ECM Lounge

display ID field in display and edit forms of SharePoint List

2010-01-19T10:49:00.002Z

During my recent project, I was stuck in one of the annoying issue, how to show ID field in DispForm.aspx or EditForm.aspx in any list. As my effort to add it as a calculated column failed miserably [it always return 0]. I googled it for a bit and found this wonderful post, a really neat solution.

http://pathtosharepoint.wordpress.com/2009/01/18/item-id-in-display-and-edit-forms/

HTH,
Nilesh

Site templates not available in create site page

2009-09-07T10:00:00.001+01:00

When you click on the “create site” in site action menu, or by going to view all content and create sites and workspaces you will see that, not all site templates are available to create site from.

The solution: The reason might be that you have NOT enabled self service site creation option in the central administration.

Go to Central administration site of your sharepoint server > click on Application Management > under Application Security section, click on self-service site management and choose option “On” and click “OK”

Go back to the site action manu and create site this should now point you to a new page called scsignup.aspx and not newsbweb.aspx

If it’s not taking you to scsignup.aspx then manually go to http://yourserver/_layouts/scsignup.aspx

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Web Part Maintenance Page

2009-09-04T10:29:00.001+01:00

In my many years of SharePoint development, I often use the Web Part Maintenance Page during my development, but always forget the URL for Web Part Maintenance Page .so decided to write this post about it!

Add “?contents=1” at the end of a sharepoint webpart page and it will take you to the Web Part Maintenance Page!

So the url will be: http://yourserver/sitename/yourpagename.aspx?contents=1

Hope this helps.

Unable to display this Web Part. To troubleshoot the problem, open this Web page in a Windows SharePoint

2009-09-03T11:55:00.001+01:00

Sometime you receive “Unable to display this Web Part. To troubleshoot the problem, open this Web page in a Windows SharePoint Services-compatible HTML editor such as Microsoft Office SharePoint Designer. If the problem persists, contact your Web server administrator.”

After you’ve backup/restored site using sharepoint designer 2007 in a page where you have customized a data view webpart [new, edit, view page of list].

The most likely reason for this error is that the backup/restore operation basically changes the list id in the new server, so in your customized data view page where this error is happening, open the page in SharePoint designer and replace the old list id with a new list id, and voila! It will work!

Hope this helps!

soap:ServerServer was unable to process request. ---> Cannot complete this action. Please try again. ---> Cannot complete this action. Please try again."

2009-08-05T11:42:00.001+01:00

I was getting this error for quite sometime.

“soap:ServerServer was unable to process request. ---> Cannot complete this action. Please try again. ---> Cannot complete this action. Please try again."

Finally found a solution below:

Go to Site Settings > Master Page and Page Layout Gallery, checkout the file through the browser. Once checked out to you click on the dropdown menu of the file again and click on "Edit in Microsoft Office SharePoint Designer" and voila! It should work!!

Regards,

Nilesh Vasave

SharePoint Architect

SharePoint 2010 Sneak Peek

2009-07-20T15:20:00.002+01:00

MS has created a Sneak Peek site for SharePoint 2010.

Please visit the SharePoint 2010 Sneak Peek site at http://sharepoint.microsoft.com/2010/Sneak_Peek/Pages/default.aspx.

Cannot connect to the configuration database

2009-06-17T14:33:00.001+01:00

My WSS/MOSS server was giving me this error after a restart of the server [I have all in one server], later figured out that my SQL Server Browser service was set to manual start and SharePoint requires SQL Server Browser service enabled/started otherwise it will throw “Cannot connect to the configuration database” error. Fixed!

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SharePoint Designer 2007 _catalogs folder is empty

2009-06-17T14:30:00.000+01:00

After frustrating half an hour, I figured that refreshing the view [View > Refresh or F5] does the trick and the master pages and other folders under _catalogs appears!!

STSADMWin - a windows based STSADM Tool

2009-06-12T12:34:00.001+01:00

As STSADM is a command line utility, and the command-line is somewhat limited compared to Windows GUI, especially when it comes to non-English usage, there is a room for GUIs like stsadmWin (STSADM for Windows). I am always a fan of STSADMWIN a windows based STSADM Tool since I found it in 2003/2004. The new version works with both Sharepoint 2003 and 2007. Try it! It will make your life lot easy..

How stsadmWin works?

stsadmWin reads a list of commands from an XML file (namely: operations.xml), and displays a combo with the operations, denoting mandatory and optional parameters, and linking to the utility’s help.

Download

You can download STSADMWin from following link:

http://blogs.msdn.com/ronalus/attachment/1411643.ashx

Directory does not exist or the Sql server service account and the service account don not have permission to read or write to the back up folder

2009-06-12T12:21:00.001+01:00

You receive following error when you try to restore backup from local or remote network location:

“Directory (restore machine path on domain) \\testserver\backup does not exist or the Sql server service account and the (back up machine path on workgroup).

domain\accountname service account don not have permission to read or write to the back up folder”.

In my case, I was logged in to one of my WFEs and created folder in the WFE and then tried to use the local folder path like D:\Backupdata which was giving me the above error. I later realised that the path really didn’t exist as the D:\Backupdata was created on other front end when i logged in couple of hours ago and when I reclogged in the loadbalanced server the load balancer has switched the server to the different WFE and D:Backupdata didn’t exist on this server. So it’s always better to enable sharing of the backup folder and provide names in the restore like \\servername\backupfolder rather than D:\backupfolder.

Lesson learned!

Only machine administrators are allowed to create administration service job definitions

2009-06-12T12:14:00.001+01:00

Access denied. Only machine administrators are allowed to create administration service job definitions:

During restoring a sharepoint backup you might get this error basically this means few things:

1. The SQL Server name specified has named instance missing (i.e. SQLSERVERNAME\NamedInstance) or

2. The account used for the restore doesn’t have sufficient rights [make sure that account used to restore has appropriate rights on the WFEs and SQL Server also, it makes life bit easy if the account also has local admin rights and farm admin rights, you can always remove the rights later].

The farm is not available

2009-06-10T18:17:00.001+01:00

While installing one of the feature,i got following error

C:\Program Files\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\web server extensions\12\BIN>stsa

dm -o installfeature -name AKS -force

The farm is unavailable.

I found out that the account I am using to install the feature doesn’t have permission on the SharePoint DB server. I’ve added my self in the db server and the error went away!

Hope this helps..

How to pass session variable in sharepoint webpart

2009-06-10T15:41:00.001+01:00

During my current project I came across this small hiccup, where I wanted to pass value of a variable from one page to the other in a sharepoint webpart, since Webpart doesn’t provide this out of the box. I have discovered this little gem from my research.

I wanted to retain value of logged in user’s style preference for the page, the following line of code besically retains the value in the combination of page session and and class variable.

strUser = loggedInUser [strUser declared at class level]

Page.Session.Add("userStyle", strUser); //when user first time login/load on the page.

Then use this Page.Session object to retrive the value of strUser for other functions like:

strUser = Page.Session["userStyle"].ToString();

and write the value of the strUser using

Page.Response.Write("StrUser:" + strUser);

Hope this helps.

SharePoint and Accessibility

2009-06-10T14:42:00.002+01:00

Currently I am working at my client site on Accessibility project for SharePoint. My client is a government client and wants their website to be accessibility complient (WCAG 1.0 AA). My task is to convert their existing non WCAG 1.0 compliant site and convert it into a compliant site.

So far I have found following:

There is something called Accessibility Kit for SharePoint (AKS) from Hi Software. Hi Software has worked with Microsoft to produce this Accessibility kit. The good news is the Kit

Key Features in the AKS v2.0

The AKS v2.0 introduces the following:

Smart Control adapters which greatly reduce the amount of custom configuration previously required for AKS control adapters.
The Web Part Zone Control Adapter, a special Smart Adapter that modifies the output of SharePoint so that it does not use tables for layout of the Web parts.
HiSoftware’s Compliant Code Engine (HCCE) to assist organizations in creating code that is compliant to standards-based HTML or XHTML.
Additional requirements under Canadian Common Look and Feel 2.0 (CLF 2.0) guidelines.
Examples of remediation to comply with WCAG 2.0 Level AA.
French language version of AKS 1.0 components.

I will post more as I progress in the project.

Microsoft has announced SharePoint Server 2010 Preliminary System Requirements

2009-05-12T16:34:00.002+01:00

After lot of buzz about the new (already ex) SharePoint “14” and new SharePoint 2010, MS has announce some preliminary system requirements for SharePoint Server 2010.

SharePoint Server 2010 will be 64-bit only.
SharePoint Server 2010 will require 64-bit Windows Server 2008 or 64-bit Windows Server 2008 R2.
SharePoint Server 2010 will require 64-bit SQL Server 2008 or 64-bit SQL Server 2005.

Addition to the requirements listed above there were also some preliminary details about SharePoint Server 2010 browser compatibility.

SharePoint 2010 engineering efforts on targeting standards based browsers (XHTML 1.0 compliant) including Internet Explorer 7, Internet Explorer 8 and Firefox 3.x. running on Windows Operating Systems. In addition we’re planning on an increased level of compatibility with Firefox 3.x and Safari 3.x on non-Windows Operating Systems. Due to this focus Internet Explorer 6 will not be a supported browser for SharePoint Server 2010.

Make sure you are ready for SharePoint Server 2010 by ensuring..

Start by ensuring new hardware is 64-bit. Deploying 64-bit is our current best practice recommendation for SharePoint 2007.
Deploy Service Pack 2 and take a good look at the SharePoint 2010 Upgrade Checker that’s shipped as part of the update. The Upgrade Checker will scan your SharePoint Server 2007 deployment for many issues that could affect a future upgrade to SharePoint 2010.
Get to know Windows Server 2008 with SharePoint 2007, this post is a great starting point.
Consider your desktop browser strategy if you have large population of Internet Explorer 6 users.
Continue to follow the Best Practices guidance for SharePoint Server 2007.
Keep an eye on this blog for updates and more details in the coming months.

Can’t wait to get my hands on to SharePoint 2010.

