My Two Bits : SPS 2003

The Official SharePoint Community Portal!

Kailash — Wed, 21 Feb 2007 16:29:00 GMT

Hello all,

We've got a Community Portal! Please do check it out at http://sharepoint.microsoft.com/sharepoint

I'd appreciate it if you guys give me some comments on whats on the site and what you'd like to see. Very soon we will be integrating with Passport to allow you to post your feedback onto the site and participate in a Wiki and more!

Finally, a one-stop shop!

SharePoint Tools by ITEgypt Corp

Kailash — Wed, 13 Dec 2006 18:13:00 GMT

Hosam from ITEgypt Corp is a very passionate SharePoint developer. I got to know him quite recently and he's always been very excited about SharePoint and has delivered several tools to customers in Egypt. Here's the last article from his blog:

SharePoint Tools

Many customers who use Sharepoint Portal Server 2003 addresses some problems when managing and administering the portal environment they have.

For example,

There is no way to view or manage all of Sherepoint Portal Hirarchy containing areas and wss sites from one window or one user interface. You must navigate to each site or area and configure its security.
In some cases the administrator needs to give security administration privileges to specific users without gives them any privileges on others settings.

There is no direct solution to online registration for the Sharepoint portal site.

many customers ask me about extending the SharePoint search engine to allow it to search about specific documents (.doc , .xls,.pdf,…..) or search in specific site , area , document library , list from any page or site in the hirarchy.

for the above problems i will provide in this blog my solutions which i developed and provided to my clients to solve all of these problems.

First I will will start with

Central Security Administration Module.

This following guide consists of three sections
1 – Managing Security for portal site
2- Managing security for an area
3- Managing security for wss site

Figure (1)

Figure Interface
1 - Site hierarchy.
2- Selected site.
3- Selected site url.
4- Selected site type (Area or Site).
5- Security mode used for the site (Inherited or Unique).
6- Site groups for the selected site.
7- Site users for the selected site.
8- Security mode for the selected site (Inherited or Unique).
9- Context Toolbar.

1. Managing Portal Site Security

The portal site is actually a top level site, so it uses the same security administration techniques as a normal windows sharepoint site (wss).
It contains site groups and users.
It always uses the unique permissions mode because it is a top level site in the site collection and doesn’t have a parent site to inherit its security.
The figure (1) displays that the (http://localhost:6000) site was selected and displays its site groups.

1.1. Managing site groups fro Portal Site

You can manage (add, edit, delete) site groups for portal site.
Click on the portal site node from the site hierarchy on the left hand and then click on Site Groups button.

1.1.1. Create site groups for portal site

To create new site groups in the portal site should be follow the following instructions:-
1)      Click on Create Groups button. The window display will be changed as the you will see in the following figure(1.1.1).

2)      The window displays two text boxes for group name, group description and Portal Site permissions collection.

Important note

The permissions collection will be changed according to the type of the selected site. For the current context it displays the Portal Site Permissions
3)      Enter the name and description for the new group
4)      Select the desired portal site permissions.
5)      Click Save to complete the operation or Cancel to cancel the operation.

1.1.2. Delete site groups from Portal Site

1)      Select site groups you need to delete.
2)      Click on Delete Selected Group(s) button.
3)      Click OK in the confirmation message to complete the operation or Cancel to cancel the operation.

1.1.3. Change current site group permissions

1)      Select group(s) you want to change its permissions.
2)      Click Change Group(s) right button.
3)      The window display will be change as you see in figure (1.1.3)
4)      Select the desired rights you want to assign to the selected group(s).
5)      Click Save button to complete the operation or cancel button to cancel the operation.

1.2. Managing users for Portal Site

Click Site Users tab to view site users’ interface as shown in the following figure

The site users’ display consists of the toolbar that has management functionality and users view.
The users view consists of the following data:-
a)      Users: Display Name for the user.
b)      User Name: Display the logon name for the user.
c)      Groups: display the site groups associated with the user.
d)      Is Sec Admin: display if the user has right to use the Central security administration module.

