginning of the news item.

    3. URL name: This will, by default, be the same as the title, but without space characters. Accept this name, unless you have a good reason not to.

    4. Page Layout: In this section, you choose what type of layout file to use for the news item. By default, there are four Article Page layouts, but you can easily create new ones when needed. To do this, you will need SharePoint Designer (see Chapter 13). In this example, choose the Article page with image on left.

    5. Click Create. After a few seconds the chosen article layout file is checked out and opened in edit mode (see Figure 11-9). This layout file consists of a number of web controls, such as a Page Image, Page Content, and a Rollup Image.

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      Figure 11-9

    6. In the Page Image control, click Edit Picture. In the next form, click Browse and select a picture of your choice.

      Important 

      You can choose between two image libraries: one in the current News site and one called Site Collection Images. If you don't find the picture you want, select the image library and then click Upload to add the picture of your choice. Then click the Refresh button to see the uploaded picture.

    7. In the Image Caption control, type the text you want to appear under the image.

    8. In the Article Date control, click its calendar icon and select the date when this article was published (or simply any date you want to set as the article date).

    9. In the Byline control, enter the name of the author of the article.

    10. Click inside the Page Content control, and type or paste the article. Note that you can use a rich set of formatting controls, including editing in raw HTML format, creating tables, and inserting images.

    11. In the Rollup Image control, click Edit Picture and add a picture in the same way as described in step f. This picture will be shown when the news item is displayed using a rollup Web Part, as you will see later. It can be another picture than in step f or the same picture.

    12. Click the Publish toolbar button and the main part of this news item is displayed; that is, all the information except the Rollup Image and the Description will be displayed.

    13. Next, click on the News tab on the top navigation bar to open the News site with its default view. Now this news item is listed at the top of that page, but only the Rollup Image, the Title, and its Description are shown.

As you can see, it is easy to add news items, and you can define any number of preconfigured page layout files for these. But where are they stored? Well, click on a news item to see its full article, and then look at the URL. For example, the Dinosaur article has the URL http://srv1/News/Pages/TheDeathOfDinosaurs.aspx, which tells you this:

  • q http://srv1 is the URL of the top site the site collection.

  • q /News is the part of the URL that points to the News web site (a subsite under http://srv1).

  • q /Pages is the page library that stores the news items.

  • q TheDeathOfDinosaurs.aspx is the name of the page file for the news item.

So, let's open that page library and see what other news item it contains. On the News site, click View All Site Contents. In the Document Libraries section, you will find Pages, which is a page library exactly like the one you saw before in the description of Publishing Pages on the intranet. The only difference is what it is used for. The page files in this library are all news items, except two: Default.aspx is the content page for the News site, and newsarchive.aspx is a special file that operates similarly to a page library; it will contain all news items, including archived (i.e., hidden) news items. For example, you can create a news item that will be visible from today and one week from now. After that the news item is removed from the standard news lists. But if you open the News archive, it will still be listed there.

If you need to modify an existing news item, you have two options: edit the news page directly or edit the page file in the page library. Both options are described here.

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Try It Out Modify News Items

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  1. Open the News item directly in the News site, and then click Site Actions image from book Edit Page.

  2. Modify the News item.

  3. Click Publish.

The second option is to edit the page file using the Page library on the News site:

  1. Open the News site.

  2. Click View All Site Content image from book Pages to open the page library.

  3. Open the quick menu for the news item, and select Edit Properties. Click OK to accept the option to check out the file.

  4. Modify the news item.

  5. Click OK to save and close the page.

  6. Open the quick menu for the file again. Select Check In, and select the option to check in a major version.

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You may ask yourself "How do I specify when a news item should be archived?" This feature is referred to as "item scheduling" and is actually not enabled by default; you must enable it as shown in the following Try It Out.

Try It Out Enable the Scheduling of News Items

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  1. Open the News site in the intranet.

  2. Click View All Site Content image from book Pages to open the page library.

  3. Click Settings image from book Document Library Settings. In the General Settings section, you will find Manage item scheduling. Open it and you will see that in order to enable the scheduling of news items, you must first activate both major and minor version history, and content approval. Click the Back button on your web browser to step back to the previous page.

