Roadmap for creating and managing SharePoint sites
Office SharePoint Server 2007 provides a framework for creating and managing Web sites that you can use to share information and to simplify collaboration across your organization. For example, people in a large enterprise can use the sites to share business documents, schedules, and processes within teams, across groups, or across the entire organization. If you use Office SharePoint Server 2007 to share and manage your information, the first thing you will do is create a site. After you create the site, you'll find that you can customize it for almost any purpose.
Use this article as a roadmap to help you plan, create, customize, and manage sites in Office SharePoint Server 2007. Below, you'll find links to articles on Office Online as well as articles, demos, and blogs on popular Web sites that cover Web sites in more detail.
Before you begin
Before you create a site, you should learn about Office SharePoint Server 2007 and its site-related features. Knowing this information helps you choose the right type of site when you create one for your team or project. Keep in mind that you don't necessarily have to know all of this before you actually create the site, but make sure that you choose the site template that matches most closely the purpose of your site — this can save you customization work later.
Introduction to Office SharePoint Server 2007 and sites
| Goal | Description |
| Before you create a site, explore the major uses of the product, including collaboration, personalization, search, and business intelligence. Also learn the high-level differences between Office SharePoint Server 2007 and Windows SharePoint Services 3.0. | |
| Get the big picture of Office SharePoint Server 2007 and see how it acts as a platform for collaboration and sharing, enterprise content management, and enterprise search. | |
| Plan your new site or site collection by determining the goals and objectives for your site, who will use the site, what level of access those users need, the content of the site, and the navigation structure. | |
| Use this blog by Jose Barreto to help you choose the best site template for your needs. This post discusses the different types of sites, including publishing sites, wiki sites, download sites, and blog sites. |
Creating sites
When you create a new site in Office SharePoint Server 2007, you choose a name, address, description, site template, and settings related to navigation and permissions. The links below explain these options in more detail.
Create a site
| Goal | Description |
| Learn how to create a site in Office SharePoint Server 2007. The article explains the difference between creating a top-level site and creating a subsite within an existing site. You'll learn what this means in terms of the site's navigation, permissions, and shared features. | |
| Watch a demonstration of a new team site being created in Office SharePoint Server 2007. The demo, provided by SharePoint-eLearning.com, takes you through the process of creating a site. | |
| To help you choose the right site template when creating a site, read this article to learn about the available templates and a description of each. Office SharePoint Server 2007 includes site templates that contain different site features, for example, lists, libraries, and Web parts. | |
| When creating a new site, you choose whether to inherit permissions from a parent site or create unique permissions for this site. Learn the benefits of both methods in this article (at the end). Keep in mind that you can change this setting after you've created the site. Note: Permissions and access to a site are explained in more detail later in this roadmap, when you start customizing your site. | |
| When creating a new site, you choose whether to display the site in the navigation of its parent site. If you don't have this option when creating a site, read this article to learn how to do this on the Site Navigation Settings page. Similar to permissions, you can change this setting after you've created the site. Note: Navigation options are explained in more detail later in this roadmap, when you start customizing your site. | |
| When creating a new site, you also choose whether to inherit the top link bar and possibly breadcrumbs from the parent site or create a unique top link bar and breadcrumbs for this site. Learn the benefits of both methods in this article. Again, you can change this setting after you've created the site. Note: Navigation options are explained in more detail later in this roadmap, when you start customizing your site. | |
| The last choice you have when creating a site is whether to list the new site in the site directory and, if so, which division. Again, you can change this setting after you've created the site. |
Customizing sites
After you create the site, the real work begins. You need to consider the appearance and behavior of the site as well as the structure and architecture of the site. Appearance and behavior includes options like site colors and theme; libraries, lists, and Web Parts on the site; the navigation; and permissions. The structure and architecture includes options like site content types, site columns, and the overall metadata used by the site.
