Help! I Have a SharePoint Site! Now What?

Presented by Becky BertramMicrosoft MVP, MCSD, MCAD, MCTS

www.beckybertram.com

Special Thanks

Thanks to Partners Worldwide for providing the server we will be using for the tutorial today.

Agenda

• What is SharePoint?• Lab 1: Using SharePoint• Break• An Introduction to Infrastructure• Customization and Development• Lab 2: Using SharePoint Designer• SharePoint 2010

WHAT IS SHAREPOINT?

Windows SharePoint Services (WSS)

• Free Add-on to Windows Server 2003 and Windows Server 2008

• Browser-based platform for collaboration and document management

• Database-stored content• Security model allows content to be hidden or

shown based on user permission• Allows content to be categorized and searched

Microsoft Office SharePoint Server (MOSS)

• Additionally purchased product• Built on top of Windows SharePoint Services• Provides additional functionality including

Publishing and Enterprise Search.

The SharePoint Platform

• Collaboration• Portal• Search• Content Management• Business Process• Business Intelligence

Collaboration

Allows people to work together across boundaries, whether those are departmental, organizational, or geographical.

PortalAllows a central location for accessing information stored in various diverse locations.

Search

Allows people to retrieve information stored in multiple locations both internal and external to SharePoint. MOSS can search web content, documents, people, and line of business data.

Content ManagementFacilitates the creation, approval, and publication of web content by non-technically-trained people.

Business Process

Facilitates existing business processes through automation. This includes the use of customizable workflows and electronic forms.

Business IntelligenceEnables stakeholders to make business decisions based on the analysis and reporting of line of business data. BI features of SharePoint include the Report Center, Key Performance Indicators, integration with Performance Point Server, and integration with back-end data sources via the Business Data Catalog.

Scope

Platform Scenarios

Demo: MOSS Enterprise Features

• Business Data Catalog• Enterprise Search• My Sites• Excel Services• Forms Services• Publishing Sites

Site and List Terminology

• Site Collection• Top Level Site• Subsite• Site Template• SharePoint List or Library

Site Collection

A hierarchy of SharePoint web sites, starting with one web site and including all that web sites children web

sites, and those web sites’ children web sites, etc.

Top Level Site

The very first web site of a site collection, from which the site collection is managed. All other web sites

live below this one web site.

Subsite

Any web site in a site collection which is not the top level site.

Site TemplateA Site Template is saved version of a particular site configuration. For instance, a “Meeting Workspace” Site Template includes a Calendar list, and a “Blog” Site Template includes a “Posts” lists for Blog postings. Site Templates can be created from the browser or by an application developer.

Some out of the box Site Templates:Collaboration• Team Site• Blank Site• Document Workspace• Wiki Site• Blog

Meetings• Basic Meeting Workspace• Blank Meeting Workspace• Decision Meeting Workspace• Social Meeting Workspace• Multipage Meeting Workspace

SharePoint List or Library

• Lists are the underlying structure in SharePoint. Nearly all information is stored in some sort of list.

• A list has Rows and Columns (also called Fields).• A list can be sorted, filtered, or grouped by its

columns. This can be saved as a View.• If a list item has a document stored with it, it’s called

a Library. There are Document Libraries, Image Libraries, and Pages Libraries, to name a few.

Working with Lists

• Creating a List• Kinds of Lists• Managing Lists• Versioning• List Views

Creating a List

• On the “View all Site Content” page, click on the “Create” icon. This will take you to a page that lists the kind of lists you can create.

• You will assign the list a name, and optionally, a description.You can also specify if the listwill appear in the Quick Launch navigation.

• When your list is created, youwill notice that the URL uses the name of the list you specified.

Kinds of Lists

This is a list of some of the out of the box list types. (This is not a complete list. You could have custom lists deployed to your site.)

• Document Library• Wiki Page Library• Picture Library• Announcements• Contacts• Discussion Boards• Links

• Calendar• Tasks• Project Tasks• Issue Tracking• Survey• Custom List

Managing Lists

To manage the properties of a list, click on the “Settings” link in the list toolbar, then select “List Settings” from the menu.

Versioning

List items can have 3 kinds of versioning:• None• Major Only

Each time a list item is saved, a whole number version gets saved: 1.0, 2.0, 3.0, etc.

• Major and MinorEvery time an item is saved, it’s considered a draft and will have a minor version number, such as 1.1, 1.2, 1.3. A “published” version has a whole number, such 1.0, 2.0, etc.

Enabling Versioning

On the List Settings page, click on “Versioning Settings” under “General Settings”.