    Important 

    If you click either OK or Cancel here, you will be taken to the general Site Settings page for the News site, which is not what you want! If this happens, start all over with step 1 again.

  4. Click Version settings, then continue with:

    1. Select Yes in the Content Approval section.

    2. Verify that the Document Version History section is configured for major and minor versions.

    3. Click OK to save and close the page.

  5. Now click the Manage item scheduling link.

    1. Check Enable scheduling of items in this list.

    2. Click OK to save and close the page.

You are taken to the general Site Settings page for the News site - scheduling is now enabled. Test this by creating a news item. Open the News site, then click Site Actions image from book Create Page. Enter the Title and Description, and click Create. Note that at the top is a new link: Publication Start Date: Immediately (see Figure 11-10). Click that link to open a configuration page where you define the scheduling of the news item (as depicted in Figure 11-11).

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Figure 11-10

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Figure 11-11

Note that the Schedule section on this page contains an option to send an e-mail to the contact person for the news item some time before the article is archived; the contact person is set on the same page. This is a very handy feature that ensures that important articles are not removed without the contact person knowing about it; for example, this contact person may decide that the archival of this news item should be postponed.

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The Site Directory

Another feature that the Filobit manager in this example asked for was that all sites, subsites, and workspaces be easy for the user to find. A very good solution is to create a Site Directory (a directory that shows all the sites in the SharePoint environment). Since this may include many thousands of sites, there must be an easy way to organize all these sites. Compare this to a file system: Instead of storing all files in one folder, you create a folder structure. With SharePoint's site directory, you have the same option: You can define any number of categories, such as Department, Project Type, and Customer, and then assign these categories to links pointing to the sites.

An example will illustrate this better: You talk with the people who will create sites in the new intranet, such as project leaders, team managers, and department managers, and you determine that the sites can be divided into three categories:

  • q Division: Filobit consists of these divisions: Sales, IT, Finance, and HR. The last division will be used for sites like the Board of Directors site.

  • q Project Type: There are three types of projects in Filobit: Internal, External, and Other.

  • q Site Type: There are four types of sites: Intranet, Project, Meeting, and Other.

With MOSS comes a special web site for managing the site directory; its name is Sites, which is both good and bad. It's good because it describes exactly what it is used for, and bad because it is very easy sometimes to get confused, since the term "site" is used both to refer to a type of object and as the name for several objects. For example, try to understand this: "The Site site stores site links in the Sites list!" Maybe a better name for this site would be the Site Directory.

The Site Directory consists of links to SharePoint sites; these links are stored in the list called "Sites." On the Sites page is a button named Add Link to Site, which you can use to add new site links. Another way of adding site links is to open the list (View All Site Content image from book Sites) and click New; this last method is also used to modify or delete existing site links.

Important 

The Sites list requires approval of any modified site link. In other words, when adding a new site link or editing an existing site link, it must be approved before the users can see the modification.

To manage all the categories available for these site links, you must open the settings for the Sites list, as described below. Note that if you later change any existing categories, all existing site links that belong to that category will then lose the setting. In other words, make sure to evaluate what categories you need, before you start adding site links, unless you are prepared to modify all existing site links!

Your job as a SharePoint administrator is to create a Site Directory with the categories described below. At this stage there are no other sites, beside the one created automatically by the Collaboration Portal site template. Soon you will create new sites, and before that you need to adjust the site categories. The following Try It Out shows how you do this.

Try It Out Configure Site Directory Categories

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  1. Open the Sites site in the intranet. It contains already three categories: Division, Region, and "Tasks and Tools."

  2. Click View All Site Content.

  3. Click Sites in the Lists section. This will open the list where all site links are stored.

  4. Click Settings image from book List Settings. The configuration page for the list is displayed. Look in the Columns section; it shows both properties, such as Title and URL, and the three default categories: Division, Region, and "Tasks and Tools."

  5. Start by modifying the Division category. Click on its name to open its configuration form:

    1. In the section Additional Column Settings, replace the text Information Technology with IT.

    2. Then replace Research & Development with HR.

    3. At the bottom of the list, add Management.

    4. Click OK to save and close the form.

  6. Next step is to remove the default category Region. Click on its name, click the Delete button at the bottom of the form, then click OK to delete the column.

