Exploring the Server Admin Templates - Board of Directors

Template Name: BoardDirectors.stp
Description: The Board of Directors application template provides a single location for an external group of members to store and locate common documents such as quarterly reviews, shareholder meeting notes and annual strategy documents.
Business Area: Business Management / Finance
Document Libraries:
1. Meeting Minutes
2. Meeting Documents
3. Board Information
Custom Lists:
1. Contact List - Default
2. Board Events – Calendar List

a. Workflows

i. Type of Workflow – SharePoint Designer

ii. Workflow –
1. Creates new item in a “Discussion” List.
2. Creates new item in the “Meeting Minutes”.
iii. Workflow Type - Manual
b. Views (Apart from Default)
i. All Events
1. Standard View
2. Sorted by StartTime – Default View
ii. Calendar
1. Calendar View
iii. Current Events
1. Standard View, with Expanded Recurring Events.
3. Tasks – Default

Customizations:
This template has workflow implemented in the “Board Events” List which creates a list item in the “Meeting Minutes” Document Library and the “Discussions” Discussion Board List whenever a new item is created in the “Board Events” List.

Exploring the 40 Application Templates of WSS 3.0

1. Introduction
   
   Microsoft had launched 40 application templates that can be used in Windows SharePoint Services to implement Custom Scenarios tailored to address the needs or requirements of specific business processes or sets of tasks. Microsoft states that these application templates “can function as a starting point for partners and developers looking to build more sophisticated Windows SharePoint Services solutions using Microsoft Office SharePoint Designer 2007”.


2. Availability of Application Templates
   The Templates are available for download at no extra charge from the following site, http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/windowsserver/sharepoint/bb407286.aspx.
   As Microsoft suggests, each application template addresses a business scenario and provides a base of functionality that can be either used directly out of the box, or customized for company specific needs.
   The Application Templates fall under two groups
   · 20 Site Admin Templates –
   o These custom templates can be installed by Administrator for the SharePoint site into the Template gallery without requiring server administration access.
   · 20 Server Admin Templates –
   o These are Site Definition files that implement tight integration and enhanced functionality with the Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 platform. To install these install the user needs to have administrator permissions on the server. The user also needs to be the administrator in the SharePoint groups to install the server admin templates.
   These templates are available for download as individual templates and also as a complete package.


3. Installing the Application Templates
   The downloaded templates will be in EXE format. Run the EXE file to extract them to a location on your computer.
   Install Site Admin Templates
   a) Select the Template file, .stp, from the extracted distribution for the application template you wish to install.
   b) Log into your SharePoint site as the site Administrator.
   c) From the Site Actions drop-down menu in the top right, select Site Settings.
   d) Under the Galleries section, select Site templates.
   e) Select Upload to load an application template into this SharePoint site.
   f) Browse to the .stp file from the distribution and select Open. If you have several application templates to load into your site, you can use the Upload Multiple Files… option to load them all at once.
   g) Click Ok to complete the upload of the application template to your SharePoint site.
   Install Server Admin Templates
   a) If you are downloading the templates individually then in order for the server admin templates to be installed the Application Template Core Solution needs to be installed first. The Application Template core solution is available for download in the following link http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=85162&clcid=0x409
   b) If the entire package of 40 templates in downloaded then Application Template Core Solution comes as a part of it.
   c) To install the Application Template Core Solution,
   i. Open command prompt and navigate to the following path “%PROGRAMFILES%\common files\microsoft shared\web server extensions\12\bin”
   ii. Types the following command, “stsadm.exe -o addsolution -filename \ApplicationTemplateCore.wsp”, where is the location you extracted the Application Template Core files to, and then press ENTER.
   iii. Type “stsadm.exe -o deploysolution -name ApplicationTemplateCore.wsp –allowgacdeployment”, and then press ENTER. This will deploy the solution in the GAC.
   iv. If any error encountered while deploying through the STSADM command then the solution can be deployed from the Central Administration -> Operations->Solution Management. If the Application Template Solution is not deployed then go ahead and deploy it manually.
   d) Now that the Application Template Core Solution is installed now we can go ahead and install the Server Admin Templates. The steps are as follows,
   i. Open command prompt and navigate to the following path “%PROGRAMFILES%\common files\microsoft shared\web server extensions\12\bin”
   ii. Type “stsadm.exe -o addsolution -filename \.wsp”, where is the location where the template files are located and .wsp is the .wsp file for your template, and then press ENTER
   iii. Type stsadm -o deploysolution -name .wsp -allowgacdeployment, and then press ENTER
   iv. Check if the templates are installed in the Central Administration site by browsing to Central Administration-> Operations -> Solution Management.
   v. If the templates are not deployed then go ahead and deploy them manually.
   vi. Run iisreset for the sites to be updated with the new templates.