1.2.1. Add users to portal site

1) Click on the Add Users buttons. The view will be changed to above figure (1.2.1)
2) The find by list contains the list for criteria that can be user by the search (Name of user, Alias of user, Name of security, and Alias of security group).
3) If you want to restrict the result returned from the search you can enter text in the starts with text box.
4) Click on find user’s button, the window display will be changed to the following figure 1.2.1.b

6)      Select user(s) you want to add to the site.
7)      Select the site groups (from site groups list) you want to assign to selected users.
If you want to assign deferent groups to any user you can click on set roles button for the desired users, the window display will be display to the following Figure (1.2.1.c)

8)      Select the desired groups and then press OK.
9)      Click on Save button to complete and finish the operation or Cancel button to cancel the operation.

1.2.2. Delete users from the Portal Site

1) Select users you want to delete.
2) Click on Delete Users button.
3) Click OK in the confirmation message to complete the operation.

1.2.3. Change users groups

1)      Select the desired users you want to change their groups.
2)      Click on Change Groups button.
3)      Select or deselect groups for each selected user.
4)      Click Save button to complete the operation

1.2.4. Set or remove security admin right

1)      Select users you want to set or remove security admin right to them.
2)      Click Set as security admin to set security admin right to selected users.
3)      Click Remove security admin to remove security admin right

The users view displays users who have and don’t have security admin right.

2. Managing Area Security

Important notes:-

1)      Change security mode button is enabled if the selected site type is area or sub site.

2)      You can’t create new site group for an area.

3)      You can add new users for an area and assign some area permissions for them

4)      You can’t assign site groups for area users. Just assign area permissions as shown in the following figure (2.b).

Important note
The permissions collection will be changed according to the type of the selected site. For the current context it displays the Area Permissions

3. Managing WSS Site Security

The windows share point services site use the same techniques as portal site for security administration see section (1)
Important notes:-

Change security mode button is enabled if the selected site type is area or sub site.
If the selected site is a top level site for a site collection the Change security mode is disabled.
You can add new users for the selected site and assign some site groups for them.
The permissions collection will be changed according to the type of the selected site. For the current context it displays the WSS Permissions

Skinning SharePoint, reading your mail and thinking Smart

Kailash — Thu, 12 Oct 2006 22:49:00 GMT

With email overload, every once in a while I try and stem the tide. It's a tough act. You really have to sit through the act of sorting your email and going through some that you may have missed. The "follow up" flags do help, but they only postpone the inevitable! You still have to deal with the email at some point or another. So dredging through some old mails I came across a request for information about Exchange webparts for SharePoint 2003. I was curious too and with some searching and looking I found some really cool ideas on some SharePoint blogs. Here's one that caught my eye: Using OWA in a SharePoint site

Additionally for those into some serious dev work, here are two cool links:

The SharePoint SmartPart, and
Using Macaw SharePoint skinner – they've even got a download on CodePlex!

Development Tools for SharePoint 2003 and onwards...

Kailash — Sun, 10 Sep 2006 10:59:00 GMT

MSDN Magazine is a great source for developer content. As I was going through some of the RSS Feeds (thanks to Outlook 2007) I came across this excellent article that provides a good overview of all the capabilities built into the new Microsoft Office SharePoint Server (MOSS). This article is meant to be an introductory one with breadth and not too much depth.

http://msdn.microsoft.com/msdnmag/issues/06/08/GatheringMoss/

During my time as a developer, I remember hearing - build libraries, build tools to develop tools! And so here’s a very interesting partner tool for SharePoint: http://workplacearchitects.com/

Key capabilities of Workplace Architects Developers Suite 2005:

Cross-Site Lookup
Viewing and retrieving information that resides in other sites.
List Relationships
Managing relationships between lists including creating and updating records in dependent lists within and across sites.
Data Aggregation
Aggregating data from multiple lists into one view.
AutoFill
Populating fields automatically based on the entries in another list.
Complex Filtering
Using complex filter expression in the view. Among others, we provide time functions (e.g.: AddYears, Add Month, AddDays) and time expression ([TODAY] and [NOW]) to filter your data based on a moving time window (Data Aging).
List Form Email Notification
Send emails from lists or libraries with links back to the list or item that an item has been created, modified or needs input.
Custom reporting
Aggregating report data from multiple lists with differing schema using JavaScript and HTML.
And more ...