  7. Add the Project Type category. In the Columns section, click Create column, then enter these settings:

    1. Column name: Project Type.

    2. Type: Choice. The form is rebuilt to allow you define the options for this choice.

    3. Description: "Enter the project type."

    4. Type each choice on a separate line: Delete all current lines in this field, then enter these values, one per line: Internal, External, Other.

    5. Clear the Default value field.

    6. Click OK.

  8. Add the Site Type category: In the Columns section, click Create column, then enter these settings:

    1. Column name: Site Type.

    2. Type: Choice. The form is rebuilt to allow you define the options for this choice

    3. Description: "Enter the site type."

    4. Type each choice on a separate line: Delete all current lines in this field, then enter these values, one per line: Intranet, Project, Meeting, and Other.

    5. Clear the Default value field.

    6. Click OK.

  9. Click on the top navigation tab Sites. Note that it now shows the updated categories (see Figure 11-12).

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Figure 11-12

The site categories are now ready to be used.

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Displaying an Excel Diagram on the Intranet

The next step in this example is to display an MS Excel diagram, showing the latest sales figures. With MOSS 2007 Enterprise Edition comes Excel Services, which enable you to display any Excel spreadsheet or diagram in HTML format (users do not need an MS Excel client to view this information). In order to use Excel Services to display Excel files, the SharePoint administrator must configure at least one setting: the trusted file location where these Excel file are stored. Excel Services are a part of the Shared Service Provider module, so all configuration settings for Excel Services are located in the SSP instance, typically named SharedService1.

To display this file you will use a special Web Part, named Excel Web Access; it will display any Excel file, in HTML format. If you have ever used Outlook Web Access to view your Exchange mailbox using a web browser, you get the idea. In both cases, you can use a web browser to view content instead of using a full client, such as MS Excel or MS Outlook.

Important 

You must use the new Excel 2007 format (.xlsx ) to use Excel Services. If you use the old .xls format, you will get an error saying "Unable to Load Workbook" (see Figure 11-13).

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Figure 11-13

In this example, the sales figures and the diagram you need to display will be saved in the Sales.xlsx file, stored in the document library Sales Info, which belongs to the Document Center site. This document library does not exist yet, so you must create it. Then you must publish the Sales.xlsx file to that document library, using Excel services. Follow the steps in the Try It Out below to configure the Excel services, and to display the diagram using the Excel Web Access Web Part.

Try It Out Use Excel Services to Display an Excel File

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  1. Open the intranet: Go to http://srv1/ and click on the top navigation tab Document Center (note that its full URL is http://srv1/docs; that is, this is a subsite directly located under the top site).

  2. Click Site Actions image from book Create, and then click Document Library in the Libraries section. Then enter this value:

    1. Name: Sales Info.

    2. Click Create.

  3. Open the Sale.xlsx file in the file system (or create it from scratch now):

    1. If the diagram does not exist yet, create it now. A tip is to create an embedded chart on a spreadsheet page instead of creating a separate chart page in Excel. This way, you can control its size, which makes it easier later to display this diagram in the Excel Web Access Web Part. Click on the diagram, and note its name; for example, Chart 1.

    2. In Excel, click the Office button, then Publish image from book Excel Services. Navigate to the document library Sales Info. Before you click Save, perform the next step.

      Important 

      You must use MS Excel 2007, which comes with MS Office Professional Plus, Enterprise, or Ultimate edition in order to publish to Excel Services. See Chapter 1 for more details about the different MS Office 2007 editions.

    3. Click Excel Services Options. On the Show tab, use the menu to select Items in the Workbook, then check the chart name; for example, Chart 1. Click OK to close the page.

    4. The selected diagram will now open in a web browser. This Excel file is now ready to be used in SharePoint.

  4. The next step is to configure Excel Services. Open the SharePoint Central Administration tool, and then open the SSP instance, typically SharedServices1.

    1. In the Excel Services Settings section, click Trusted file locations.

    2. Click Add Trusted File Location, and a web form will be displayed where you define a number of settings related to Excel files and their locations. In this example, you only add a simple path. In the Address field, type http://srv1/docs/SalesInfo, which is the URL to the document library where the Excel file is stored.