ITechnocrats Consulting Limited

2009-05-12T12:31:00.003+01:00

Hi All,

I have launched my company site [ofcourse built using WSS 3.0], please visit http://www.itechnocrats.co.uk for news and views about myself and my company.

ITechnocrats Consulting Limited is your one stop shop for SharePoint Consulting and Recruitment needs. We are team of professional consultants specialised in SharePoint Consulting and Recruitment.

We also work on Windows Mobile development. Please visit our App Store to see the latest applications we are working on which can help you and your business.

The address could not be found

2008-06-11T11:35:00.001+01:00

Today while working with one client, I came across these errors in their Sharepoint (SPS) 2003 Search gatherer logs. Here are their explanations and resolutions:

1. To resolve " The address could not be found, ( 0x80041201 - The Object was not found )" error

Follow the steps given in the artilce published in MS Support site

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/909505

2. To resolve "The address could not be found, (0x80041205 - Access is denied. Check that the Default Content Access Account in SharePoint Central Administration is correct, or follow the "Exclude and Include Content" link to add a rule to specify the proper crawling account to access this URL. ) " error

Follow the steps given in the article published in MS Support site

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/891538

3. Error "The address could not be found, (0x80042404 - A document IFilter cannot be initialized. The document or IFilter may contain errors."
Office documents that are protected with a password are not included in the content index, and a "A document IFilter cannot be initialized' error message is logged in the gatherer log, it happens after you install SharePoint Portal Server 2003 SP2, the properties of Microsoft Office documents that are protected with a password are not included in the content index. When you perform an update of the content index, the error message mentioned above is logged in the gatherer log.
Therefore, when users search the portal site for Office documents, Office documents that are protected with a password are not returned in the search results.

Hope this helps.

Access is denied. Check that the Default Content Access Account has access to this

2008-05-28T15:38:00.000+01:00

After upgrade from SharePoint [SPS] 2003 to SharePoint 2007 [MOSS 2007] the search doesn't work and gives this error:

"Access is denied. Check that the Default Content Access Account has access to this
content, or add a crawl rule to crawl this content. (This item was deleted because
it was either not found or the crawler was denied access to it.)"

We decided that default content access account have had access to SharePoint sites, but when index service crawled these sites in IIS log appended 401 error for this account.
Steps of solution:
• Login on SharePoint Server as default content access account
• Turn off automatic proxy server detection in IE settings
• Provide valid proxy server’s address and port number
• Check “Bypass proxy server for local addresses”
• Start full indexing again

FileMaxSize property

2008-05-28T15:26:00.004+01:00

How to increase FileMaxSize property of a Content Deployment Job?

There is no easy or out of the box way of updating this property, one way though is to do it using custom code using SDK. Here is a quick code snippet which does that.

ContentDeploymentConfiguration config = ContentDeploymentConfiguration.GetInstance();
config.FileMaxSize = 30;
config.Update();

Once changed this should affect all content deployment jobs.

SharePoint Content management Video

2008-05-27T12:22:00.003+01:00

A nice video on Content management by EMC.

Event ID 6482 in Office SharePoint Server log files

2008-05-15T11:29:00.002+01:00

You get the Event ID 6482 in your logfiles, the error is related to Office SharePoint Server. The fix for this error is included in Service pack 1 for Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 SP 1. The KB article for this is KB 936988.

Download Service pack 1 for WSS 3.0

Site Collection output cache error

2008-05-13T10:47:00.002+01:00

One of our client today faced this issue where they were unable to access portal -> site actions -> Site Settings -> Modify all site settings -> Site Collection output cache settings in their site collection.

Solution:
The solution is to de-activate and re-activate the publishing feature of the site collection. I have tested on the staging server and it seemed to work.

1. Click Site Actions--Modify Site Settings, click Site Collection Features
2. Click Deactivate for "Office SharePoint Server Publishing Infrastructure", click Deactivate this feature on the next page
3. Click Activate for "Office SharePoint Server Publishing Infrastructure".

The probable cause may be, Since the "cache profiles" list is generated by the system when the publishing site is provisioned, it is possible there are some problems during the site provisioning
and it causes the error.

Microsoft has released the User Guide, Samples and Walkthroughs for the Visual Studio 2005 extensions for Windows SharePoint Services 3.0, v1.1

2008-05-13T10:23:00.001+01:00

Microsoft has released the User Guide, Samples and Walkthroughs for the Visual Studio 2005 extensions for Windows SharePoint Services 3.0, v1.1. The extensions that this user guide relates to was released on Feb 11th 2008 and a version for Visual Studio 2008 is planned to release in June 2008.

The user guide is downloadable here and represents approx 200 pages of documentation applicable to both the current and applicable to the forthcoming Visual Studio 2008 extensions for Windows SharePoint Services.

This user guide is a part of a dedicated campaign that lots of people are working on to drive more professional developers to work on SharePoint, to fill the gap in this audience required for SharePoint deployments and to improve the satisfaction of those developers. These are some of the other activities going on presently, many of which are launching at TechEd Developers 2008:

· New Introductory SharePoint Developer landing page for .NET Developers with free introductory online training
· Print Datasheet of Positioning and Value Prop of SharePoint Development for .NET Developers
· Advertising of the new SharePoint Developer landing page on www.asp.net and at TechEd Developers USA
· Web casting and an in-person Firestarter event for the new training material
· A major new introductory SharePoint developer article in the MSDN Library aimed at .NET developers
· More improvements coming on the Visual Studio extensions for SharePoint for SharePoint “12”. The next is a release that works with Visual Studio 2008 coming in June 2008
· The Silverlight Blueprint for SharePoint published in Feb 2008
· Third party paid additions to the WSS and MOSS SDK in collaboration with Office UA – 100 new API SDK pages completed so far
· Dedicated support for the SharePoint Developer and Programming MSDN Forum which has increased the answer rate from 17% to 58%
· Translation of the VSeWSS user guide to Japanese
· SPDisposeCheck – A tool to aid SharePoint Developers in following best practices for use and disposing of SharePoint objects

Hope MS will keep up the good work of promoting SharePoint and making the lives of hundreds of thousands of developers easy.

Microsoft SharePoint Administration Toolkit 1.0

2008-05-01T11:43:00.002+01:00

Microsoft has released Administration Toolkit for SharePoint.

The Administration Toolkit Contained:
o Batch Site Manager
o Alert Fixer
· WhitePaper: http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=117212&clcid=0x409
· Download Link:
o x86: http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyId=263CD480-F6EB-4FA3-9F2E-2D47618505F2&displaylang=en
o x64: http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyId=F8EEA8F0-FA30-4C10-ABC9-217EEACEC9CE&displaylang=en

Anti Virus and MOSS 2007

2008-04-22T12:06:00.005+01:00

Today, I was having this issue with a client, who has Forefront Real time client installed on their MOSS 2007 Server and were having issues with the replication. During working on this issue I found following information, which can be helpful as general guidelines for using Anti Virus with MOSS 2007.

The generic consideration will be given in the context of a MOSS 2007 platform is installed.
As MOSS 2007 installation requires pre-requisites software, the document will describe as well exclusions for those software.

Windows server 2003
· The %systemroot% is normally the C:\WINDOWS or C:\WINNT directory depending on your OS
· %systemroot%\System32\Spool (and all the sub-folders and files)
· %systemroot%\SoftwareDistribution\Datastore
· Any Network Drives that are mapped

Refer to the following article for information:
KB822158 - Virus scanning recommendations for computers that are running Windows Server 2003, Windows 2000, or Windows XP http://support.microsoft.com/kb/822158

Internet Information Server
· The IIS compression directory (default compression directory is %systemroot%\IIS Temporary Compressed Files)
· %systemroot%\system32\inetsrv folder
· Files that have the .log extension

Refer to the following knowledge base articles for reference:
KB817442 - IIS 6.0: Antivirus Scanning of IIS Compression Directory May Result in 0-Byte File http://support.microsoft.com/kb/817442
KB821749 - Antivirus software may cause IIS to stop unexpectedly http://support.microsoft.com/kb/821749

SQL Server
· Exclude .MDF, .LDF, .NDF, .TRN, .BAK and .SLS
· Exclude sqlmangr.exe and sqlservr.exe
· SQL folder and databases files (or database file types) from scanning for performance reasons:

KB309422 - Guidelines for choosing antivirus software to run on the computers that are running SQL Server http://support.microsoft.com/kb/309422

WSS3.0 / MOSS 2007
· Drive:\Program Files\Microsoft Office Servers\12.0
· Drive:\Program Files\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\web server extensions\12
· Drive:\DOCUME~1\ALLUSE~1\APPLICATION DATA\MICROSOFT\FIREWALL CLIENT\*
· Drive:\WINDOWS\Temp\WebTempDir\*
· Drive:\DOCUMENTS AND SETTINGS\\LOCAL SETTINGS\APPLICATION DATA\*
· Drive:\Documents and Settings\\\Local Settings\Temp\*
· Drive:\WINDOWS\system32\LogFiles
· W3wp.exe, cbd.exe, cidaemon.exe, owstimer.exe (WSS)
(where Drive: is the drive letter where you installed SharePoint Portal Server)

Also, ‘c:\windows\temp\contentdeployment’ to temporarily store deployment files (.cab). This should perhaps be excluded as well.

MOM
· Drive:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Application Data\Microsoft\Microsoft Operations Manager
· Drive:\Program Files\Microsoft Operations Manager 2005
where Drive: is the drive letter where profiles are located

Trend Micro
Trend Micro(TM) PortalProtect(TM) 1.7 for Microsoft(TM) SharePoint(TM) 2007
http://www.trendmicro.com/ftp/documentation/readme/PP_1.7_b1027_README.txt
· Temp folder: C:\Program Files\Trend Micro\PortalProtect\temp
· Quarantine folder, whose default location is:
Drive:\Program Files\Trend Micro\PortalProtect\Quarantine
· Backup folder, whose default location is:
Drive:\Program Files\Trend Micro\PortalProtect\Backup

Just to make you aware that there is a SharePoint version of Forefront Security available from Microsoft. To know more about Forefront for Sharepoint please visit:
http://www.microsoft.com/forefront/sharepoint/en/us/default.aspx
Hope this helps. Any comments welcome.

