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Nov 7, 2008

Master Page and Themes on WSS sites in MOSS

Master Page and Themes on WSS sites in MOSS




Applying a Site Master



Create a "team" site (team template)
In site settings, go to site collection features and activate the "Office SharePoint Server Publishing Infrastructure" feature
Under Look and feel in site settings, go to Master Page
for Site Master page choose BlackVertical.master (check the box to apply to sub sites)
Expected result... go to home page and I'd see a fancy site with the black sides (no MS blue right?)

Wrong. Apparently the Site Master applies to publishing pages only (works for Intranet or Internet Portal Templates, but you'll discover it doesn't apply to sub sites with WSS templates)


Applying a System Master


5. Go back to site settings, Master Page, and for System.Master page choose BlackVerticle.Master (check the box to apply to sub sites)

Site Settings looks MS blue
Go to home page.
WooHoo now we have the new master page... ,
Wait the bars on the web parts are MS blue...

9. Go to site settings, under look and feel choose Site themes and choose Obsidian. Click apply.

10. Site settings, now looks like the black obsidian theme, but going to the home page or any list still has the blue web part bar.

So, how do we solve that?


Applying a Custom CSS (from a theme)


11. Go to site settings, click view source, you'll see the reference to the theme in the style sheet just a few lines down... Look for:

12. Copy the href URL path of the css reference (minus the querystring): /sites/tr5iw/_themes/Obsidian/Obsi1011-65001.css

13. Go to Master Page, scroll to the bottom, choose Specify a CSS file to be used and put in the URL to the CSS. "/sites/tr5iw/_themes/Obsidian/Obsi1011-65001.css" check the box to apply to sub sites and “click Apply”

14. Go to homepage

15. We did it. No blue.

Finish… Without opening any tools our UI in our team site has a consistent theme across site settings, the homepage and list pages.

So what did we learn? There is a difference between site.master and system.master in relation to the pages and templates.

Site Master: The site master page will be used by all publishing pages. (That’s great for the Internet and Intranet publishing site, but not for many of the subsites)

System Master: Use the system master page for all forms and view pages in this site. (let me amend this with these are all the site templates and pages that the site master does not apply to, including team sites, document workspaces, web part pages, and all non publishing pages.

MSDN has some good content on modifying master pages:

Master Pages



Customizing Master Pages in Windows SharePoint Services


SharePoint Designer on Office Online has some good info as well..





Nov 6, 2008

Troubleshooting for Office SharePoint Server 2007

Troubleshooting for Office SharePoint Server 2007


http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc462944.aspx

Content Deployment - Step By Step

Content Deployment - Step By Step Tutorial

http://blogs.msdn.com/jackiebo/archive/2007/02/26/content-deployment-step-by-step-tutorial.aspx



Related References -

Content Deployment Post by Tyler Butler:

http://blogs.msdn.com/sharepoint/archive/2006/05/02/588140.aspx

MOSS SDK on Content Deployment:

http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms549024.aspx

TechNet on Plan Content Deployment:

http://technet2.microsoft.com/Office/f/?en-us/library/edcdacca-8013-460e-95a0-d2b83b6cc7ef1033.mspx

TechNet on Design Content Deployment Topology:

http://technet2.microsoft.com/Office/f/?en-us/library/1d6d6040-6cbb-4685-a40e-1e9086d426831033.mspx

MOSS 2007 User and Profiles import from Active Directory

MOSS 2007 User and Profiles import from Active Directory.


Its very normal to have a scenario in which the user profile information in stored in directory service like Active Directory. Since personalization in sharepoint largely depends upon user profiles it becomes imperative to not only import the user information in AD into sharepoint as user profiles but also to run incremental imports to sync up user profiles with new information added into the Active directory.

As you know sharepoint integrates with Active directory and a user profile record gets created in sharepoint when an AD authenticated user first accesses a site. Assumption here is that the user already has adequate permissions on the site. As noted above incremental imports facilitate synchronizing user information stored in AD with the profile created in sharepoint.

The following steps need to be followed to configure import of user profiles from Active Directory -

Scenario-1 - All users are in the current domain.


1. Go to User Profile and Properties under Shared Services Administration.

2. Click on configure profile import link. Select current domain as the profile datasource.

3. Make sure default access account is specified and is valid.

4. Run full import or incremental report.


Scenario-2 - Users are scattered into multiple domains or other data sources.