    3. Click OK.

  5. The final step is to display the Excel diagram, using the Excel Web Access Web Part. Open the intranet site (http://srv1), then click Site Actions image from book Edit Page.

  6. Select the Web Part zone where you want to display the Excel diagram, for example Top Zone, then click Add a Web Part.

  7. If necessary, expand the section All Web Parts, then check mark the Excel Web Access Web Part, located in the Business Data section. Click Add. After a few seconds, the new Web Part will be visible. Configure the Web Part like this:

    1. On the Excel Web Access Web Part, click Edit image from book Modify Shared Web Part (or click the link Click here to open the tool pane in the text body of this Web Part). The tool pane will open.

    2. In the Workbook Display section, click the button at the far right of the Workbook field, then double-click on the Document Center site, and select Sales Info. Select Sales.xlsx, and click OK to add the URL to the document.

    3. This Web Part does not rescale the Excel file to match the size of the Web Part window, so adjust the Rows and Columns fields to match the size of the diagram. Note that you may have to test these settings to make the diagram display properly.

    4. If you want to define a special title for this Web Part, you do it like this: Uncheck the options "Autogenerate Web Part Title" and "Autogenerate Web Part Title URL," then expand the Appearance section and enter the name you want in the Title field.

    5. If you have more than one sheet in the Excel spreadsheet, you may want to prohibit the users from seeing anything besides the first sheet. To do that, uncheck Workbook Navigation in the Navigation and Interactivity section.

    6. Click OK to save and close the tool pane. After a few seconds, the Excel file is displayed in the Excel Web Access Web Part. If it looks good, then you are done; if not, open the tool pane for the Web Part and change its settings.

  8. Click Publish on the toolbar. This page now shows the Sales diagram; it should look similar to Figure 11-14.

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    Figure 11-14

  9. Test the new diagram: Edit the Sales.xlsx file in the Sales Info document library, and make some changes that will affect the diagram, then save and close the Excel file. Now open the page with the Excel Web Access Web Part. Click Update image from book Reload Workbook on the Web Part toolbar to make sure that it shows the latest information.

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Creating Departmental Intranets

As described in the example, this intranet must have three local intranets for the departments IT, HR, and Sales. Since the security requirements are moderate, you can create subsites in the current site collection for these departmental intranets, as described in the following Try It Out.

Try It Out Create Departmental Intranets

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  1. Open the intranet (http://srv1/, and click on the top navigation tab Sites (note that its full URL is http://srv1/SiteDirectory; that is, this is a subsite directly located under the top site).

  2. Create the first departmental intranet site for IT:

    1. Click Create Site in the upper right of the Sites page, and enter the following settings.

    2. Title: IT.

    3. Description: "Local Intranet for the IT Department."

    4. URL name: IT. (the complete URL will then be http://srv1/SiteDirectory/it).

    5. Select a template: Team Site.

    6. User Permissions: Select the option Use unique permissions.

    7. Accept the default Use the top link bar from the parent site.

    8. Check the option List this new site in the site directory, and select Division: IT, and Site Type: Intranet.

    9. Click Create. The site will be created.

    10. Since you requested unique permissions, the next step is defining the permissions for the site. Select the option Create a new group for "Visitors to This Site" and accept the default "IT Visitors." Next you should add users and groups to the three groups on the page, as required by your organization. In this example you will skip this for now; click OK to save and close the permissions page.

    11. The new site is displayed; if it looks good, then it is time to create the next site.

  3. Create the departmental intranet site for HR:

    1. Click Create Site in the upper right of the Sites page, and enter the following settings.

    2. Title: HR.

    3. Description: "Local Intranet for the HR Department."

    4. URL name: HR (the complete URL will then be http://srv1/SiteDirectory/HR).

    5. Select a template: Team Site.

    6. User Permissions: Select the option Use unique permissions.

    7. Accept the default Use the top link bar from the parent site.

    8. Check the option List this new site in the site directory, and select Division: HR, and Site Type: Intranet.

    9. Click Create. The site will be created.

    10. Define the permissions for the site. Select the option Create a new group for "Visitors to This Site" and accept the default "HR Visitors." Click OK to save and close the permissions page.