External Collaboration Toolkit for SharePoint

2008-03-04T10:06:00.004Z

Do your customers need tools to more easily and securely collaborate with others across the Internet?
Every day, your customers collaborate on key projects with partners, suppliers, and others across the Internet. To be successful, project teams must regularly share important documents with these outsiders—documents that often contain intellectual property or other non-public information.
But according to a recent study commissioned by Microsoft, more than half of these teams use communication methods that are not secure, like e-mail and instant messaging, as their primary collaboration tools. Organizations that use more secure methods find that setting them up can be difficult, time-consuming, and costly—and that managing them can be a big administrative burden.
Your customers need a way to easily collaborate and share documents with others across the Internet. They need a solution that’s simple to set up and that lets project teams manage collaboration sites on their own. They need the External Collaboration Toolkit for SharePoint.
Here’s your chance to help your customers more easily and securely collaborate with others across the Internet. Invite them to learn more about the External Collaboration Toolkit for SharePoint.

The External Collaboration Toolkit for SharePoint:
The External Collaboration Toolkit for SharePoint provides authoritative guidance and tools to deploy a customizable solution built on Microsoft® Windows® SharePoint® Services 3.0 that teams can use to collaborate with partners outside the firewall. Once it is deployed, the toolkit’s familiar desktop interface makes the solution easy for project teams to understand and use.
Using this free toolkit, users can be up and running with a SharePoint-based collaboration site in minutes. They can easily create new sites, and invite external users to share documents that are centrally located on a SharePoint site—inside the firewall. Site owners can easily customize the site, and provide access rights for team members.
IT Pros can stay in control by requiring administrative approval for these activities. Or they can allow end users to set up and manage collaboration sites on their own—freeing up scarce IT resources for higher-value activities.
The External Collaboration Toolkit for SharePoint helps boost security by creating each collaboration site as a SharePoint site collection. This ensures that teams using one collaboration site will not be able to view documents on another collaboration site, unless they are explicitly given access.
In addition, the toolkit puts all external users in Active Directory Application Mode (ADAM)—the Microsoft lightweight directory service—rather than in the organization’s primary internal directory—further reducing your customers’ security risks.

The benefits for your customers include:
Boosts security. Provides an additional layer of security on top of the security features that are built into SharePoint.
Easy to deploy. Customers can install and configure the toolkit in just a couple of hours. Automated tools included with the toolkit help speed deployment.
Easy to use. The toolkit uses a familiar desktop interface that makes it simple for team members to collaborate with each other.
Reduces IT costs. Team members can manage most functions on their own, freeing up scarce IT resources to focus on higher-return activities.
Thoroughly tested. The toolkit is extensively tested in our labs, and verified by customers and partners under real-world conditions.
Free. The toolkit is freely available from Microsoft TechNet.

Other collaboration solutions:
The External Collaboration Toolkit for SharePoint is just one of a suite of SharePoint -based Solution Accelerators that help customers collaborate more effectively. Other solutions in the collaboration suite include:
SharePoint Capacity Planning Tool
The SharePoint Capacity Planning Tool gives customers a head start on planning new SharePoint installations by helping them answer questions about necessary hardware and user capacity.
SharePoint Monitoring Toolkit
The SharePoint Monitoring Toolkit enables customers to quickly and easily take advantage of powerful new management and monitoring features in Windows SharePoint Services 3.0.
Upgrade Toolkit for Windows SharePoint Services Sites and Templates
Customers who have created sites based on the Windows SharePoint Services 2.0 application templates can use this toolkit to upgrade them to work on Windows SharePoint Services 3.0.
SharePoint Cross-site Configurator
This Solution Accelerator helps customers centralize and automate the deployment of configuration settings in SharePoint across multiple Web Farms.

SharePoint Capacity Planning Tool 1.0 Released

2008-02-05T13:03:00.000Z

Are you planning a SharePoint installation for a customer? Chances are, you have a lot of questions.

• What is the necessary hardware investment?
• What kind of topology is needed to meet organizational requirements for availability and
performance?
• How will additional users from a recent merger affect deployment?

When planning a new SharePoint deployment, you will need a way to quickly characterize the general topology and minimum hardware requirements to support expected usage loads with adequate performance. You will need a way to explore plausible scenarios and get pointed in the right direction. The SharePoint Capacity Planning Tool gives you a quick way to draft topology and equipment sizing for your particular scenario and usage profile.

This solution reduces “SharePoint sizing” estimation efforts from a matter of days to a matter of hours.

Description of the Tool:

Imagine a tool that you could use to input a few key facts about users, user needs, business requirements, and organizational resources in order to:

• Build a topology model based on this input
• Run simulations that show the impact of this topology
• Generate a summary report that will help you evaluate alternatives
The SharePoint Capacity Planning Tool consists of System Center Capacity Planner 2007 (SCCP) models for:
• Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 (MOSS)
• Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 (WSS)

The tool can be used in pre-sales and feasibility studies of a deployment project to give you a rough estimate of hardware requirements. The tool can generate estimated performance metrics based on a simulation and provide useful Visio schematics of the proposed deployment to be included in documents and proposals.

Download it here:

You can obtain the SharePoint Capacity Planning Tool on Microsoft Download. For a short introduction to the tool and its usage, please go to this TechNet overview page: http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkID=93030

This Solution Accelerator needs SCCP 2007 to be installed first.
For details and download information for SCCP, please see Additional Resources.

This Solution Accelerator is being included in Microsoft Services readiness material for SharePoint architecture and planning.

Additional resources:

SharePoint Capacity Planning Tool on Microsoft Download Center

System Center Capacity Planner

Solution Accelerators on TechNet

How to create a simple WebPart in WSS 3.0 for non SharePoint developers

2007-10-25T12:04:00.001+01:00

How to create a simple WebPart in WSS 3.0 for non SharePoint developers:

Pre-requisites:

WSS 3.0 server where you can deploy your WebPart
Visual Studio.NET 2005 or Visual Studio.NET 2005 express edition with c# or VB.NET, inherently you will require .NET framework 3.0 install on your machine as part of your VS.NET 2005 installation.
Location of Microsoft.Sharepoint.dll for referencing in your code.
Basic development knowledge of C#

Step by step guide:

1. Open Visual Studio.NET 2005,

2. Click on File > New > Project

3. Click on “Visual C#” as a project type > select “Class Library” as template
4. Type name in name field as “MyFirstWebPart”

5. Click “OK”

5. On your “Solution Explorer” window right click on “References” > “Add reference” > “Browse” > locate your Microsoft.SharePoint.dll and click on OK.

Now click on “Class1.cs” rename the Class1.cs to something like MyWebPart.cs, also change the class name inside the Class1.cs from “public class Class1” to “public class MyWebPart”.
Also, add references to Micorosoft.SharePoint in your class file like this, also, you might see I’ve added additional references to System.Web, and System.Web.UI etc this is if you want to use HTML or Web controls like textboxes or buttons etc. The important or must reference is Microsoft.Sharepoint and Microsoft.SharePoint.WebPartPages which is must for webpart development. Also, you will notice that at the end of the class name declaration I have added a colon “:” and WebPart which indicates that the class is a webpart class.

using System;

using System.Collections.Generic;

using System.Text;

using System.Web;

using System.Web.UI;

using System.Web.UI.HtmlControls;

using System.Web.UI.WebControls;

using Microsoft.SharePoint;

using Microsoft.SharePoint.WebPartPages;

namespace MyFirstWebPart

{

public class MyWebPart: WebPart

{

}

In Webpart there are 2 main classes which you need to call to complete a webpart.

“protected override void RenderWebPart(HtmlTextWriter output)” this function will require to render all your controls and HTML on the sharepoint page.
If you want to add user controls or other html or web controls like text boxes or buttons then you will require to add

”protected override void CreateChildControls()”

The complete code will look like this:

namespace MyFirstWebPart

{

public class MyWebPart: WebPart

{

protected override void RenderWebPart(HtmlTextWriter output)

{

base.RenderWebPart(output);

}

protected override void CreateChildControls()

{

base.CreateChildControls();

}

Now the framework is ready and you can add your code.

We will be building a small WebPart application which will create a new SharePoint site based on user input.

The input will be:

Site URL, Site Name and Site Description, we will use 3 textboxes for these inputs. We will also require one button to submit this user input to our application.

We will be declaring the 3 textboxes and one button at the class level, you can also see that I’ve declared one more variable strMsg as string, this is for displaying the operation messages to the user:

public class MyWebPart: WebPart

{

HtmlInputText TextBox1;

HtmlInputText TextBox2;

HtmlInputText TextBox3;

HtmlButton btnSubmit;

string strMsg;

Now, add this one line inside RenderWebPart()

output.Write(strMsg);

it will look like this, as you can see I h ave commented out the default line, which is not required here:

protected override void RenderWebPart(HtmlTextWriter output)

{

//base.RenderWebPart(output);

output.Write(strMsg);

}

Now, we will create the childcontrols and also will create a server click event for the HTMLButton.

protected override void CreateChildControls()

{

TextBox1 = new HtmlInputText();

TextBox2 = new HtmlInputText();

TextBox3 = new HtmlInputText();

btnSubmit = new HtmlButton();

TextBox1.Value = "";

TextBox2.Value = "";

TextBox3.Value = "";

btnSubmit.InnerText = "Create Site!";

btnSubmit.ServerClick += new EventHandler(btnSubmit_click);

Controls.Add(TextBox1);

Controls.Add(TextBox2);

Controls.Add(TextBox3);

Controls.Add(btnSubmit);

//base.CreateChildControls();

}

The last step for this webpart is to create a server click event for the HTMLButton.

public void btnSubmit_click(object sender, EventArgs e)

{

try

{

SPWeb mySite = SPContext.Current.Web;

SPWebCollection subSites = mySite.Webs;

string currentTemplate = mySite.WebTemplate;

string siteURLBuilder = DateTime.Now.Minute.ToString();

string siteUrl = TextBox1.Value;

string siteTitle = TextBox2.Value;

string siteDescription = TextBox3.Value;

mySite.AllowUnsafeUpdates = true;

subSites.Add(siteUrl, siteTitle, siteDescription, 1033,

currentTemplate, true, false);

string siteText = mySite.Url.ToString();

strMsg = "Site " + siteTitle + " created.The URL for site is : " + siteText + "/" + siteUrl;

}

catch (Exception ex)

{

strMsg = "Catch: " + strMsg + ", EXCEPTION: msg: " + ex.Message + ", source: " + ex.Source + ", innerexception: " + ex.InnerException + ", <br><br>stacktrace:<br>" + ex.StackTrace;

}

Now, the coding part is over. Next step is to strong name the webpart assembly. To strong name the webpart assembly you will need to find out sn.exe, if you have VS.NET 2005 installed you can locate it to “<%Installed drive%> Program Files\Microsoft Visual Studio 8\SDK\v2.0\Bin” once you found the location of sn.exe, open command prompt from that location and run “sn –k c:\mykey.snk” it will create a key file at root of C drive called “mykey.snk”

14. Now, we need to add an entry of this key file in our project through Assemblyinfo.cs file. The entry will look like this, also check the screenshot for the same.