Versioning Settings

When versioning is enabled, users can roll back a page or document to a previous version. However, this creates additional copies of the item in the database. To limit the number of copies that will be saved, you can specify how many major and draft versions you’d like to retain.

Views

A view is a way of organizing information in a SharePoint list. A view does not modify the information in the list (i.e. if an item does not appear in a view, that does not mean the item has been deleted, merely that it is not being displayed in that particular view.)

Ways of organizing information in a view:• Selecting columns to display• Sorting• Filtering• Grouping

• Paging• Applying totals/sums to columns• Applying a limit to how many items are returned

Creating or Modifying a View

• You can create or modify a view from the List itself, by selecting the “Views” drop down menu.

• You can also create or modify a view from the List Settings page.

Web Part Terminology

• Web Part• Web Part Zone• “Tool Pane” or “Edit Pane”• Chrome

Web Part

• A set of controls that can be added to a web page.

• Acts independently of other Web Parts, although it can interact with other Web Parts.

• Can be added or removed to a web page independent of one another.

• In SharePoint, Web Parts can be dragged and dropped around a web page from the browser.

Web Part Zone

A region on a web page that can hold one or more Web Parts.

“Tool Pane” or “Edit Pane”

•Region on the web page where Web Part properties can be modified.•Every Web Part can have a width and height specified. (If none is specified, the Web Part will stretch to the dimensions of the Web Part Zone it’s a part of.)

Chrome

The title and border surrounding a Web Part. Your options are:• None• Title and Border• Title Only• Border Only

Kinds of OOTB Web Parts

• List Web Parts• Image• Page Viewer • Table of Contents• Summary Link• Content Editor Web Part

Web Part ConnectionsWeb Parts can be a Provider to or a Consumer of information from another Web Part.

When a user interacts with one Web Part, connected Web Parts can populate another Web Part with new information.

Web Part Connections Sample

In this example, the user can select an image from the Images library List View web part, and it will populate the Image Web Part next to it on the page.

Workflow

• Approval• Collect Signatures• Collect Feedback

Demo: List, Web Parts, and Workflow

• Creating a List• Modifying a View• Adding a Web Part to a Page• Creating a workflow

QUESTIONS

LAB 1: USING SHAREPOINT

AN INTRODUCTION TO INFRASTRUCTURE

OS Requirements

• Office SharePoint Server 2007 runs on Windows Server 2003 with SP1 or later. You can use the following Windows Server 2003 editions:

• Windows Server 2003, Standard Edition• Windows Server 2003, Enterprise Edition• Windows Server 2003, Datacenter Edition• Windows Server 2003, Web Edition• Also runs on Windows 2008 Server, but you must

have WSS SP1 installed for this to work

• Your server must be configured to be a Web Server:• Enable IIS 6.0 (or 7.0 if you’re using Windows Server

2008)• Enable the SMTP Server

• Outgoing• Incoming

• Install .NET Framework 3.0 (Necessary for SharePoint Workflows, as well as for ASP.NET 2.0)

• You can install .NET 3.5 if you’d like to use AJAX functionality, but you must make additional changes to the web.config file additionally.

Server Components

Server Roles

• Web Front EndServes up content to SharePoint users

• Database ServerMust be SQL Server 2005 or SQL 2008. (You must have WSS SP1 for SQL 2008.) SQL Server 2005 Express can be installed for stand-alone installations

• Application ServerUsed for offloading processes for things like Excel Services and search indexing.

• Everything on one server: Web Front End, Database, Application Server.

• Uses SQL Server 2005 Express• CANNOT upgrade to SQL Server• You can install the full version of SQL Server on

the same server as SharePoint, but this is considered a Server Farm Configuration.

Stand Alone Installation

• Designate different servers with different roles• SharePoint handles multiple servers per role.• Web Servers, SQL Servers can be load

balanced. • If you attach a new server to the farm and tell

SharePoint what role it has, it will start using it. Provides simple scalability.

Server Farm Installation

Shared Service Providers

Meant to be shared among SharePoint Site Collections and/or Web Applications:• Search• My Sites• Excel Services• Form Services• Business Data Catalog

• The process of knowing if a person is who they say they are.

• Windows or Forms Based Authentication• Authentication happens through IIS• Alternate Access Mapping• Anonymous Access

Authentication

• The process of deciding if a current user has permission to perform a certain action.

• Authorization happens in SharePoint.

Authorization

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STSADM.EXE command line utility

• Can run interactive commands from command line

• Used for administrative tasks such as creating, backing up, restoring site collections.

