Configuring SharePoint - Consuming resouces from a Parent Farm

Overview

Tool – SharePoint Central Administration

Tool Details – Central Administration is the GUI for SharePoint configuration.

1. From the Parent farm go to Central Administration.


2. Click on Application Management


3. Click on Gran or “Configure shared services between farms”

4. Select whether the farm will provide or consume shared services from or to other farms

5. If the farm provides shared services, select the shared service provider that you would like to share and specify a process account.

6. If the farm consumes a shared service provider, specify the SharePoint farm that provides the shared services.

Architecting a Solution - How a SharePoint Application can fit into a Collaboration

Overview

Leveraging SharePoint as an application platform offers its own perils, but for organizations that already have SharePoint user licenses, SharePoint Applications can be rapidly and inexpensively deployed to the entire organization. Depending on the application a new server may be required to for SharePoint. These free standing servers can often take advantage of Shared Services within the SharePoint farm, and although they can have an entirely different look and feel, there is a value to consistent application design across the organization.

Reasons a SharePoint Application may require a separate Server:

• Separate Security Domain
• Potentially a Load Impacting Application
• Custom Coding

The configuration below is suitable for small corporate deployments of a collaboration portal or a publishing portal. It’s also suitable for highly available application in a large corporate network.

A SharePoint Application may use a setup as complex as this or as simple as a single server. But regardless of the configuration there are several key features you can use from the a central configured farm.

• Shared Service Provider
• Consume Search and Index Resources
• Master Pages ( Keep a consistent look and feel)

Implementing a Help Desk - Trouble Shoot Audiences and Views

Overview

Tool – SharePoint 2007 Web Interface

Tool Details –

The SharePoint 2007 Web Interface can be customized to display data, aggregate data, and conditionally sort and format data. Often problems that are identified as server issues (Document Restores, Site Restores, Authentication Errors) are because the Audience or View settings are hiding the data.

Parameters –

None

Quick Summary –

Most issues relate to customized views where audiences have been defined. To analytically solve this error you must have the username of the affected party.

Procedure Steps –

1. Retrieve the username of the person who cannot find the data
2. Go to People and Groups and find which Groups the user is part of on the site.

3. In the affected Document Library or List go to the Settings Page

4. Check Audience targeting settings to see if Audiences are turned on.

5. Check each view of the data for conditional formatting

6. Sort, Filter and Group By statements causes users the most difficulty.
7. If a customized view is identified as the problem, notify the user that the view has been customized, and the data cannot be displayed.

Configure SharePoint - Working with Search Scopes

Overview

SharePoint Shared Services Administration is the GUI for all shared services such as search, mysites, and Excel Services..

For many deployments search scopes are static, but some SharePoint deployments may require search scopes to be added frequently.

Procedure Steps –

1. Go to SSP Administration from the SharePoint 3.0 Central Administration Page

2. Click on Search Settings then Click on Content Sources and Crawl Schedules

3. Click on New Content Source and specify the Type, Location and Desired Schedule.
4. From Search Settings (Step 2) Click on Crawl Rules to specify an account different from the default content access account.

5. From Search Settings (Step 2), scroll down to the bottom of the page and Click “View Scopes”

6. Click New Scope, name your Scope and then Click OK. Now you have created an empty scope without rules. Click on the add rules hyperlink and require the scope match the content source.

7. To make the scope visible on the SharePoint Pages the site collection administrator will need to edit the search setting from the Site Settings page and the Site Collection Administration section:

8. Scopes can be put into different groups or not displayed at all on the website

Implementing a Help Desk - Backing up and Restoring sites with STSADM

Overview

Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 includes the Stsadm tool for command-line administration of Office SharePoint Server 2007 servers and sites. Stsadm is located at the following path on the drive where SharePoint Products and Technologies is installed: %COMMONPROGRAMFILES%\microsoft shared\web server extensions\12\bin. You must be an administrator on the local computer to use Stsadm.

Stsadm provides a method for performing the Office SharePoint Server 2007 administration tasks at the command line or by using batch files or scripts. Stsadm provides access to operations not available by using the Central Administration site, such as changing the administration port. The command-line tool has a more streamlined interface than Central Administration, and it allows you to perform the same tasks. There are certain operations and parameters that are only available by using the Stsadm command-line tool.