[assembly: AssemblyKeyFile("c:\\mykey.snk")]

Once the key file entry is done. We are ready to Build the project. Click on build and the project should build fine. Once built, go to the “bin” directory of the project and copy the MyFirstWebPart.dll to Global Assembly Cache (GAC) which is your “<%System dir%>:\WINDOWS\assembly” folder. Once copied into GAC, right click on the dll in GAC and click on properties.

Copy the public key token value and version value and paste it in a note pad.

Now goto your WSS 3.0 server and find Web.config file of the SharePoint site where you want to publish this webpart. In my case my machine itself has WSS 3.0 installed so my web.config file is under “C:\Inetpub\wwwroot\wss\VirtualDirectories\1010” just where 1010 is the virtual directory of my application where I am planning to deploy my webpart.
Once you’ve located your Web.config file, open it and find <SafeControls> tag. Inside this tag you will see many tags like this:

Just copy and paste one of this tag at the end of any of these tags and change the value of Assembly, Version, PublicKeyToken and Namespace to the your assembly’s info which you’ve copied and pasted in a notepad earlier, and it will look something like this.

Congrats! You have just registered your first webpart in SharePoint application!

Once registered, now you need to make this webpart available to the site users. For this you need to do following.

Open this page on your sharepoint site:

http://<servername>/sites/<yoursite>/_layouts/NewDwp.aspx

once this page is open, you will see that your first webpart is listed in the list!!

Just select your webpart and click on “Populate Gallery” button which is on top of the page. I always click on “overwrite if file already exists” to be on safe side (when I am redoing this steps for million times…)

Now, your users will get your new webpart under Miscellaneous section, when they will click on “Add new webpart”

It will appear like this:

Add values in the textboxes and click on create site.

You will get this kind of message at the bottom of the webpart (remember strMsg??)

“Site My New Website created.The URL for site is : http://<servername>/sites/<MySite>/MyWebSite”

You can check this site by following the url: it will look something like this:

You have just created your first webpart in SharePoint!!

Document Approval workflow in SharePoint document library

2007-09-14T12:18:00.000+01:00

Document Approval workflow in SharePoint document library

Screenshots of Document Approval workflow in SharePoint document library:

1. Upload/Add new document to the document library in Sharepoint.

Initiator uploads desired document (in this case Cardsort.pdf) to the workflow enabled document library.

3. Document status is “In progress” and the Approval status is “Pending”. At this stage normal users will not be able to see the document in the document library.

4. As soon as the document is uploaded in the document library the workflow process kicks in. in this case the workflow process used is the OOB “Approval” workflow process for documents. This workflow process sends emails to the initiator and the Approver/s.

5. The approver will click on his email’s review your task or document link. To review or approve/reject the document.

6. once the document is approved/rejected the status of task assigned to the approver will be changed to “completed”

7. The status of document in the document library will be changed to “approved” if the 1document is approved by the approver.

8. The initiator will get an email notification that the document approval process is complete for his document.

My Personal Blog!

2007-09-10T13:46:00.000+01:00

Hi All,

I have also, started my personal blog at following address.

http://vasave.blogspot.com

It will have my personal views, reviews on everything!! except ECM ;-) because, there is only one place where you can find ECM related info: on ECM Lounge....

Any feedback is welcome.

Cheers!
Nilesh

WSS 3.0 Public Namespaces

2007-09-06T08:24:00.000+01:00

The following table lists the public namespaces, identifies their assemblies, and briefly describes namespaces that can be used to customize a deployment.

Name	Assembly	Description
Microsoft.HtmlTrans	Microsoft HtmlTrans Interface (in Microsoft.HtmlTrans.Interface.dll)	Provides an interface for custom conversion applications that deliver HTML versions of documents to users who do not have the required client application or viewer installed on their computers.
Microsoft.SharePoint	Microsoft.SharePoint (in Microsoft.SharePoint.dll)	Provides types and members for working with a top-level site and its subsites or lists.
Microsoft.SharePoint.Administration	Microsoft.SharePoint (in Microsoft.SharePoint.dll)	Provides administrative types and members for managing a Microsoft Windows SharePoint Services deployment.
Microsoft.SharePoint.Administration.Backup	Microsoft.SharePoint (in Microsoft.SharePoint.dll)	Provides types and members for performing backup and restore operations on SharePoint sites.
Microsoft.SharePoint.ApplicationRuntime	Microsoft.SharePoint (in Microsoft.SharePoint.dll)
Microsoft.SharePoint.Deployment	Microsoft.SharePoint (in Microsoft.SharePoint.dll)	Provides types and members for importing and exporting content between Windows SharePoint Services Web sites.
Microsoft.SharePoint.Dsp	Microsoft.SharePoint.Dsp (in Microsoft.SharePoint.Dsp.dll)	Provides the base class for the data retrieval service adapters used in Windows SharePoint Services.
Microsoft.SharePoint.Dsp.OleDb	Microsoft.SharePoint.Dsp.OleDb (in Microsoft.SharePoint.Dsp.OleDb.dll)	Provides the data retrieval service adapter for performing queries against OLE DB data sources.
Microsoft.SharePoint.Dsp.SoapPT	Microsoft.SharePoint.Dsp.SoapPT (in Microsoft.SharePoint.Dsp.SoapPT.dll)	Provides the data retrieval service adapter for performing pass-through queries against arbitrary Web services.
Microsoft.SharePoint.Dsp.Sts	Microsoft.SharePoint.Dsp.Sts (in Microsoft.SharePoint.Dsp.Sts.dll)	Provides the data retrieval service adapter for performing queries against sites, lists, and document libraries in Windows SharePoint Services.
Microsoft.SharePoint.Dsp.XmlUrl	Microsoft.SharePoint.Dsp.XmlUrl (in Microsoft.SharePoint.Dsp.XmlUrl.dll)	Provides the data retrieval service adapter for performing queries against arbitrary XML data sources.
Microsoft.SharePoint.EmailIntegration	Microsoft.SharePoint (in Microsoft.SharePoint.dll)
Microsoft.SharePoint.Help	Microsoft.SharePoint (in Microsoft.SharePoint.dll)
Microsoft.SharePoint.Help.Constants	Microsoft.SharePoint (in Microsoft.SharePoint.dll)
Microsoft.SharePoint.Help.Search	Microsoft.SharePoint (in Microsoft.SharePoint.dll)
Microsoft.SharePoint.Meetings	Microsoft.SharePoint (in Microsoft.SharePoint.dll)	Provides types and members that can be used to customize Meeting Workspace sites.
Microsoft.SharePoint.MobileControls	Microsoft.SharePoint (in Microsoft.SharePoint.dll)	Provides server controls for rendering the mobile forms and view pages used in SharePoint lists.
Microsoft.SharePoint.Navigation	Microsoft.SharePoint (in Microsoft.SharePoint.dll)	Provides types and members for customizing the navigation structures and site maps of SharePoint Web sites.
Microsoft.SharePoint.Search.Administration	Microsoft.SharePoint.Search (in Microsoft.SharePoint.Search.dll)
Microsoft.SharePoint.Search.Query	Microsoft.SharePoint.Search (in Microsoft.SharePoint.Search.dll)
Microsoft.SharePoint.Security	Microsoft SharePoint Security (in Microsoft.SharePoint.Security.dll)	Provides a set of code access permission and attribute classes designed to protect a specific set of resources and operations, such as access to the Windows SharePoint Services object model, the ability to do unsafe saving on HTTP Gets, and enabling point-to-point Web Part connections.
Microsoft.SharePoint.SoapServer	Microsoft.SharePoint (in Microsoft.SharePoint.dll)	Contains classes that implement the Windows SharePoint Services Web Service and Web services for working with Web Part pages and Web Parts. In most cases, the members of these classes are not designed to be called from the server but remotely from client applications.
Microsoft.SharePoint.StsAdmin	Microsoft.SharePoint (in Microsoft.SharePoint.dll)	Provides an interface for creating custom operations to run at the command prompt in STSADM.EXE.
Microsoft.SharePoint.Upgrade	Microsoft.SharePoint (in Microsoft.SharePoint.dll)	Provides types and members for upgrading a Windows SharePoint Services deployment.
Microsoft.SharePoint.Utilities	Microsoft.SharePoint (in Microsoft.SharePoint.dll)	Provides utilities for encoding strings and processing user information.
Microsoft.SharePoint.WebControls	Microsoft.SharePoint (in Microsoft.SharePoint.dll)	Provides server controls that are used on site and list pages in a SharePoint site.
Microsoft.SharePoint.WebPartPages	Microsoft.SharePoint (in Microsoft.SharePoint.dll)	Provides classes, interfaces, and members for creating custom Web Parts and Web Part pages
Microsoft.SharePoint.WebPartPages.Communication	Microsoft.SharePoint (in Microsoft.SharePoint.dll)	Provides a set of interfaces and their supporting classes and members that can be implemented in the class of a custom Web Part to support creating connections with other Web Parts.
Microsoft.SharePoint.Workflow	Microsoft.SharePoint (in Microsoft.SharePoint.dll)	Provides types and members for associating, initiating, and managing workflow templates and instances.
Microsoft.SharePoint.WorkflowActions	microsoft.sharepoint.WorkflowActions (in microsoft.sharepoint.WorkflowActions.dll)	Provides types that represent workflow activities. These activities can be assembled into workflow activities.