1. Go to User Profile and Properties under shared services administration.

2. Click on Import New Connection. Add a new connection for each of the data sources where you users are located. Delete any unwanted connections that might already be there.

3. Configure the import as mentioned above and make sure that Custom source is selected.

4. Run the full import or incremental import.

Configure Search On MOSS 2007

The following procedures step you through the process of configuring Office SharePoint Server 2007 search services, creating a Web application for the SSP, creating the SSP, and configuring indexing settings.



Start and configure the Search service

On the SharePoint Central Administration home page, click the Operations tab on the top navigation bar.
On the Operations page, in Topology and Services, click Servers in farm.
On the Servers in Farm page, click the server on which you want to configure the search service.
Click Start next to Office SharePoint Server Search.
On the Office SharePoint Server Search Settings page, in the Query and Indexing section, make sure that the Use this server for indexing content and Use this server for serving search queries check boxes are selected.
In the Default Catalog Location section, type a path to a physical folder to store the index files, or use the default location that is specified.
In the Contact E-Mail Address section, specify a valid e-mail address.
In the Service Account section, click Configurable, and in User name and Password, type the user name and password for the user account under which you want the Search service to run. The user account must be a member of the Administrators group on the computer that is running the Search service. If you want to use the principle of least privilege and select a unique user account that does not have administrative rights on your front-end servers or on your back-end database servers, see the Known Issues/Readme for Office SharePoint Server 2007 Beta 2. The user name must be in the format DOMAIN\username.
In the Web Front End And Crawling section, do one of the following:
If you are configuring the search service on a server that provides Web services and renders Web content, click No dedicated Web front-end computer for crawling
If you are configuring the search service on a server that is a standalone search server that does not provide Web services and render Web content, click Use a dedicated web front end computer for crawling, and then, in Select a web front end computer, click the computer you want to use for crawling.
Click Start.


Start the Windows SharePoint Services Web Application service
You must start the Windows SharePoint Services Web Application service on every computer that you want to act as a Web server and was set up using the Complete option during Setup. This service is started by default on servers that were set up using the Web Front End option. To enhance security, you can leave this service turned off on application servers that do not provide Web content to client computers. Also, you do not need to turn this service on to use SharePoint Central Administration on a server.

On the SharePoint Central Administration home page, click the Operations tab on the top navigation bar.
On the Operations page, in Topology and Services, click Servers in farm.
On the Servers in Farm page, click the server on which you want to start the Windows SharePoint Services Web Application service.
Click Start next to Window SharePoint Services Web Application.

Create the Shared Services Provider

On the SharePoint Central Administration home page, click the Application Management tab on the top navigation bar.
On the Application Management page, in the Office SharePoint Server Shared Services section, click Create or configure this farm's shared services.
On the Manage this Farm's Shared Services page, click New SSP. Important: If you have not created a Web application for the SSP administration site, you need to create one before you create the SSP. If you have already created a Web application for the SSP administration site, skip to step 14.
On the New Shared Services Provider page, click Create a new Web application.
On the Create New Web Application page, in the IIS Web Site section, click Create a new IIS web site, and do not modify the default settings in this section.
In the Security Configuration section, under Authentication provider, select the appropriate option for your environment, and do not modify the default settings in the remainder of this section.
In the Load Balanced URL section, do not modify the default settings.
In the Application Pool section, click Create new application pool.
In Application pool name, enter the name of your application pool or use the default name.
Click Configurable, and in User name and Password, type the user name and password for the user account under which you want the application pool to run. The user account does not have to be a member of any particular security group. It is recommended that you use the principle of least privilege and select a unique user account that does not have administrative rights on your front-end servers or on your back-end database servers. You can use the user account that you specified as the Office SharePoint Server 2007 service account; however, if that user account is a member of a security group that has administrative rights on your front-end servers or your back-end database servers, you will not be following the principle of least privilege. The user name must be in the format DOMAIN\username.
In the Database Name and Authentication section, verify the database information and make sure that Windows Authentication (recommended)is selected.
In the Search Server section, do not modify the default settings.
Click OK. Upon successful creation of the Web application, the New Shared Services Provider page appears.
In the SSP Name section, in Web Application, select the Web application that you created for the SSP, and do not modify any of the default settings in this section.
In the My Site Location section, do not modify any of the default settings.
In the SSP Service Credentials section, in User name and Password, type the user name and password for the user account under which you want the SSP to run. The user account does not have to be a member of any particular security group. It is recommended that you use the principle of least privilege and select a unique user account that does not have administrative rights on your front-end servers or on your back-end database servers. You can use the user account that you specified as the Office SharePoint Server 2007 service account; however, if that user account is a member of a security group that has administrative rights on your front-end servers or your back-end database servers, you will not be following the principle of least privilege. The user name must be in the format DOMAIN\username.
In the SSP Database section, you can either accept the default settings (recommended), or specify your own settings for the database server, the database name, or the SQL authentication credentials.
In the Search Database section, you can either accept the default settings (recommended), or specify your own settings for the search database server, the database name, or the SQL Server authentication credentials.
In the Index Server section, in Index Server, click the server on which you configured the Search service. Note: If there is no index server listed in the Index Server section, then no server in your farm has been assigned the index server role. To assign the index server role to a server in your farm, follow the instructions in the "Configure the Search service" section earlier in this topic.
In the SSL for Web Services section, click No.
Click OK. Upon successful creation of the SSP, the Success page appears.
On the Success page, click OK to return to the Manage this Farm's Core Services page.