Link to Parameters – Backup: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc263441.aspx?track=cc_exchange_sync Restore: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc262087.aspx?track=cc_exchange_sync

Quick Summary –

A site migration is two command line operations, a backup and a restore. After the site is migrated the old site should be set as read only or deleted depending on customer or project requirements. All operations that involve customer operations should be communicated with email messages and confirmations. Adequate communication should be sent at least a week in advance.

Procedure Steps –

Send out notifications to the customer that the site will be moved

1. Perform a backup of the site (will not affect site availability)
1. Stsadm.exe –o Backup –url -FileName
2. Restore the site to the new location.
1. Stsadm.exe –o Restore –url -FileName

Configure SharePoint - Setup a Certificate for SharePoint

Setup a Certificate for SharePoint

Task Overview

Tool – IIS Manager

Frequency – Certificate Creation and Expiration

Tool Details –

IIS Manager was more frequently used in previous versions of SharePoint and should be used only for specific functions in MOSS 2007. Almost all changes to the ISS Virtual Servers can and should be done through SharePoint 3.0 Central Administration

Parameters –

None

Quick Summary –

Many enterprises will use self signed certificates or public certificates that expire on a regular basis. Because this change will affect the availability of SharePoint a change control should be scheduled during maintenance hours for this operation. This procedure is well documented by Microsoft and in video, the steps below are a quick walk through.

Steps –

1. On the SharePoint Front End Server go to Administrative Tools and IIS Manager.
2. Click on the SharePoint Virtual server that publishes ssl protected content (usually port 443)
3. Right Click on the IIS Virtual server and click on properties
4. Navigate to the Directory Security tab
5. Click on Server Certificate

1. Request a New Certificate, remember to select to process the certificate later. (The certificate request will be saved to a file that can be sent to a local certificate authority or a public authority)
2. Fill in all relevant details for the certificate request (server name, location, etc)
3. Save the Certreq.txt file to the local disk and then open and copy the contents
4. Go to your certificate authority and go to an advanced request, if you are using a local Microsoft Certificate authority the page might look like this:

10. Click on “Submit a certificate request by using a base-64-encoded CMC…” option
11. Enter paste your certificate text.
12. Download your certificate.
13. Go back to IIS Manager and the Directory Security tab. Click on Server Certificate and Process the Certificate request

14. Find your certificate

15. Keep the default settings and click on next until Finished.
16. You have now added a new certificate.

Implementing a Help Desk - Setting up Site Collection Administrators

Overview

Microsoft has the tools but does your help desk have the procedures to implement them? I recommend avoiding procedures whereever possible. Use Self Service Site Creation in a at least a limited capacity and script out stsadm whereever possible. Consider your processing options:

Site Collection Administrators should be Power Users to avoid sending repetitve questions to the Help Desk. If your site collection Administrators can't be Power Users you may have not designed your SharePoint implementation correctly.

Procedure – New Site Collection Administrator

Overview

Tool – STSADM.EXE

Frequency – Project / Migration / Change Request

Tool Details straight form MS –

"Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 includes the Stsadm tool for command-line administration of Office SharePoint Server 2007 servers and sites. Stsadm is located at the following path on the drive where SharePoint Products and Technologies is installed: %COMMONPROGRAMFILES%\microsoft shared\web server extensions\12\bin. You must be an administrator on the local computer to use Stsadm.
Stsadm provides a method for performing the Office SharePoint Server 2007 administration tasks at the command line or by using batch files or scripts. Stsadm provides access to operations not available by using the Central Administration site, such as changing the administration port. The command-line tool has a more streamlined interface than Central Administration, and it allows you to perform the same tasks. There are certain operations and certain parameters that are only available by using the Stsadm command-line tool."

Parameters –

stsadm.exe -o adduser
-url http://server/site
-userlogin DOMAIN\name
-useremail someone@example.com
-role reader
-username "Your Name"
-siteadmin

Quick Summary –

A site migration is a single command line operation that can be used to add a site collection administrator to a site. The site collection administrator will have access to all content in the site. As with all changes to site permissions, approval must be confirmed prior to the change.

