A Comprehensive Overview of SharePoint – Part II [Archive]

Introduction

Enterprise portals are an important part of today’s enterprise IT infrastructure. Portals are used as an entry point for a specific topic, organization, project or team. Many enterprises have an enterprise portal, opened by default when an employee opens up a browser, which shows general information about the enterprise, its strategy, its departments, etc. From this top level enterprise portal you find links to departmental or project and team specific portals. Departmental portals focus on information about the department itself, like Marketing, Sales, Engineering, Professional Services, etc. Project and team portals focus on an ongoing project or virtual team created for a specific objective. You can also find portals for specific topics, like a learning portal or a management portal which provides information geared towards that topic. Each portal has relevant information, links to other web sites, documents or resources, etc. It is the starting point for a user to find information about a specific topic.

Microsoft provides two portal solutions – Windows SharePoint Services (WSS) and SharePoint Portal Server 2003 (SPS). The first article of this series explained the difference between WSS and SPS as well as how to install and administrate each. This second article focuses on how to use and customize portals provided by WSS and SPS. The third article in this series explains how to create your own web parts which you can then place on WSS and SPS portals. This article assumes that you are familiar with the first article, especially the described administration features.

Users used throughout this article

Portals by default allow only authorized users access. A virtual server enabled for WSS or SPS gets configured for integrated windows authentication (“enable anonymous access” is disabled and “Integrated Windows authentication” is enabled). With integrated windows authentication enabled IIS requests from the browser the user name and password which the browser provides in hash format. This allows the browser to provide the user name and password it is running under in a secure format and it enables IIS to verify the user accessing the site. The browser shows a logon dialog box if the user it is running under has not been granted access to the portal. The user can then enter another user credential to use. After the third authentication attempt the user gets shown an error page which allows the user to request access to the portal. This sends an email by default to the site owner which can then add the user to the portal. You can change the recipient of the “request access” email through the “Site Settings” of the portal (top menu bar). Under the section “Administration” click the link “Go to Site Administration”. This brings up the portal site administration and under the section “Users and Permissions” you have an entry called “Manage access requests”. This allows you to enter the email address of the recipient of the “request access” email.

Are there any browser settings neccessary for integrated windows security to work?

For integrated windows authentication to work you need to enable the option “Enable Integrated Windows Authentication” in your browser (go to the menu “Tools | Internet Options” and then to the tab Advanced). The zone to which the site belongs needs to have the option “Automatic logon with current username and password” or “Automatic logon only in Intranet zone” (only for the “Local intranet” zone) enabled (go to the menu “Tools | Internet Options”, select the tab “Security”, select the zone the site belongs to, for example “Trusted sites”, and then click on the button “Custom Level”).

Which site groups are availble in SharePoint and what are the default permissions?

When creating a portal you enter the name of the primary and secondary site owner (in the format of “machine nameuser name” or “domain nameuser name”). These two users are added automatically as administrators to the portal. WSS and SPS have four different site groups which define which access users have to the portal:

• Reader – Can access the portal and read information. Is not allowed to make any modifications to the information.
• Contributor – Has read and write access and can modify the information and documents on the portal.
• Web Designer – Has read and write access to the portal and is also allowed to modify the portal structure itself.
• Administrator – Has full access including administrative access to the portal.

Adding new users to your SharePoint site

Create the following four windows users on the machine where you run WSS (go to “Computer Management” and then “Local users and Groups”): Reader, Contributor, WebDesigner and Administrator. Each user will be added by default to the “Users” windows group. Open the portal you created in a browser running under the user credentials of the primary or secondary owner so we can add new users. In the top menu bar select “Site Settings” which shows the site settings. Under the section “Administration” select the item “Manage users”. You see already the primary and secondary site owner added as administrators. Now add the four users we created and make the user member of the site group with the same name. For example you add the user “Reader” and make it part of the “Reader” site group. These four users are used throughout the article to demonstrate the differences between the different access rights.

Running your browser under a differnet user credential

You can run a browser or any other application under different user credentials using the “runas” command. Open the command line and run the following command – runas /profile /user:machine nameuser name “c:program filesinternet exploreriexplorer.exe”. You can also achieve this by right clicking on the browser icon in the “quick launch” windows toolbar (in Windows 2000 you also need to press the SHIFT key) and selecting “Run as” from the popup menu. In the following dialog box you select “the following user” and enter the user name and password. This works only for users which have already once logged on to the machine and have already a profile created. Without that the browser will show you a logon dialog as soon as you hit a portal. It appears this happens when no windows profile has been created yet for that user.