SharePoint Security Roles (Administration) - Analysis

2007-08-22T12:04:00.000+01:00

SharePoint Security Roles - An Analysis 2

Admin Level	SharePoint Group	Does role exist by default?	Can do this	Cannot do this
Server or server farm level	Farm Administrators	Yes	Perform administrative tasks in Central Administration.	Administer individual sites or site content unless they take ownership.
			Take ownership of any content site.	Administer My Sites.
				Access the Shared Services Administration site.
				Create or delete SharePoint Web applications.
				Update the accounts or passwords for existing Web applications and NT services.
				Deploy solutions that require updating the global assembly cache (GAC).
				Restore from backup.
Server or server farm level	Administrators	Yes. Windows group that exists by default; not a SharePoint group.	Install products.	Administer individual sites or site content.
			Create new Web applications and new Internet Information Services (IIS) Web sites.	Administer My Sites.
			Start services.	Administer databases
			Deploy Web Parts and new features to the global assembly cache.
			Perform all farm-level tasks in Central Administration (provided that the Central Administration site is located on the local computer).
			Run the Stsadm command-line tool.

Shared services level	SSO Administrators	No. Need to enable the SSO service for administration to occur, and then the SharePoint group needs to be created.	Configure and manage the SSO service in Office SharePoint Server 2007, including managing the encryption key.	Administer individual sites or site content.
			Create, modify, or delete enterprise application definitions within Office SharePoint Server 2007.	Administer My Sites.
			Redeem SSO tickets. In scenarios in which credentials pass through an intermediary service (such as Microsoft BizTalk Server) before reaching the enterprise application definition, this group is used to give intermediary services permissions to redeem SSO tickets.	Use the Shared Services Administration Web site.
				Use Central Administration.
Shared services level	Enterprise application definition administrators	No. Need to enable the SSO service for administration to occur. Must be global group account or individual user account. This account cannot be a domain local group or a distribution list.	Create, manage, and delete enterprise application definitions.	Administer individual sites or content.
			Update enterprise application accounts and credentials.	Administer My Sites.
				Access the Shared Services Administration Web site.
				Access Central Administration.
Shared services level	Site collection administrator for the Shared Services Administration site	Yes. The account that created the SSP is automatically the site collection administrator for the Shared Services Administration site.	Use the Shared Services Administration Web site with the Full Control permission level.	Administer individual sites or site content.
			Configure usage reporting.	Administer My Sites.
			Add users to the default Readers group for sites containing My Sites and profiles.
			Create personal sites.
			Manage sites and user profiles.
			Configure permissions for specific services or delegate administration of shared services to other users.
Shared services level	Shared Services administrator	No. The Shared Services site collection administrator must add a user to the Shared Services Administration site and then assign permissions to the appropriate shared services.	View Shared Services Administration site.	Administer individual sites or site content.
			Configure usage reporting.
			Add users to the default Readers group for sites containing My Sites and profiles.
			Create personal sites.
			Manage sites and user profiles.
			Configure permissions for specific services or delegate shared services administration to other users.
Shared services level	Search Administrators	No. The Shared Services site collection administrator must add a user to the Shared Services Administration site.	Create and manage content sources and crawl schedules.	Access the Central Administration site.
			Manage file types.
			Create and manage the default content access account.
			Create server name mappings.
			Activate or deactivate search-based alerts.
			Create and manage search scopes.
			Specify authoritative Web pages.
			Manage metadata properties.
Shared services level	Profile Services administrator	No. The Shared Services site collection administrator adds a user by clicking the Personalization services permissions link.	Configure personalization services permissions (only if given the Manage Permissions permission).	Access the Central Administration site.
			Import people properties from directories and the Business Data Catalog.	Manage audiences (unless specifically granted that permission by the Shared Services site collection administrator.)
			Customize and configure My Sites settings and permissions.
			Configure and manage user profiles.
			Configure profile services policies.
			Edit and view all the information to the user public profile.
Shared services level	Audiences Services administrator	No. The Shared Services site collection administrator adds a user by clicking the Personalization services permissions link.	Configure the Audiences service.	Access any other shared services except Excel Services and Search.
			Manage, create, and compile audiences.	Access the Central Administration page.
			View audiences membership.	Manage user profiles (unless specifically granted that permission by the Shared Services site collection administrator).
Shared services level	Business Data Catalog service administrator	No. The Shared Services site collection administrator adds a user on the Manage permissions page for the Business Data Catalog.	Register applications in the Business Data Catalog.	Access any other shared services except Excel Services and Search.
			Configure business data search.	Access the Central Administration site.
			Customize business data lists, Web Parts, and sites.
			Configure business data profiles.
			Configure business data connections.
Shared services level	Excel Services administrator	No. The Shared Services site collection administrator must add a user to the Shared Services Administration site.	Add trusted file locations.	Access the Central Administration site.
			Add trusted data providers.	Start and manage the SSO service.
			Add trusted data connection libraries.	Start or stop Excel Calculation Services or other services.
			Add user-defined function assemblies.	Run Stsadm command-line administrative operations.
			Modify Excel Services settings.
			Access other administration pages (for example, the Business Data Catalog Applications page).
Shared services level	Usage reporting administrator	No. This group is created by the Shared Services administrator.	Configure usage reporting service by using the Shared Services Administration site.	Access any other shared services.
			View and edit site usage and summary pages.	Access the Central Administration site.

			- Configure search query logging.

Site Level	Site collection administrator	Yes	Perform all administration tasks for sites within the site collection.	Access the Central Administration site.
Site Level	Owners	Yes	Perform administration for the site only, not the entire site collection.	Access the Central Administration site.
			Perform administrative tasks for documents, lists, and libraries.	Access the Shared Services Administration site.
				Perform site collection administration tasks, such as restoring items from the second-stage Recycle Bin and managing the site hierarchy.

SharePonit Roles - an Analysis

2007-08-22T12:01:00.000+01:00

SharePonit Roles - an Analysis
In SharePoint, there are 3 levels of administrative permissions. The groups of users who have administrative permissions at different levels are described in the following list:

Server or server farm level

• Farm Administrators group Members of the Farm Administrators group have permissions to and responsibility for all servers in the server farm. Members can perform all administrative tasks in Central Administration for the server or server farm. Members of this group can also perform command-line operations. This group does not have access to individual sites or their content. However, members can take ownership of a specific site collection if need be (for example, if the administrator of a site leaves the organization and a new administrator must be added).

• Administrators group Members of the Administrators group on the local server can perform all farm administrator actions and more, including installing new products or applications, deploying Web Parts and new features to the global assembly cache, creating new Web applications and new Internet Information Services (IIS) Web sites, and starting services. Like farm administrators, members of this group on the local server have no access to site content, by default.

Shared services level

• SSP administrators Can control which services are included in a Shared Services Provider (SSP) and configure settings for those services.

• Service administrators Can configure settings for a specific service within an SSP. For example, the service administrator for the Search service on Service1 can configure search settings for Service1.

Site level

• Site collection administrators Have the Full Control permission level on all Web sites within a site collection. This means that they have access to content in all sites in that site collection, even if they do not have explicit permissions on that site.

• Site owners By default, members of the Owners group for a site have the Full Control permission level on that site. They can perform administration tasks for the site, and for any list or library within that site.

WSS and MOSS Features

2007-08-22T11:59:00.000+01:00

WSS 3.0 VS MOSS 207

During my recent analysis of WSS 3.0 and MOSS 2007 Features, I came across some interesting finds.

1. MOSS 2007 have 106 features and WSS 3.0 has 31 features.

2. MOSS 2007 installation will have total of 137 features as MOSS 2007 requires WSS 3.0.

3. WSS 3.0 can suffice your collaboration need if you dont require Business Intelligence webparts, Excel Services, KPIs, Enterprise Search,

MySite etc.

4. WSS 3.0 will have following features:

Features	Description

AdminLinks	All the Site admin links
AnnouncementsList	Announcements list
BasicWebParts	All web parts Add Web part dialogue box in WSS 3.0
ContactsList	Contacts list
ContentLightup	Ability to highlight search result for specific content type
ContentTypeSettings	All the settings related to Content Type
ctypes	Ability to Add/edit/delete/manage Content Types to list/library
CustomList	Add/edit/delete/manage custom list
DataSourceLibrary	Ability to Add/edit/delete/manage data source library
DiscussionsList	Ability to Add/edit/delete/manage Discussions list
DocumentLibrary	Ability to Add/edit/delete/manage DocumentLibrary list
EventsList	Ability to Add/edit/delete/manage Events list
fields	Ability to Add/edit/delete/manage Fields in lists
GanttTasksList	Ability to Add/edit/delete/manage Gantt chart enabled Tasks list
GridList	Ability to Add/edit/delete/manage grid view of the list
IssuesList	Ability to Add/edit/delete/manage Issues list
IssueTrackingWorkflow	Ability to Add/edit/delete/manage Issue tracking workflow
LinksList	Ability to Add/edit/delete/manage Links list
MobilityRedirect	Ability to redirect a call from Mobile phone to mobile ui pages.
NoCodeWorkflowLibrary	Ability to Add/edit/delete/manage workflows without adding code
PictureLibrary	Ability to Add/edit/delete/manage picture library
SiteSettings	Site Settings page
SPSearchFeature	WSS Simple Search
SurveysList	Ability to Add/edit/delete/manage Survey list
TasksList	Ability to Add/edit/delete/manage Tasks list
TeamCollab	All the Team collaboration features
WebPageLibrary	Ability to Add/edit/delete/manage Web Pages
WikiWelcome	Ability to Add/edit/delete/manage Wiki welcome page
WorkflowHistoryList	Ability to Add/edit/delete/manage Workflow history list
WorkflowProcessList	Ability to Add/edit/delete/manage Workflow process list
XmlFormLibrary	Ability to Add/edit/delete/manage XML Form library list

5. To get the list of features in your SharePoint Installation, there is a free beta tool available called Feature Explorer from InfoTech Canada. You can download the tool from http://www.infotechcanada.com/productivity_solutions/feature-explorer-form.aspx (registration required). What the tool do is vary basic for now (it might improve with subsequent release) that you yourself can get this info very easily from your SharePoint installation, here is how:

Log into your sharepoint installation machine, browse to "%PROGRAMFILES%\common files\microsoft shared
\web server extensions\12\TEMPLATE\FEATURES\" directory, every folder in this directory represents one feature!