Procedure Steps –

Receive approval from a site collection administrator or similar authority.
Stsadm.exe –o adduser –url -userlogin -useremail someone@example.com –username “Your Name” -siteadmin

This operation can also be performed from SharePoint:

Go to Site Settings:









Click on “Site Collection Administrators”








Click OK to add a Site Collection Administrator.

Give Power Users the Tools - Retrieve Site Usage Reports

Overview - Retrieving Site Usage Reports

Business Owner Power Users need the tools to demonstrate the efffectiveness of a SharePoint collaboration solution and to plan for growth of Site Colletions and Sites. SharePoint has some built in tools for Site Collection Owners. SharePoint SME's can go farther by reporting on the actual SharePoint databases.

The SharePoint 2007 Web Interface has detailed reports on site activity. These reports are essential information for backup and restore operations, site access, site usage, and site auditing.

Usage reports are useful for demonstrating site availability to the customers and identifying the bandwidth requirements for the site.

View Reports

Go to Site Collection Administration

Click on Site Collection Usage Reports.

There are many reports under this screen, here are a few of the metrics:

Deploying SharePoint in Global Enterprises

Successfully Deploy SharePoint to a Global Community



Deploying SharePoint to a global corporation requires more than a sample project plan and the set of best practices that you will find from Microsoft. Microsoft has acres of documentation that you can take advantage of, if you try to read it all you may never get to the deployment because the body of knowledge for SharePoint is growing as fast as the endorsement of the software.









Some Microsoft Resources for SharePoint:

Sample Project Plan: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc262825.aspx
Solution Center: http://support.microsoft.com/ph/11373
Technet: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc308572.aspx
Developers: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/office/aa905503.aspx

So after reading the Microsoft documentation, you muscle up the a budget for outsourcing services, have IT put in a WSS server, or convince the CEO that you need a portal. Whatever the case and where ever you are in the organization, you make a push for this new awesome technology, put it in and after a few oohs and aahs it's a bust. No one visits the site for one or more of these reasons:

• It's too slow


• They can't find anything on it


• Everything is disorganized or confusing


• They have to authenticate too many times


• Web pages don't show up in (pick a continent)


• None of the calculations work


• I can't find the file, would you please email it


• Can you make that change for me, I can't get into the site


• Where did that feature go?


• Why are there all these extra buttons?

At this point you realize something went horribly wrong, but before you fall on your sword, you should consider what ingredient you were missing in your deployment. Chances are you were missing one of these key people and the services or skills they bring to the table:

1. A Good (make that Great) Project Manager because mediocre just can't handle it when it comes to SharePoint:

• Controls the scope of the project, SharePoint has just too many features for the busy schedules of upper management. If ideas fly around without ground control, expect a mid-air collision.


• Makes sure everyone else does what they are supposed too. Everything starts and ends with good Project Management. This is a role that cannot be "doubled up" with anyone else on the team.

2. A SharePoint SME who doubles as a network architect and has competency with virtually every Microsoft Office product and server.

• Diagrams out the SharePoint architecture and makes sure its compliant with all the network devices in your infrastructure.


• Responsible for the build on all systems.


• Will design the Taxonomy of the site with the Business Owner Power Users.

3. The Help Desk Manager and SharePoint Help Desk support make sure that users get the answers they need and can follow basic procedures to maximize system performance and up time.

• Will own procedures created by the SharePoint SME


• Have extreme Patience and be a master of Microsoft Office skills

4. Dedicated SharePoint Developers to fix the crazy applications that users come up with and actually make some functional applications for upper management.

• Typically not immediately needed in a well contained Collaboration portal Site


• Crucial to a Publishing Portal deployment

5. Business Owner Power Users are people excited about the technology and engage it into the business. They are the visionaries and they are both the most powerful and the most dangerous asset.

• Recognize and implement business processes in SharePoint


• Map Sharepoint features to business processes.


• Identify problems with SharePoint Applications and Sites before they get out of hand.

There are many miscellaneous minor players during SharePoint deployment that can cause an installation to fail. If you can't get their time you haven't got a chance:

• Network Engineers and Architects


• Wintel Support Staff


• Domain Admins


• SQL Admins