Basics of using and customizing WSS

This section assumes that you chose the “Team Site” template for your portal. Every portal has a menu bar on top and a navigation bar on the left side. In the upper right corner you see a search box which allows to search all content in the current portal (only available when you use MS SQL Server as data store). Every object placed on a WSS or SPS portal is a web part. WSS and SPS come with a number of web parts out-of-the-box and allow you to create your own web parts (see third article how to create your own web part). The template you chose when launching into a portal the first time pre-configures the portal by placing a number of web parts onto the portal. But you still have full control over the portal by modifying or removing existing web parts as well as adding new web parts. You can also add so called documents and lists which are more then web parts. These are web part pages which itself have web parts placed on it. These documents and lists can be linked up to the left side navigation bar. Click on the link “Documents and Lists” in the top menu bar. This shows you a list of out-of-the-box documents and lists you can add to the portal. These are categorized in five categories:

• Document Libraries – A library of documents and files. Allows checking in files, checking out files, viewing the history of each file, etc.
• Picture Libraries – A library of pictures. Provides the same functionality as document libraries but targeted towards pictures. In addition it provides a thumbnail and filmstrip view of the pictures.
• Lists and Custom Lists – Lists of information like announcements, contacts, events, links and tasks.
• Discussion Boards – Discussion boards which allow posting new threads and replying to existing threads.
• Surveys – Surveys with questions and answers.

How to list all existing documents and lists and how to create new ones?

There are already a number of documents and lists on the portal. You can filter them by clicking on the category in the left side navigation bar. Select “All” to display again all documents and lists on the portal. Click on the icon “Create” in the toolbar to add a new document or list. This shows a list of all available documents and lists to select from followed by the properties to enter. To add a picture library click on the “Create” icon and from the list of available documents and lists select the “Picture Library”. Next you enter a title and description (for example “My pictures”), whether the picture library should be shown in the left side navigation bar and if a history version should be created each time a picture gets edited and checked in. This makes it easy to see the history of a picture but keep the space requirement in mind. A picture with a size of 1 MB checked in ten times requires 10 MB.

How to modify the settings of an existing document or list?

You can change the settings of a document or list by selecting it from the left side navigation bar and when shown on a new page select “Modify settings and columns” in the left side navigation bar. Another way is to select “Documents and Lists” from the top menu bar, clicking on the document or list which shows again the document or list on a new page and then selecting again “Modify settings and columns” in the left side navigation bar. This shows three sections – “General Settings”, “Columns” and “Views”. Under the section “General Settings” you have four options:

• Change general settings – Change settings like the title and description, if the document or list shows up in the left side navigation bar, whether versioning is enabled, etc.
• Save as template – Save the current document or list configuration as a template so you can reuse it.
• Change permissions – Change the access users have. It shows all the users and their current permissions. You can add new users or change the permissions of current users. The default permissions are inherited from the site group the user belongs to, for example a user belonging to the “Reader” group has only view access. But through this you can overwrite it and give the user for example “View, insert, edit and delete” permissions for that document or list.
• Delete – Allows you to remove the document or list from the portal.

How to change the columns and views of a document and list?

Through the “Columns” section you can add new columns, delete columns (except out-of-the-box columns) and reorder columns. This is the list of available columns available to store information. Views determine whether a column is shown on a view or not. While creating a column you determine its data type, size, requiredness, etc. Document and lists can have multiple views and allow the user to select a view. For example a “tasks list” has five views to select from (the views are shown on the left side navigation bar when the list is shown) – “all tasks”, “my tasks”, “due today”, “active tasks” and “by assigned to”. The section “Views” lists all the configured views, which view is the default view and allows you to modify a view or add a new view. Click on the view name to modify it. You can change the following settings:

• Name – the name of the view
• Columns – Lists all available columns (defined through the “Column” section). You select which columns are visible in this view and the order in which they appear.
• Sort – Define the sorting by selecting the column and then “ascending” or “descending”. You can only sort by two columns.
• Filter – Define the filter to apply to this view by selecting the column, the operator (for example equal, contains, less then, etc.) and the filter value. You can combine each filter with AND or OR. You can filter on as many columns as needed. Click on “Show More Columns” to add a new column to the filter.
• Group By – Allows to group by up to two columns. Select the column and whether to group “ascending” or “descending”. You can define if by default the grouping is “expanded” or “collapsed”.
• Totals – Allows to apply totals to columns, for example show the count by the column “priority”. This shows then in the list the total count and when grouping has been enabled also the count per grouping. It depends on the data type of the column which totals are available. Date fields for example allow “count”, “maximum”, “minimum” and “average”.
• Style – Different styles the document or list allows.
• Item Limit – The maximum number of items shown in the list and whether you allow to page through it with a “next” link.