4. Creating sites based on the Application Templates
   Using the application templates is easy.
   · Browse open the SharePoint Site using Administrator privileges.
   · Click on the Site Actions Menu
   · Select the Create Sub-Menu
   · Select the Sites and Workspaces
   · Provide the necessary information for creating the site
   · In the Template Selection section you can find two new tabs added,
   o Custom – Site Admin Templates
   o Application Templates – Server Admin Templates
   · Select the Template for the site and click on Create.

ReConnecting Content Databases in SharePoint 2007

After the failover of a SharePoint Products and technologies database, it is required to reconnect the content
databases. The following are the databases that are required to be reconnected,

• Content database
• Admin database
• Configuration Database
• Search Database
• Shared Services Provider

The following stsadm commands are used to reconnect to the content database after a failover, the deletecontentdb will remove the reference to the old database server and the addcontentdb will add the new database as the content database

stsadm –o deletecontentdb –url [Site] -databasename -databaseserver [Old Principal]

stsadm –o addcontentdb –url [Site] -databasename -databaseserver [Old Principal]

Reconnecting content databases can also done using Central Administration,

1. Navigate to Central Administration.
2. Navigate to Application management page
3. click on the Content Databases.
4. Select the content database that has failed-over.
5. In the Manage Content Databases page, choose the Remove content database option, and then click OK.
6. Select the Add a content database option, and enter the required details.
7. Replace the Database Server box with the new principal server, and then click OK.

Default Groups and permission levels in MOSS 2007

The out of the box SharePoint Groups created and the permission levels for each of the group is explained in the following segment


The Limited Access permission level will provide access to specific list, document library or an item or a document in a list or document library without providing access to the entire site.

The following are the special users that are available in SharePoint for high level administration tasks:

Site Collection Administrators:
One or more users can be designated as primary or secondary site collection administrators. These users have full control on the sites within the site collection and can audit site content. Site Administrators are assigned at the time of creating the site but can also be changed by using the Central Administration or Site Settings pages.

Farm Administrators:
Farm administrators are users who manage the server and the server farm settings. The Farm administrators can be added using the Central Administration tool only. Farm administrators have no access to the site’s content by default. They must be added as site collection administrators in order to view any content.

Administrators:
Administrators of the local server can perform all tasks similar to the Farm server administrator like installing new products or applications, deploying web parts and new features to the global assembly cache, creating new web applications and new IIS web sites, starting services etc. Like Farm administrators, administrators do not have access to view site content and need to be explicitly added as site collection administrators to view any content.

Create a custom context menu in SharePoint list or Document library

The context menu is the drop down menu displayed when a document library item or a list item is selected.



This menu is executed with the help of a JavaScript file located in "C:\Program Files\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\web server extensions\12\TEMPLATE\LAYOUTS\1033\OWS.js.

The OWS.js file is the java script file that implements the functionality for the context menu. OWS.js also lets users to implement custom menu options that can be used to create a custom menu in the context menu. Changes made to the OWS.js java script file is implemented or reflected across all the applications in the server farm.
Alternatively, a content editor web part can be used to implement the same if the context menu is required only in a particular site collection.

Steps:

1. Go to Edit Page for the page or site for which you want to display the context menu.


2. Add a content editor web part for the library or the list for which the context menu needs to be applied.



3. Click on the link that says open the tool and pane which opens up the tool pane. In the Source Editor Web part add the following JavaScript code to add custom menu for a Document Library within the script tag.

function Custom_AddDocLibMenuItems(m, ctx)
{
var strDisplayText = "Navigate to Google";
var strAction = "STSNavigate('http://www.google.com')";
var strImagePath = "";

// Add our new menu item
CAMOpt(m, strDisplayText, strAction, strImagePath);

// add a separator to the menu
CAMSep(m);

// false means that the standard menu items should also be rendered
return false;
}


4. Save the script and check the Hidden option in the Layout section of the tool pane.

5. The context menu will be visible now.



6. In order to add a custom context menu for a Document Library, implement the custom functionality using the Custom_AddDocLibMenuItems function and in order to add a custom context menu for a list, implement the custom functionality using the Custom_AddListMenuItems function.

"One or more field types are not installed properly. Go to the list settings page to delete these field" error from SPQuery

When using SPQuery often one might often encounter this error. This errror is caused because the field that you are refrencing in your CAML query is repersented differently internally. This can be because either you renamed a column or another site column with the same name exists.

Though the Display name of the column may be the say the internal column name can be different in SharePoint. SPQuery Fieldref requires the internal column name in order to perform the query. Remedies for this error are,

1. Use the U2UCamlQueryBuilder to re-construct the query and determine the actual internal field name or
2. Delete the field and recreate it.

Happy coding :-)