Configure indexing settings

On the SharePoint Central Administration home page, click the Application Management tab on the navigation bar.
On the Application Management page, in the Office SharePoint Server Shared Services section, click Create or configure this farm's shared services.
On the Manage this Farm's Shared Services page, click SharedServices1.
On the Shared Services Administration page, in Search, click Search Settings.
On the Configure Search Settings page, in the Crawl Settings section, click Default content access account.
In the Default content access account section, in Account, Password, and Confirm Password, type the user name and password for the user account that you want to use to crawl content on your sites. This account must be a domain user account. It is recommended that you use the principle of least privilege and select a unique user account that cannot modify content and does not have administrative rights on your front-end servers or on your back-end database servers. You can use the user account that you specified as the Office SharePoint Server 2007 service account; however, if that user account is a member of a security group that has administrative rights on your front-end servers or your back-end database servers, you will not be following the principle of least privilege. The user account that you specify will be added to the Web application Full Read policy for your farm. The user name must be in the format DOMAIN\username.
Click OK.
In the Crawl Settings section, click Content sources.
On the Manage Content Sources page, click Local Office SharePoint Server sites.
On the Edit Content Source page, in the Crawl Schedules section, under Full Crawl, click Create schedule.
In the Manage Schedules dialog box, configure schedule settings for full crawls of your content, and then click OK.
In the Crawl Schedules section, under Incremental Crawl, click Create schedule.
In the Manage Schedules dialog box, configure schedule settings for incremental crawls of your content, and then click OK.
In the Start Full Crawl section, select the Start full crawl of this content source check box, and then click OK.



You are done!

Nov 4, 2008

MOSS workflows

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc263148.aspx#section2

Understanding workflow
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc263374.aspx

Plan workflows
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc262708.aspx

Plan workflows for document management
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc262233.aspx

Plan workflow for form templates
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc262853.aspx

Plan content approval and scheduling
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc263156.aspx

Authoring Windows SharePoint Services Workflows
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc263088.aspx

Introduction to Workflows in Windows SharePoint Services
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms434426.aspx

Workflows in Office SharePoint Server 2007
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms549489.aspx

How to: Design a Workflow Task Form to Use Task Data
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms550782.aspx

Index for Stsadm operations and properties (Windows SharePoint Services)
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc288413.aspx

Job-workflow: Stsadm property (Windows SharePoint Services)
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc424946.aspx

Alerts-enabled: Stsadm property (Windows SharePoint Services)
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc287644.aspx

Timer Job: Stsadm properties (Windows SharePoint Services)
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc424953.aspx

2007 RTM White Papers

Step 1 – Let’s get the Active Directory Ready.
When you E-Mail enable a library in a site it will create a new contact in the OU we specify for the AD. Therefore it makes sense to have an OU dedicated to MOSS2007 list e-mail addresses.
On a Domain Controller Open Active Directory Users and Computers in the administration tools and create a new Organizational Unit under your main domain name. In my case I used the OU name sharepointdl in the domain trainsbydave.com