  4. Finally, create the departmental intranet site for Sales:

    1. Click Create Site in the upper right of the Sites page, and enter the following settings.

    2. Title: Sales.

    3. Description: "Local Intranet for the Sales Department."

    4. URL name: Sales (the complete URL will then be http://srv1/SiteDirectory/Sales).

    5. Select a template: Team Site.

    6. User Permissions: Select the option Use unique permissions.

    7. Accept the default Use the top link bar from the parent site.

    8. Check the option List this new site in the site directory, and select Division: Sales, and Site Type: Intranet.

    9. Click Create.

    10. Define the permissions for this site. Select the option Create a new group for "Visitors to This Site" and accept the default "Sales Visitors." Click OK to save and close the permissions page.

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All three new sites are now created and ready to be used; time to continue with the configuration of the intranet.

Publishing Documents to a Document Archive

Your manager in this example requested that the intranet have a shared document archive that users can use to upload important documents they want to share with others. This is a standard feature in SharePoint. You simply create one ordinary document library in a suitable site and configure its permissions, if necessary. Then you configure individual document libraries in subsites, project sites, and the like to show an upload link to the document archive. Whenever a user uploads a document to the archive, a copy of that document is stored in the archive, but it contains a link back to the original document. If the original document is modified, that author will be reminded that there is a copy in the archive, and he or she can choose to update that archived copy. A user that looks at the properties for the files in the archive can see that the document is a copy, and where the original file is stored.

One important reason to use a separate document library as an archive instead of allowing users to read the original files is permissions. For example, say that you have three subsites; users in these subsites create a lot of documents, and some of them should be publically available. Instead of opening these subsites and/or their document libraries to all users, you can copy documents to the public document archive. That archive can have any permission setting that your organization needs, without your needing to worry about the permissions on the original documents and their libraries. But this creates a new challenge: How do you make sure that the copies in the archive are updated? SharePoint solves this problem by creating a link back from the copied document to the original version, as described in the previous paragraph.

In the Filobit example, you will first select a document library to be used as the document archive. Then you will modify the document libraries in the subsites IT, HR, and Sales to contain a upload link to that document archive, as described in the Try It Out below.

Try It Out Configure a Shared Document Archive

image from book
  1. Open the site http://srv1/docs (i.e., the Document Center).

  2. Click on Documents, and note its URL: http://srv1/docs/Documents. This will be the new document archive for Filobit. In a real-world scenario, you should now update the permissions to the document library, but in this example you will accept the default settings; that is, anyone who is a member of the Visitor SharePoint group will be able to open documents in the archive.

  3. Add a link to this document archive to some of the document libraries:

    1. Open the IT site, http://srv1/SiteDirectory/it.

    2. Click on Shared Documents in the Quick Launch bar.

    3. Click Settings image from book Document Library Settings image from book Advanced settings.

    4. In the Custom Sent to Destination section, enter Destination name: Document archive and the URL: http://srv1/Docs/Documents.

    5. Click OK.

  4. Repeat steps a–e above for the HR and Sales subsites.

  5. Test this:

    1. Open the IT site (http://srv1/SiteDirectory/it), and add any document to the Shared Documents library.

    2. In the quick menu for the document, select Send To image from book Document Archive.

    3. The following form shows the filename and the URL to the archive; accept the settings. Change the option in the Update section to Yes. This will ensure that an author who updates this document will be notified that there is a copy of the document in the archive and that the copy can also be updated.

    4. A new dialog window named Copy Progress opens. Click OK to copy the file to the archive. When the process is completed, click Done.

    5. Open the document archive (http://srv1/docs/documents). Verify that it contains a copy of the document.

    6. Open the quick menu for the copy. Note that it has the option Go to Source Item. Select this option to open the properties of the original document, and possibly also the document itself.

    7. Open the quick menu again for the copy in the archive, then select View Properties. It will show the link back to the original document (see Figure 11-15).

image from book
Figure 11-15

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Creating New Site Collections

The intranet, as requested by your manager in this example, is now almost complete. But you need to do some more things. Since the Finance department and the Board of Directors group requested much higher security, you decide that they will each get a separate site collection. Doing this means that there is no way a user, or even an administrator from the first site collection, will have access to either of these two sites. You may remember from earlier discussions about security in Chapters 3 and 5 that each site collection is similar to an isolated island. Its settings only affect the sites in that site collection, and never a site in another site collection.