Customize the appearance and behavior
| Goal | Description |
| Learn of all the different ways to customize your site, including site-wide settings like security and navigaton, and individual features, like lists and Web Parts. | |
| See this blog post for a preview of each site template so that you know what features are included in your site. This is a great starting point for knowing what needs to be added, removed, and customized on your site. | |
| One of the first things you may want to change on your site is the color or theme. Sites include a set of themes that you use to quickly change the look and feel of the site (without affecting the layout or content of the site). | |
| Roadmap for creating and customizing Web Part Pages for a SharePoint site | Most of the features you add to and customize on your site come in the form of a Web Part. Read this roadmap and discover a rich selection of topics, demos, and blogs on Web Parts in Office SharePoint Server 2007. |
| Libraries are another powerful part of your site. Libraries display lists of files and key information about each file for team members to collaborate and share business information. Read this roadmap and discover a rich selection of topics, demos, and blogs on libraries in Office SharePoint Server 2007 | |
| Similar to libraries, lists are a powerful way to manage business information. Lists are collections of information that you share with team members. Read this article to learn more about lists, including types of lists and ways to work with lists in Office SharePoint Server 2007. | |
Customize the structure and architecture
| Goal | Description |
| To customize the content and structure of your sites and site collections, use the Site Content and Structure page. Change the structure of the site, manage content on lists and list items, and consequently, change the appearance of these items in your site navigation. Learn how to use the Site Content And Structure page, copy items, move items, show related resources, and more in this article. | |
| Metadata is data about your data and if done right on your site, you can better organize content, and users will easily find that content. Using content types and site columns on your site is one way to associate metadata with data. Read this blog to learn how important metadata is on your site. | |
| Much of the metadata management you do on your site involves setting up content types and site columns. When used together, content types and site columns help you organize content and ensure a consistent use of metadata across the site (or sites). Learn about both in this MSDN article. | |
| A content type is a reusable collection of settings that you apply to a certain category of content on your site. You can use content types to organize, manage, and handle content in a consistent way across a site, or site collection. Learn more information about content types, how they work at the site level, and how they work in lists and libraries. | |
| A site column is a reusable column definition you assign to multiple lists across one or more sites. You can use site columns to ensure consistency of metadata across sites and lists. Similar to site content types, they are defined at the site level, independent of any actual lists or content types. Learn more about columns in this MSDN article. | |
Managing sites
Managing a site is an area you may typically associate with the IT (Information Technology) department at your company. Managing a site includes tasks such as performing backup and restore, configuring e-mail on the site, and implementing site templates. In Office SharePoint Server 2007, many of these tasks can be performed by you, the site owner.
Manage a site
| Goal | Description |
| You might be managing one site, multiple sites, or site collections that contain multiple sites. To stay on top of site management, you need to determine the appropriate number of sites, subsites, and site collections. You also need to manage the site hierarchy of each, monitor site usage, manage unused sites, and more. Read this article for suggestions on managing sites and site collections. | |
| As you manage and customize your site, you spend most of your time on the Site Settings page in Office SharePoint Server 2007. On this page, you manage permissions, layout pages, administrative settings, and more. | |
| Information management policies enable you to control who can access your organizational information, what they can do with it, and how long to retain it. To implement a policy, you can associate policy features or a policy template with your site, content type, or document library. Learn how in this article. | |
| Auditing can be used to track how content on the site is used and who used it. If necessary, you can retrieve a history of actions taken by a particular user, and you can retrieve the history of actions taken during a particular date range. This can be useful for regulatory compliance and records-management business requirements. Learn more about audit settings in this article. | |
| To provide strategic or operational data for decision-makers in your organization, you can leverage the business intelligence features in Office SharePoint Server 2007. Link your site to business applications, like SAP, Siebel, and Microsoft SQL Server 2005, and then publish reports, lists, and key performance indicators (KPIs) from this data. Read through this roadmap and discover a rich selection of topics, demos, and blogs relating to business intelligence. | |
| You can enforce a consistent look and feel across your site by specifying a site template and page layout to be used for any subsite and Web page created from your site. You can, for example, require that any new subsite created from your site use the Team Site template. You can also require that any new pages created on your site use the Article page with body only page layout. Learn how to manage site templates and page layouts in this topic. | |
| Office SharePoint Server 2007 includes a Recycle Bin that provides a safety net when deleting documents, list items, lists, folders, and files. If you delete one of these items, it is placed in the Recycle Bin. Learn how to view items, delete items, and restore items in the Recycle Bin. | |
| The very last thing you might do with a site is delete it. It's important to note that deleting a top-level site will delete all subsites beneath it, and you cannot recover those subsites unless you have a backup of them. Read this article to learn how to delete a site in Office SharePoint Server 2007. |
More information
There are numerous ways in which you can use your Office SharePoint Server 2007 site — too many to include in this roadmap. You will find that after you create your site, you can do just about anything with it through the use of libraries, lists, Web Parts, page layouts, site settings, and more. Follow the links below to see additional documentation available on Office Online and TechNet.
Documentation on Office Online and TechNet
| Resource | Description |
| Articles for the site administrator about Office SharePoint Server 2007 on TechNet. | |
| Articles for the site administrator about Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 on TechNet. |
No comments:
Post a Comment