• Operations• Application Management• Shared Services

Demo: Central Administration

QUESTIONS

SHAREPOINT CUSTOMIZATION AND DEVELOPMENT

• What you see on a web page is a combination of content stored on the file system and content stored in a database.

• When IIS gets an incoming request for a web page, SharePoint assembles the web page by looking at assets on the file system and combining it with content stored in the database, then returns the HTML markup to the user’s browser.

• SharePoint URL’s are virtual. Unlike typical web sites, you can not browse to a web page on the file system that corresponds to the URL a user has requested.

SharePoint Content

• Changes made to a particular content database• Through the browser• Through SharePoint Designer

• Easy for site administrators and content owners to make changes to the site

• Not easily reproducible across Site Collections or server farms.

• Changes backed up in general content database backup.

Customization

• Changes made to underlying SharePoint installation.• Reproducible across Sites, Site Collections, Server

Farms, etc.• Code is stored in flat files that can be checked into a

code repository, which is helpful in disaster recovery scenarios.

• Done by developers using tools like Visual Studio.• Steeper learning curve than doing basic

customizations.

Development

• SharePoint keeps an original version of most of its assets on the web server.

• When a new asset gets provisioned (such as a list, web part page, etc.), SharePoint creates a “pointer” in the database, indicating it should use the item in the file system.

• When an asset gets changed from the original, SharePoint saves a copy of the item in the content database.

• (Sometimes a version pointing to the file system is called “ghosted” while a version stored in the database is referred to as “un-ghosted”.)

Customized vs. Un-customized

• If the underlying item gets updated on the file system, “un-customized’ versions of it will look like the updated version, since they just point to the new version on the file system. “Customized” versions will not change, because SharePoint has stored a copy of the old version in the database.

Customized vs. Un-customized

• Descendent of Microsoft FrontPage.• Part of Microsoft Office• Available as free download:

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?displaylang=en&FamilyID=baa3ad86-bfc1-4bd4-9812-d9e710d44f42

SharePoint Designer

• Visual Studio Extensions for WSS (VSeWSS)• Available for both VS 2003 and VS 2008

• Third Party tools from CodePlex• WSPBuilder• STSDEV

Visual Studio Tools

• CAB files deployed to your SharePoint farm• SharePoint handles deploying code to associated

WFE servers.• Manifest tells SharePoint where to deposit

particular assets .• SharePoint assets usually get put in the “12 hive”.• Web parts must be marked as “Safe” in the

web.config file.• DLL’s are placed in the GAC or the BIN directory.

SharePoint Solution Packages

• A Feature is a specific piece of functionality.• A Feature goes into effect when it is activated. (A

Feature can also be deactivated.)• A Feature can require the activation of other

features.• Example: Feature A makes a change to the site

navigation. Feature B adds a web part to the site homepage. Feature C provisions a new site and requires both Features A and B to be activated.

SharePoint Feature

• Examples of things Features can be used to do:• Provision new Lists, List Items, Pages, Sites, etc.• Do some action when an event on a list is fired

(such as “Item Added”, “Item Deleted”, etc.)• Add an item to the navigation• Change the look and feel of the site by modifying

site Master Pages and CSS files.• Create custom workflows

SharePoint Feature

• SharePoint API• SharePoint Web Services

• Code vs. declarative markup using CAML

SharePoint Development

• SharePoint API requires a SharePoint server installation (which requires Windows Server 2003 or Windows Server 2008).

• Add-on allows development on Vista, but not recommended

• Best practice: use a virtual environment• Microsoft Virtual PC• VMWare Workstation• Sun Virtual Box

Development Environment

• Developers develop locally in virtual environments.• Developers check code into a code repository like Visual

Source Safe or Team Foundation Server• Developers deploy code to a common development

environment.• In larger environments, Solution Packages deployed to a QA

server where changes are tested. In addition, if there’s an IT team who will be deploying Packages to the Production server, this provides a location for them to test instructions for deploying the code. (QA can be on same server as Dev.)

• Finally, SharePoint Solution Packages get deployed to Production environment.

Lifecycle Best Practice

QUESTIONS

LAB 2: USING SHAREPOINT DESIGNER

SHAREPOINT 2010

• Office “Ribbon” Interface• Better Visual Studio Development• Better SharePoint Designer• Design Workflows using Visio• Business Data Catalog now called Business Connectivity

Services. Allows bi-directional updates to data source.• Managed Metadata Services• Enhanced search• Service Application Architecture• Sandbox Solutions

Enhancements

• User Interface• Sandbox Solutions• SharePoint Designer• Visual Studio templates

Demo: SharePoint 2010

QUESTIONS