How to create and manage sub-portals?

The item “Create” in the top menu bar performs the same as the “Create” icon under “Documents and Listings”. You can do more then just add new document or list to the portal. You can also create new sub-portals. A good example would be to have a portal for your team or department and then have a sub-portal for each ongoing project. Select “Documents and Listings” in the top menu bar followed by “Sites” in the left side navigation bar. Click on the “Create” icon which brings up the “New SharePoint Site” page. Enter the title and description of the new sub-portal and the URL name, for example the project name. The URL of the sub-portal consists of the URL of the current portal followed by the URL name you entered, for example “http://Enterprise-Minds/sites/Engineering/ProjectName”. Click on the button “Create” to create the sub-portal which brings up the “template selection” page. As with any other portal you select again a template and the portal gets preconfigured according to the template. A sub-portal has on the right side of the top menu bar an item called “Up To Team Web Site” which allows to navigate back to the top portal it belongs to. Users can navigate to sub-portals by typing in its URL or through the “Documents and Lists” item in the top menu bar. On the next page select the item “Sites” in the left side navigation bar which then shows the list of all sub-portals. Click on the sub-portal name to bring it up or again on the “Create” icon to create a new sub-portal.

How to create and manage Document Workspaces and Meeting Workspaces?

The same way you can also create “Document Workspaces” and “Meeting Workspaces”, which are also sub-portals, but sub-portals of a specific type. When launching into those the first time you select again a template, which can be confusing. It does not make sense to create a “Meeting Workspace” and then select the “Team Site” template, because then you would create a team site again. So when creating a “Document Workspace” the only choice making sense is the “Document Workspace” template. Same with the “Meeting Workspace” but here you can choose between different meeting templates (see first article for a description of each), e.g. “Basic Meeting Workspace”.

The users permissions determine the changes the user can make to the portal structure

Only users belonging to the “administrator” or “web designer” site group are allowed to make changes to the portal structure. Other users will see these menu items and options but when clicking on some of the links or submitting changes to the portal will be shown a logon dialog box. The portal determines the user has not the necessary rights to perform the operation so prompts the user with a logon dialog box so the user can enter different user credentials which have the right to perform those options. For example the “Reader” user we created above sees the “Documents and Listings” item in the top menu bar. The user sees all the existing documents or lists. But the user can not add a new document or list or modify an existing one. Unfortunately there is no consistency when the logon dialog box is shown. Sometimes the logon is shown already when clicking on a link and most of the times it shows the page where the user can make changes to the portal but when submitting the page it shows the logon. For example it shows the “New Document Library” page which allows to create a new document library. The user can enter all details but when submitting gets presented with the logon. This can be very frustrating for users who may not have the permissions for operations they try to undertake. Canceling the logon form shows again the “request access” page so the user can request the required permission.

Modifying WSS web parts

How to switch between the personal view and shared view of a web part page

Besides adding documents and lists you can also add web parts to the portal page itself. In the upper right corner you see a link “Modify Shared Page” (Readers to not see that link and Contributors see instead a link called “Modify My Page”). Clicking on the link shows a popup menu which allows you to change the structure of the portal page. The bottom two menu items allow you to switch between a personal and shared view of the page. Click on “Personal View” to see your personal view of this page. This allows to customize the page for you but not for any other users. The link changes then to “Modify My Page” but brings up the same popup menu. Click on the menu item “Shared View” to switch back to the shared public view. Any changes you make on the shared view take effect for all users, except users which are using their personal view and have customized that particular web part on their personal view. For example you have a Contacts web part on the page but a user customized it so that it does not show any frame. Any change you make now to the Contacts web part will not take effect for that user as he/she has customized it for himself/herself. But any change to a web part the user has not customized on his/her personal view will also take effect for that user. Also adding a new web part will take effect for users with personal views. A personal view really enables a user to over-write public web part settings with his/her personal ones and to add new web parts only visible for that user.

Which views are available for users and how to reset your personal view?