The quick steps to create the site collections for the Finance and Board of Directors groups are listed below. Instead of creating these new top sites using the WSS Team Site template, you will use the MOSS site templates Document Center and Report Center. These templates are identical to the subsites with the same name in the main intranet site (http://srv1).

Try It Out Create Finance and Board of Directors Intranets

image from book
  1. Start the SharePoint Central Administration tool, then switch to the Application Management page. The first new site collection to be used is a web site for the Finance team, based on the Report Center template.

  2. Click Create site collection in the SharePoint Site Management section, then enter these values:

    1. Title: Finance.

    2. Description: "Welcome to the Finance team."

    3. URL: Add "finance" (the complete URL is then http://srv1/sites/finance).

    4. In the Template Selection section, on the Enterprise tab, select Report Center.

      Important 

      If you have installed language packs, select the language first, then select the site template.

    5. In the Primary Site Collection Administrator section, enter the user account that should be the administrator for the complete site collection (use Filobit\Administrator in this example to be sure that you can manage that site collection).

    6. In the Site Categories section, select Division: Finance and a Site Type of Intranet.

    7. For this site you do not need a quota template; leave the default setting, No Quota.

    8. Click OK, then OK again. You are taken back to the Application Management page.

  3. Next, you will create a site for the Board of Directors group. Most of their information is meeting minutes and documents, so they want a suitably designed top site that will be the parent of multiple meeting workspaces. For this top site you will use the site template Document Center. Click Create site collection, in the SharePoint Site Management section, then enter these values:

    1. Title: Board of Directors.

    2. Description: "Welcome to the Board of Directors web site."

    3. URL: Add "bod" (the complete URL is then http://srv1/sites/bod).

    4. In the Template Selection section, on the Enterprise tab, select Document Center.

      Important 

      If you have installed language packs, select the language first, then select the site template.

    5. In the Primary Site Collection Administrator section, enter the user account that should be the administrator for the complete site collection.

    6. Check the option List this new site in the site directory, and select Division: Board of Directors, and Site Type: Intranet.

    7. For this site you do not need a quota template; accept the default setting, No Quota.

    8. Click OK, then OK again. You are taken back to the Application Management page.

  4. Finally, you must add a link on these new site collections that points back to the main intranet site. Start by opening the Finance site, then continue with the following steps:

    1. Click Site Actions image from book Site Settings image from book Portal site connection (in the Site Collection Administration section).

    2. Select the option Connect to portal site, then enter the Portal Web Address: http://srv1 and Portal Name: Filobit Home.

    3. Click OK to save and close the page.

  5. Repeat steps a–c above for the site Board of Directors site (http://srv1/sites/bod).

image from book

Intranet Summary

Building a new intranet using MOSS was a lot easier than doing so with WSS, since MOSS contains much richer functionality, such as web content management, advanced News features, a configurable site directory, and features such as Excel Services and more advanced site templates. After building these sites and configuring these features, the next steps could be these:

  • q Adjust the design by adding new Master Pages and page layout files for news items and the like.

  • q Add more Web Parts; for example, use the RSS Feed Web Part that comes with MOSS to present information stored in external web sites, instead of adding code to the XML Web Part to make it work as an RSS Feed client.

  • q Analyze which users should have access to specific sites, libraries, and items, then implement that using SharePoint groups and/or AD security groups.

  • q Start investigating how InfoPath forms could assist your organization to work in a more process-oriented way.

  • q Analyze what content types your organization needs.

  • q Prepare yourself for constant change. Listen to your users; try to understand what their needs are, and help them find solutions based on the standard features of SharePoint. When that is not enough, look at the vast market of third-party products and solutions for SharePoint.



Beginning SharePoint 2007 Administration. Windows SharePoint Services 3 and Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007
Software Testing Fundamentals: Methods and Metrics
ISBN: 047143020X
EAN: 2147483647
Year: 2004
Pages: 119

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