6. The 106 MOSS 2007 only features are available in following post due to the content restriction in this blog!

MOSS 2007 Features:

AddDashboard	Ability to Add/edit/delete/manage Dashboard
Analytics	Ability to Add/edit/delete/manage Analytics components.
AnalyticsLinks	Ability to Add/edit/delete/manage Analytics links components.
BaseSite	Ability to Add/edit/delete/manage Base sites
BaseSiteStapling	Ability to staple Base sites in the top navigation bar
BaseWeb	Ability to Add/edit/delete/manage Base sites
BaseWebApplication	Ability to Add/edit/delete/manage Base sites
BDCAdminUILinks	Ability to Add/edit/delete/manage Businss Data Catalogues (webparts)
BDR	Ability to Add/edit/delete/manage BDR components.
BizAppsCTypes	Ability to Add/edit/delete/manage Business Application's Content Type
BizAppsFields	Ability to Add/edit/delete/manage Business Application's Fields
BizAppsListTemplates	Ability to Add/edit/delete/manage Business Application's List templates
BizAppsSiteTemplates	Ability to Add/edit/delete/manage Business Application's Site template
BulkWorkflow	Ability to Add/edit/delete/manage Bulk workflow
BulkWorkflowTimerJob	Ability to Add/edit/delete/manage Timer job for bulk workflow
DataConnectionLibrary	Ability to staple Data connection library
DataConnectionLibraryStapling	Ability to Add/edit/delete/manage Data connection library
DeploymentLinks	Ability to Add/edit/delete/manage Deployment links
DMContentTypeSettings	Ability to Add/edit/delete/manage Document management content type settings
EawfSite
EawfWeb
EnhancedHtmlEditing	Ability of editing content using enhanced html editing feature using publishing.
ExcelServer	Ability to use Excel Services
ExcelServerSite	Ability to Add/edit/delete/manage Excel Server site
ExcelServerWebApplication	Ability to Add/edit/delete/manage Excel Server web application
ExpirationWorkflow	Ability to Add/edit/delete/manage Exipiration workflow
FeaturePushdown	Ability to manage feature pushdown from the portal/farm level
GlobalWebParts	Ability to Add/edit/delete/manage Global webparts at farm level
GradualUpgrade	Ability to Upgrade SharePoint gradually
Hold
ipfsAdminLinks
ListTargeting	Ability to target lists to audiences.
LocalSiteDirectoryControl	Ability to create/manage Site directory
LocalSiteDirectoryMetaData	Ability to create/manage Site directory Matadata
LocalSiteDirectorySettingsLink	Ability to create/manage Site directory Settings links
MasterSiteDirectoryControl	Ability to create/manage Master Site directory (Portal/Farm level)
MigrationLinks	Ability to Migrate content from previous versions of SharePoint
MySite	Ability to Add/edit/delete MySite for users
MySiteBlog	Ability to Add/edit/delete/manage MySite blog
MySiteCleanup	Ability to cleanup MySite
MySiteHost	Ability to create/manage MySite host
MySiteLayouts	Ability to Add/edit/delete/manage MySite layouts
MySiteNavigation	Ability to Add/edit/delete/manage MySite Navigation
MySiteQuickLaunch	Ability to Add/edit/delete/manage MySite quick launch
Navigation	Ability to Add/edit/delete/manage Navigation
NavigationProperties	Ability to Add/edit/delete/manage Navigation Properties
OffWFCommon
OSearchBasicFeature	Ability to manage Basic Search
OSearchCentralAdminLinks	Ability to manage Search links in Central Administration
OSearchEnhancedFeature	Ability to manage Enhanced features of Search
OSearchPortalAdminLinks	Ability to manage Search related portal admin links
OSearchSRPAdminLinks
OsrvLinks
OsrvTasks
OssNavigation
OSSSearchSearchCenterUrlFeature	Ability to manage Search centre URL Feature
OSSSearchSearchCenterUrlSiteFeature	Ability to manage Search centre URL site Feature
PageConverters	Ability to use page converters
PortalLayouts	Ability manage portal layouts
PublishingLayouts	Ability manage publishing layouts
PublishingPrerequisites	Ability manage publishing prerequisites
PublishingResources	Ability manage publishing resources
PublishingSite	Ability manage publishing site collection
PublishingStapling	Ability manage publishing stapling
PublishingWeb	Ability manage publishing sites
RecordsManagement	Records Management Site templates and features
RedirectPageContentTypeBinding
RelatedLinksScopeSettingsLink	Ability to manage Related links section's Scope Settings link
ReportCenterCreation	Ability to Add/edit/delete/manage Report centre sites
ReportCenterSampleData	Ability to Add/edit/delete/manage Report centre site's sample data
Reporting	Ability to Add/edit/delete/manage Reporting
ReportListTemplate	Ability to manage Report list template
ReviewWorkflows	Ability to review workflows
SearchAndProcess
SearchWebParts	Ability to Add/remove search web parts
SharedServices	Ability to manage Shared Services
SignaturesWorkflow	Ability to manage Signature workflows
SitesList	Ability to manage sites list
SkuUpgradeLinks
SlideLibrary	Ability to Add/edit/delete/manage Slide library
SlideLibraryActivation	Ability to Add/edit/delete/manage Slide library activation
SpellChecking	Ability to Spell Check
SPSDisco	Ability to discover web services
SpsSsoLinks	Ability to manage SSO links
SRPProfileAdmin	Ability to manage profiles
StapledWorkflows	Ability to staple workflows
TranslationWorkflow	Ability to Add/edit/delete/manage translation workflows
TransMgmtFunc	Ability to Add/edit/delete/manage translation management functionalities
TransMgmtLib	Ability to Add/edit/delete/manage
UpgradeOnlyFile
IPFSAdminWeb
IPFSDocumentConversion
IPFSSiteFeatures
IPFSWebFeatures
LegacyDocumentLibrary	Ability to Add/edit/delete/manage Legacy document libraries
PremiumRootSite	Ability to Add/edit/delete/manage Premium root sites.
PremiumRootSiteStapling	Ability to Add/edit/delete/manage Premium root stapling
PremiumSite	Ability to Add/edit/delete/manage Premium site collection
PremiumSiteStapling	Ability to Add/edit/delete/manage Premium site collection stapling
PremiumWeb	Ability to Add/edit/delete/manage Premium sites.
PremiumWebApplication	Ability to Add/edit/delete/manage Premium web applicatoins
ProfileSynch	Ability to synch up profiles in AD
Publishing	Ability to manage publishing features
UserMigrator	Ability to migrate users
ViewFormPagesLockDown
WebPartAdderGroups	Ability to manage groups who can add webparts.

Sharepoint and Livelink Role mapping

2007-08-22T11:53:00.000+01:00

LiveLink & SharePoint Role Mapping
Livelink Permission	Sharepoint Permission
Guest: Guests can view the items contained in the project.	Reader: View Pages, View Items
Guest: Guests can view the items contained in the project.	(User with Livelink See and See Content permissions will be in this group)
Member: Members can view and modify the items contained in the project. Members can also add items, edit attributes, add and delete versions, and reserve items contained in the project. Members can delete the items they create or add to the project.	Contributor: All rights included in the Reader site group, plus: Add Items, Delete Items, Edit Items.
	(User with Livelink See, See Content and Modify permissions will be in this group)
Coordinator: In addition to the Guest and Member permissions, Coordinators can establish access privileges, define permissions, add or remove participants, and change a participant’s role within the project.	Administrator: Administrator site group allows a user to have complete control over a Web site. Members of the Administrator site group can configure settings, manage users and site groups, and view usage analysis data.
Owner: Full control on the objects created by the user	Owner: Full control on the objects created by the user
Livelink Admin: Full control over the system	Central Level access: Full control over the Sharepoint.

Object Level Permission Mapping:
LiveLink Activity	SharePoint Activity
See	view items
See Contents	open items
Modify	Modify Items
Edit Attributes	edit items
Delete Versions	delete versions
Delete	delete items
Reserve	Check-Out/edit items
Edit Permissions	Manage Permissions

MOSS/WSS Permissions for default groups

2007-08-22T11:47:00.000+01:00

Group Name:	Owner		Permissions
Permission Level:	Full Control	List Permissions	Site Permissions	Personal Permissions
		all	all	all

Group Name:	Member		Permissions
Permission Level:	Contribute	List Permissions	Site Permissions	Personal Permissions
		add items	browse directories	all
		edit items	view pages
		delete items	browse user information
		view items	use remote interfaces
		open items	use client integration features
		view versions	open
		delete versions	edit personal user information
		create alerts
		view application pages

Group Name:	Visitor		Permissions
Permission Level:	Read	List Permissions	Site Permissions	Personal Permissions
		view items	view pages	None
		open items	browse user information
		view versions	use remote interfaces
		create alerts	use client integration features
		view application pages	open

Group Name:			Permissions
Permission Level:	Design	List Permissions	Site Permissions	Personal Permissions
		all	browse directories	all
			view pages
			browse user information
			use remote interfaces
			use client integration features
			open
			edit personal user information
			add and customize pages
			apply themes and borders
			apply stylesheets

Group Name:			Permissions
Permission Level:	Limited Access	List Permissions	Site Permissions	Personal Permissions
		view application pages	browse user information	None
			use remote interfaces
			use client integration features
			open

MOSS/WSS Object Permissions

2007-08-22T11:42:00.000+01:00

List Permissions

Manage Lists - Create and delete lists, add or remove columns in a list, and add or remove public views of a list.
Override Check Out - Discard or check in a document which is checked out to another user.
Add Items - Add items to lists, add documents to document libraries, and add Web discussion comments.
Edit Items - Edit items in lists, edit documents in document libraries, edit Web discussion comments in documents, and customize Web Part Pages in document libraries.
Delete Items - Delete items from a list, documents from a document library, and Web discussion comments in documents.
View Items - View items in lists, documents in document libraries, and view Web discussion comments.
Approve Items - Approve a minor version of a list item or document.
Open Items - View the source of documents with server-side file handlers.
View Versions - View past versions of a list item or document.
Delete Versions - Delete past versions of a list item or document.
Create Alerts - Create e-mail alerts.
View Application Pages - View forms, views, and application pages. Enumerate lists.