Readers can not have a personal view, so they will always see the shared view. Contributors by default always see the shared view but can customize the personal view. Contributors can not customize the shared view therefore they do not see the two menu items called “Shared View” and “Personal View”. But Web Designers and Administrators can customize both the shared and personal view and can switch forth and back between these two views with the two menu items called “Shared View” and “Personal View”. When a user has customized the personal view then a new menu item called “Reset Page Content” shows up at the bottom of the popup menu. This allows to reset the personal view back to the same as the shared view, meaning all your customizations are undone. All changes will be lost permanently.

How to enable the design mode of a web part page and the basics of page design

The menu item “Design this page” switches to the design mode. It allows to drag and drop web parts to different zones on the page. For example drag the Links web part from the right zone to the left zone. You can hide a web part by clicking on the closing “x” in the title bar. Closing does not remove the web part from the page, it makes it invisible. This allows you to enable the web part again without loosing any of the settings you made to the web part. You can also click on the “down arrow” in a web part title bar to bring up the popup menu for that web part. From here you can close the web part or delete it which removes it permanently from the page. This deletes any settings you made to the web part permanently. You can also minimize the web part or restore it to its original size. You can also modify the web part through the “Modify Shared Web Part” which of course on the personal view is called “Modify My Web Part”. This brings up the properties pane on the right side of the browser window. Here you can change the following properties of the web part:

• View – If there are multiple views available then you can select which view to use. Remember that adding “Document and lists” to the portal adds a new menu item to the left side navigation bar (if selected in the “Documents and lists” properties) which brings up a new page. This new page is a web part page which has a web part on it – the actual “Documents and lists” web part. For example adding a Contacts list places on this new Contacts web part page a Contacts web part. As you remember you can define multiple views. You can take the same Contacts web part and place it on the portal page and then select which of the defined views to use.This way for example you can add an “Announcements” list which you don’t add to the left side navigation bar and then take the actual “Announcements” web part and place itself on the portal page. Through the “Documents and Lists” item in the top menu bar you can find the “Announcements” list, click on it to bring it up, select the “Modify and Settings” item in the left side navigation bar and then under the “Views” section you can add new views or delete and change existing views. The views defined here are then available under the web part properties.
• Toolbar type – Choose whether you want to have a complete toolbar, summary toolbar or no toolbar. Let’s take as an example again the Contacts web part. The summary toolbar adds at the bottom of the web part a link “Add new item”. Through this link users can add new contacts. The full toolbar shows on top of the web part a complete toolbar which allows to add new items, filter the contact list, link to outlook and import contacts. The full toolbar is always shown when the web part is placed on the web part page itself, for example when the user selects contacts from the left side navigation bar and gets presented with the list of contacts on the new contacts web part page.
• Appearance – Under the section appearance you can change the web part title shown as well as the width and height. The width and height can be fixed (in pixels) or adjustable to the zone it is placed on.
• Layout – Under this section you can select the direction “left to right” or “right to left” (for languages where you read from right to left) and the part order. The part order gets also updated as you drag and drop the web part around on the page zones. Through the “Visible on Page” you can show or hide the web part.
• Advanced – The “Detail Link” URL is used to make the web part title a link and allows to jump to the “Documents and List” web part page itself. For example the Contacts web part placed on the portal links through that URL to the Contact web part page itself (same link as on the left side navigation bar). The Description is shown as ALT text of that link. The help link is the help page called when selecting “Help” from the web part popup menu. With “Allow Minimize” and “Allow Close” you determine whether you allow the web part to be minimized or closed through the web part popup menu. “Allow Zone Change” determines if user are allowed to move the web part to a different zone on their personal views. Disable this setting to prevent users from moving web parts to different zones. Users can still change the order within the same zone.

You can close the web part properties pane with the closing “x” in the properties pane or you can bring up the popup menu of another web part (through the arrow down in the web part title bar) and then select “Modify Shared Web Part” or “Modify My Web Part” to bring up the properties of this web part. Closing the properties pane also ends the design mode of the page. You can also bring up the properties of a web part through the “Modify Shared Page” link, selecting “Modify Shared Web Parts” or “Modify My Web Parts” from the popup menu. From the new popup menu select the web part you want to modify. The personal view allows only to change the “Appearance” and “Layout” web part properties. The “Advanced” properties as well as the toolbar type and view can not be changed on personal views. Changing these settings on shared views will also take effect on personal views if the user has customized the web part on his/her personal view.

How to add new web parts to a web part page?

The “Add Web Parts” menu item in the “Modify Shared Page” or “Modify My Page” popup menu allows to add new web parts to the portal. This shows a popup menu with three choices followed by the “Add Web Parts” pane on the right side of the browser window:
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