This is the kind of expertise I’d like to work on developing and selling in Egypt!!

Multilingual SharePoint 2003 Partner Solution

Kailash — Thu, 07 Sep 2006 14:19:00 GMT

I hope one day I’ll be writing you a similar entry about an Egyptian Partner!

I strongly recommend you all to get in touch with them and encourage or partner with them to work on a RTL solution for Arabic.

IceFire Studios is about to release a Beta edition of the new version of our multilingual user interface solution for SharePoint, PointFire 2003.

The new PointFire 2003 [PF2K3] will be significantly different than the previous version.

Some key notes and features:

PF2K3 is a 100% server side multilingual user interface solution for SPS 2003 and WSS v2. No heavy use of JavaScript on client machines.

PF2K3 will not require alterations of existing site definitions (for example: SPS, STS, MPS, etc…)

PF2K3 makes no modifications to the SharePoint Database Architecture.

All MUI functionality follows SP SDK rules and performs all tasks via the SharePoint Object Model.

Users will no longer be required to use ~’s nor any other delimiting characters to enter multilingual content.

PF2K3 includes an advanced control panel and dynamic menu system for simple configuration and multilingual content control.

PF2K3 also includes a translation control panel. This will allow you to change, add or delete translations for specific UI elements.

Easy linking of multilingual content and language specific views.

Ability to show/hide WebParts to/from specific languages.

IceFire has also made the process of updating PF very easy.

PF2K3 is being built to support the creation of Plug-ins for developers to get the most out of PointFire.

To learn more about the new PointFire, visit: http://wss.icefire.ca/Administration%20Library/pointfire_specs.aspx

For screenshots of PF2K3 on SPS 2003, visit: http://wss.icefire.ca/Administration%20Library/pointfire_screens.aspx

The Beta of PF2K3 will be made available in the coming week. Download and install instructions will be sent via email upon it’s release.

*Note: Upon it’s final release, IceFire will be making unlimited developer licenses freely available to all those who wish to test it or develop for it.

IceFire is also currently working on another version of PointFire, PointFire 2007, for Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 and Windows SharePoint Services v3. This Beta will be available within a few weeks.

Please forward any comments or questions you may have to info@icefire.ca.

Thanks to Serge Lenbet for pointing me to this one!

Migrating from CMS 2002 and SPS 2003

Kailash — Wed, 23 Aug 2006 11:58:00 GMT

With the upcoming release of SharePoint 2007, migration from legacy CMS 2002 sites and SPS 2003 intranets is a genuine concern as MOSS 2007 approaches release.

Here are some of the common partner questions I’ve heard:

- What should I sell in the meantime?

- How are we going to migrate existing CMS 2002 sites?

- What if my deployment is before RTM?

I hope you’ll find some answers here. Please open these discussions with me in case any remain unanswered.

Planning MCMS 2002 App Migration to MOSS 2007

Best Practices for Ensuring Application Reusability and Upgrade in Windows SharePoint Services

What’s more is that it’s not just a few loose documents, we’ve got a full center for this! So do look up the Migration and Upgrade Information.

SharePoint Multilingual Portals

Kailash — Tue, 08 Aug 2006 11:55:00 GMT

I’m back from my travels! It’s been an interesting time at TechReady and I’ve attended several very interesting sessions on our upcoming wave of products. I’ll be sharing developments as they become available!

Meanwhile, here’s an old, much neglected document that should prove very useful to us. It’s about using SharePoint in multilingual scenarios.

http://www.microsoft.com/technet/prodtechnol/office/sps2003/maintain/spmultil.mspx

SharePoint Community Site

Kailash — Thu, 22 Jun 2006 11:45:00 GMT

Here’s the SharePoint Community Site:

http://msdn.microsoft.com/sharepoint/community/default.aspx

You’ll find links to important blogs and videos here. Be sure to check out Mike Fitz’s video on Partner opportunities in SharePoint.