Site Permissions

Manage Permissions - Create and change permission levels on the Web site and assign permissions to users and groups.
View Usage Data - View reports on Web site usage.
Create Subsites - Create subsites such as team sites, Meeting Workspace sites, and Document Workspace sites.
Manage Web Site - Grants the ability to perform all administration tasks for the Web site as well as manage content and permissions.
Add and Customize Pages - Add, change, or delete HTML pages or Web Part Pages, and edit the Web site using a Windows SharePoint Services-compatible editor.
Apply Themes and Borders - Apply a theme or borders to the entire Web site.
Apply Style Sheets - Apply a style sheet (.CSS file) to the Web site.
Create Groups - Create a group of users that can be used anywhere within the site collection.
Browse Directories - Enumerate files and folders in a Web site using SharePoint Designer and Web DAV interfaces.
View Pages - View pages in a Web site.
Enumerate Permissions - Enumerate permissions on the Web site, list, folder, document, or list item.
Browse User Information - View information about users of the Web site.
Manage Alerts - Manage alerts for all users of the Web site.
Use Remote Interfaces - Use SOAP, Web DAV, or SharePoint Designer interfaces to access the Web site.
Use Client Integration Features - Use features which launch client applications. Without this permission, users will have to work on documents locally and upload their changes.
Open - Allows users to open a Web site, list, or folder in order to access items inside that container.
Edit Personal User Information - Allows a user to change his or her own user information, such as adding a picture.

Personal Permissions

Manage Personal Views - Create, change, and delete personal views of lists.
Add/Remove Private Web Parts - Add or remove private Web Parts on a Web Part Page.
Update Personal Web Parts - Update Web Parts to display personalized information.

MOSS/WSS Feature overview

2007-08-22T11:39:00.000+01:00

Feature Overview:

UI / UX
	Built-in breadcrumb trails, Quicklaunch on every page, Tree-view navigation of sites built-in
	Pages will derive from “master pages“, meaning that you could re-skin an entire SharePoint site by modifying just one template file
	More professional out of the box themes
	FrontPage can directly edit each site's CSS file(s)
	Workflow built-in all over SharePoint, with tight integration with Outlook 12 tasks, FrontPage-based workflow creation, some browser-based workflow creation
	Individual documents can have document-specific workflows
	Item-level security on lists and libraries
	FrontPage has evolved further into a SharePoint designer tool (I read that as: the only SharePoint designer tool), and apparently, ghosted/unghosted pages won't be a problem any longer
	Recycle bin with user and administrator restore features for document libraries and list items
	InfoPath forms can be filled out with only a browser when published as (to?) a SharePoint site (even with FireFox)
	Customizable and extensible search (and search API), including “did you mean“-type search term corrections
	Lists can be viewed on mobile devices
	The UI is “security sensitive“, meaning that you won't see the button to add an item unless you have the rights to add an item
	Lists support multi-value lookups
	Gantt charts for “Project Tasks“ list type
	Alerts are considerably more powerful, support more filters/RSS integration
	AJAX (Atlas) used generously throughout UI for a better cross-browser experience
	“Welcome menu“ for users (login/logout/change user/edit profile/etc links in one place)
	Apparently, unghosted pages will be cached better, and will remain attached to their “Master Page“, negating much of the performance/caching problem there is today (that didn't seem all that earth shattering, actually)
	Document policies (retention period, archiving rules, audit logs)
	Folders supported in any list (not sure why that was even on their radar)
	Version history can be configured to keep last n records
	Sites' UI can be localized without deploying a new site (multilingual UI)

Integration
	All lists and libraries have RSS feeds, and each list's feed can be customized to include whatever fields you'd like
	Event list RSS feeds include iCal files as enclosures
	Each site has a master “aggregating“ RSS feed
	Outlook 12 can perform 2-way online/offline syncronization of the following list types:
	Contacts
	Events
	Tasks
	Discussion Lists
	Document Libraries (!)
	Discussion lists can create their own e-mail alias in Active Directory, allowing you to e-mail that alias to automatically archive that e-mail (and its attachments) to a SharePoint discussion list
	ALL lists and libraries have version history capability, and only “diffs“ are stored (differences from one change to the next)
	Access treats SharePoint sites as honest-to-goodness data sources

Developer and Administrator-oriented news
	Existing web parts will “just work“ in the new SharePoint web part page framework
	Site definitions/templates will ship in the box for blogs and wikis (blogs can be built directly on your “My Site“!)
	All lists and libraries will have synchronous event handlers (not sure how these work with other interfaces to SharePoint data, like OM, WEBDAV, SOAP, etc., if the event handler has to raise an exception)
	List/library version history is exposed programmatically by way of the OM
	Multiple “content types” (sets of metadata, or “metadata templates“, if you will) for document libraries and lists, that include view information, workflows, bound events.
	FrontPage can edit workflows
	Business Data Catalog (datasource catalog on steroids, apparently) -- What's new is that you can use members of this catalog as fields in lists; in other words, a list can have a lookup that's bound to a SQL Server table, a web service, or any other source that exists in the Business Data Catalog
	XML Schema Documents (XSDs) will be made available for many of the CAML-based ghosted template/config files
	The “STSFLTR“ ISAPI filter is gone, SharePoint sites are “native“ ASP.NET 2.0 sites.
	You'll still need to use the SmartPart (or something of its ilk) to use ASP.NET 2.0 web parts on your SharePoint sites
	Form templates are better defined in XML (they're there now, just without any real easy way to modify them)
	Less XML-based configuration, more UI-based “features“ that can be turned on/off or modified to webs, sites, IIS virtual servers or entire server farms with one click
	SPTimer is given a boost, allowing you to write your own plugins that get executed at their own defined schedules/criteria/etc
	UI toolbars/menus/etc can easily be modified, with those modifications also “security sensitive“
	SPDataSource class, SharePoint sites exposed using IDataSource (sweet)
	SPGridView, a SharePoint-look-alike DataGrid (with sort/filter/group/etc baked right in)
	SPDataQuery class, which uses CAML (set as a property, why not a param to a method?) does cross-site searches, easily binds to SPGridViews or other ASP.NET databound controls
	SharePoint Web Parts' base class is a Web Control (still no designer, though; you'll need to use SmartPart for that)
	v2.0 -> v3.0 is considered an “upgrade“, not a “migration“
	Security providers supported, no more AD authentication requirements (forms-based security, anyone?)
	“Feature Definitions“ (which sounds an awful lot like existing definition configuration types, but expanded a bit) allow you to enable/disable kits of functionality, i.e. a “Feature Definition“ that contains lists, web parts, event handlers, content types (those metadata “templates“ mentioned in another part of this post)
	Custom column indexes in lists
	Trusted event handlers can easily impersonate identities
	Policies can be set for content expiration based on values/metadata/workflow status for documents, and content can be moved to recycle bin (or, one would assume, deleted or archived) based on the selected metric

SharePoint 2007 Base webparts & Lists and Library overview

2007-08-22T11:35:00.000+01:00

SharePoint 2007 Base webparts & Lists and Library overview
Note: This is a list of webparts which you will get when user clicks on "Edit page" > "Add new webpart" This list can vary based on your permissions and the features enabled at the site collection level.
Lists and Libraries
		Description
1	Announcements	Use the Annoucements list to post message o the home page of your site.
2	Calendar	Use the Calendar list to keep informed of upcoming meetings, deadlines, and other important events.
3	Form Templates	Use the Form Templates library as the central repository of form templates for this site collection.
4	Links	Use the Links list for links to Web pages that your team members will find interesting or useful.
5	Shared Documents	Share a document with the team by adding it to this document library.
6	Tasks	Use the Tasks list to keep track of work that you or your team needs to complete.
7	Team Discussion	Use the Team Discussion list to hold newsgroup-style discussion on topics relevant to your team.

All Web Parts
		Description
8	Business Data Actions	Display a list of actions from the Business Data Catalog.
9	Business Data Item	Display one item from a data source in the Business Data Catalog.
10	Business Data Item Builder	Creates a Business Data item from parameters in the query string and provides it to other web parts. This web part is only used on Business Data profile pages.
11	Business Data List	Display a list of items from a data source in the Business Data Catalog.
12	Business Data Related List	Display a list if items related to one or more parent items from data source in the Business Data Catalog.

Content Rollup
		Description
13	Colleague Tracker	Displays your list of colleagues and any recent changes they made have had.
14	Memberships	Displays your site and distribution list memberships.
15	My links	Use to display your links
16	My SharePoint Sites	Use to display documents authored by you on sites where you are a member and sites of your choice.
17	My Workspaces	Displays sites created under you’re my Site.

Dashboard
		Description
18	Key Performance Indicators	Shows a list of status indicators. Status indicators display important measures for your organization, and show how your organization is performing with respect to your goals.
19	KPI Details	Displays the detail of a single status indicator. Status indicators display an important measure for an organization and may be obtained from other data sources including SharePoints lists, Excel workbooks, and SQL Server 2005 Analysis Services KPIs.

Default
		Description
20	Excel Web Access	Use the Excel Web Access to interact with an Excel 2007 workbook as a Web page.
21	I need to…	Displays tasks and tools from a list.
22	Iview Web Part	Displays Iviews from SAP portals servers.
23	RSS Viewer	Renders RSS Feed
24	This Week in Pictures	Use to display the images library in the News web.
25	WSRP Consumer Web Part	Displays portlets from web sites using WSRP 1.1

Filters
		Description
26	Authored List Filter	Filter the contents of web parts using a list of values entered by the page author.
27	Business Data Catalog Filter	Filter the contents of web parts using a list of values from the Business Data Catalog.
28	Current User Filter	Filter the contents of web parts by using properties of the current page.
29	Data Filter	Filter the contents of web parts by allowing users to enter or pick a date.
30	Filter Actions	Filter actions
31	Page Field Filter	Filter the contents of web parts using information about the current page
32	Query String (URL) Filter	Filter the contents of web parts using values passed via
33	SharePoint List Filter	Filter the contents of web parts by using a list of values from a Office SharePoint Server list.
34	SQL Server 2005 Analysis Services Filter	Filter the contents of web parts using a list of values from SQL Server 2005 Analysis Services cubes.
35	Text Filter	Filter the contents of web parts by allowing users to enter a text value

Miscellaneous
		Description
36	Contact Details	Use to display details about a contact for this page or site
37	Content Editor Web Part	Use for formatted text, tables and images
38	Form web part	use to connect simple form controls to other web parts
39	Image Web part	Use to display pictures and photos
40	Page Viewer Web Part	Use to display links content, such as files, folders, or web pages. The linked content is isolated from other content on the Web Part Page.
41	Relevant Document	Use this webpart to display documents that are relevant to the current user
42	Site Users	Use the Site users web part to see a list of the site users and theis online status
43	User Tasks	Use this webpart to display tasks that are assigned to the current user
44	XML web Part	Use for XML, and XSL Transformation of the XML

Outlook Web Access
		Description
45	My Calendar	Use to display your calendar. This part works with Microsfot Exchange Server 2004 and above
46	My Contacts	Displays your contacts using Outlook Web Access for Microsoft Exchange Server 2007
47	My Inbox	Displays your inbox using Outlook Web Access for Microsoft Exchange Server 2000 or later
48	My Mail Folder	Displays your calendar using Outlook web Access for Microsoft Exchange Server 2000 or later
49	My Tasks	Displays your tasks using Outlook Web Access for Microsoft Exchange Server 2003 or later.

Search
		Description
50	Advanced Search Box	Entry point for advanced search
51	People Search Box	Entry point for people search
52	People Search Core Results	Web Part to display the people search results
53	Search Box	Entry point for search
54	Search Core Results	Web Part to display the search results
55	Search High Confidence Results	Web Part to display the special term and high confidence results
56	Search Paging	Displays search paging
57	Search Statistics	Displays search statistics
58	Search Summary	Displays search sumary

Site Directory
		Description
59	Categories	Displays categories from the Site Directory
60	Sites in Category	Displays sites in the site directory
61	Top Sites	Display the top sites from Site Directory

My other blog on SharePoint

2007-08-20T07:49:00.000+01:00

Hi All,

I just found lost blog on spaces.msn.com. In this blog I wrote mainly about my findings on SharePoint, specially MOSS 2007 and WSS 3.0. You can find my findings on MOSS Features, WSS Features, Sharepoint Security role analysis, administration levels etc.

the url for the blog is : http://sharepointworld.spaces.live.com/default.aspx

Hope this helps.

Regards,
Nilesh

ECM Lounge: Enterprise Content Management (ECM)

2007-08-14T07:21:00.000+01:00

ECM Lounge: Enterprise Content Management (ECM)

Ideas for Intranet Portals using SharePoint

2007-08-13T14:06:00.000+01:00

In this article I will be talking about ideas which one can implement in their intranet portals. As I mentioned in my previous articles on intranet portal requirements and where should I begin the various reasons for implementing intranet can include:

o Collaboration

o Business Process Automation

o Multilingual Sites/Content

o Enterprise Content Management/document management

o Business Intelligence

o Web 2.0 features like RSS, WIKI, blogs for individuals

o Personalization and content targeting

o Integrated Instant Messaging

o Enterprise Search

o Reporting

o Integration with other systems

We will discuss each of these points in some details.

Collaboration:

· Collaboration can happen among a department, project teams or group of people in the organization for various purposes, since the spread of networks like internet virtual collaboration is a reality, which can be achieved through Sharepoint’s collaboration platform.

· Collaboration can be achieved using various out of the box site templates and tools ie. Team sites, blogs, wikis, meeting workspaces, document workspaces etc or custom site templates can be created based on customer need.

· Collaboration sites can give features like Issues management, contacts management, task management, document management, event calendar, meetings, project tasks, surveys, discussions, alerts, document workflows, shared workspaces etc for teams.

Example of collaboration in Microsoft SharePoint Portal Solution:

(Collaboration: HR Team Site)

Business Process Automation:

· Business Process Automation can be based on workflow solutions provided in SharePoint with custom development and/or InfoPath forms and Forms server.

· Processes like Leave application, Hardware requisition form etc can be automated using this.

(BPA: Travel Request form created using MS Infopath )

Multilingual Sites/Content:

· SharePoint is capable of creating multilingual sites and user can create content in their own language.

· The localization feature of SharePoint is useful in determining which user is from which location and based on that the site built for his language can be shown.

(Multilingual Site)

Content Management/document management:

· Sharepoint has capability of web based content management using Publishing site templates which comes with MOSS 2007. Publishing site template is enhanced version of MS Content Management Server, which now got merged with MOSS 2007.

· Document management is also enhanced in MOSS 2007 using Sharepoint document library and records management site. Also, the features like Information Management Policy are useful in setting up document/content management policies. Workflows also help in managing the document/content lifecycle.

Business Intelligence:

· One of the real benefits of implementing systems like SharePoint is it’s capability to provide Business Intelligence using various features inbuilt for BI.

· There are features like Excel services which can process data in Excel sheet and can generate instant graphs based on the business logic

· Provision of creating KPIs

· Accessing and reporting on data from external sources using Business Data Catalogs.

(BI: Quarterly revenue dashboard)

Web 2.0:

· Sharepoint supports Web 2.0 features like RSS, Wiki, blogs etc.

Personalization and content targeting:

· SharePoint since the version 1 supports Personalization.

· In the latest version the personalisation is supported through Mysite which can get created for individual users, where he can manage his own documents/lists, he can see who are his colleague, social networking etc. there is provision of public and private view of mysite.

· Content Targeting, this feature of sharepoint is one of the best for targeting perticular content to individual or group of people based on various criteria, so that only targeted people can see the information intended for them.

Integrated instant messaging:

· SharePoint can be integrated with Microsoft’s IM product MS Live Communication Server.

· It can allow individuals to chat instantly, see who is online, share document instantly, organize meetings etc using their chat client like Windows Messenger or MS communicator.

· Users can see status of other users in the SharePoint site too.

(Windows Messenger Integration using Live communication server)

Enterprise search:

· Sharepoint enterprise search can search various data sources like file shares, Exchange public folders, lotus notes, websites, databases, Sharepoint repositories etc.

· Sharepoint have 2 searches primarily content search and people/directory search using Active directory.

· Advance Search is based on Mata data provided in the site.

Reporting:

· SharePoint can generate and serve reporting solutions using sharepoint Report center sites and MS SQL Server reporting services.

· Extensive site stats/usage reports

(Reporting in Sharepoint)

Integration:

· SharePoint is capable of integrating various systems including MS office 2007/2003(limited) integration, SAP integration, Lotus notes integration and many more.

· Ie. Users can see events calendar of Sharepoint in outlook, or they can create event in sharepoint which can be exported in outlook.

· Users can save documents from their word or excel or powerpoint to sharepoint

(Sharepoint integration with MS Office applications)

These are some of the ideas of how an organisation can leverage sharepoint in their intranet implementation, if you require any more details in terms of sharepoint as an intranet portal solution then feel free to contact me.

Enterprise Content Management (ECM)

2007-08-09T11:17:00.000+01:00

Enterprises in today’s world are becoming more and more knowledge centric. Since, the term “information is a power” comes into existence the hunger for information is grown in the enterprises phenomenally. In the yester years, information was managed by various pockets in the organizations, and was distributed and isolated, since the information revolution happened after the arrival of Internet, companies have started a race to centralize their sources of information and the storage and retrieval of the information.

This is where the Enterprise Content Management comes into picture. Content management existed in most of the organizations in one form or the other in terms of registers, account books, gate passes, user manuals, product catalogs, project reports, inspection sheets, production data, sales data, managerial reports etc, but they were not linked and there was no easy way of finding the information from the sea of information where the knowledge was divided as islands. The Content Management need became stronger and stronger since the internet revolutionize the sharing of information eliminating bottlenecks like boundaries, time differences, geographies etc.

The need to centralize this content or knowledge in the organization, the when you want and where you want information, collecting all information or knowledge in one place and to organize it in relevant way for easy searchability, so that people can take timely and informed decision about their work was the primary driver for Content Management in an organization.

Enterprise Content Management came in as a pure content management requirement, which started growing by the need of building intelligence and collaboration in the ECM solutions. That’s when the terminologies of Enterprise Content Management and Enterprise Collaboration Management came in being.

The Enterprise Content Management consists document management, web content management, content database management, business intelligency and data warehousing, building workflows around the solution, so it requires workflow management, there will processes created around the content management so business process management will also be part of the Enterprise Content Management.

The tool which is used for Enterprise Content Management nowadays are mainly Web Based tools called Portals. The portals are kind of websites which can do document management, web content management, content database management, workflow management, business process management, Reports management, Enterprise Search and lot of other collaboration and content management related activities.

There are many tools available in market today for this purpose namely: Microsoft SharePoint, Documentum, Livelink etc. also, there are lot of IT service provider companies like Zensar Technologies, which provides specialized ECM solutions.

Considering the rush among the companies to streamline the information flow and looking at the growing market of ECM products like Sharepoint and Documentum the ECM boom is here to stay atleast for a while.