This is the first post in a series based on a training course I have delivered over the past three years. The course is a half-day workshop covering the basics of what is SharePoint through to managing a site. Designed for business users rather than IT, the course is very hands-on with a few slides followed by practical exercises. For the past two years, I’ve been meaning to convert it into a book for reference. Here goes for starters, a little later than planned…

Managing Site Permissions

The presentation below walks through how to manage permissions and control access to a SharePoint site. It assumes you are the owner of your own site, i.e. you have permission to change permissions:

Some additional notes and reminders:

• Always check with your IT department regarding the policy for managing SharePoint permissions. They may prefer to create directory groups for you that can then be added to SharePoint groups. This approach lets you decide what permissions each group is given without having to manage the users. It’s also great if you use a distribution list to send out email to everyone, as the same membership is used for both activities. IT can’t prevent you from applying your own permissions (short of not letting you be a site owner), but a good identity management system makes life easier for everyone.
• Do keep permissions as simple as possible. In most projects, I find people treat a lot of information as more sensitive than it really is. SharePoint is at its best when used for collaborative working. You can’t collaborate when documents are kept secret. Be sure there is a good reason for locking down access.
• To quote a good book, Don’t Panic! It’s easy to reset permissions by simply re-inheriting from the parent site. If you lock yourself out of your own site, after laughing for a while, IT can sort it all out using the SharePoint system account. Not ideal and they won’t thank you for the extra workload but all is not lost.

If you have any feedback or questions, please leave a comment here. Would a video be helpful to show setting permissions in practice?

Download the presentation (PDF)

This post is just a simple tip that I keep forgetting myself when configuring SharePoint lists…

With SharePoint Server 2007, you can easily set-up workflows to require items in a list to be approved. (Go to the list settings, click on Workflow settings and fill in the boxes.) However, if you are going to the trouble of requiring all items to be approved, you probably only want those items to become visible to everyone once they have been approved. The workflow will not control visibility of the items. To do so, you need to go into the list settings and click on ‘Versioning settings’.

Within the list versioning settings, check the button for Content Approval. By default, draft item security will then be set to ‘Only users who can approve items (and the author of the item). That’s all there is to it (assuming you’ve set up the workflow correctly).

Note: creating workflows within the browser user interface is only available in the full SharePoint Server product (Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 Standard or Enterprise edition). If you are using Windows SharePoint Services, you have to create the workflows from scratch.

When you create a site collection using the Collaboration Portal template in Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007, you get an extra web part not available in any of the other templates. It’s called ‘I need to…’ and displays a list of options, starting with ‘Set up MySite’. It starts life on the home page of the top-level site in the site collection.

It’s a useful web part because you can give access to a lot of links without taking up much screen estate. The web part is automatically included on the home page of any site collection created using the Collaboration Portal template and is also listed in the web part gallery. But if you add it to any other site in your site collection, it will start with an error message. It’s a few easy steps to replace that error message with a new list of items to choose from.

I’ve reconfigured the ‘I need to…’ web part a fair few times for customers and figured it was time to write a ‘how to’ blog post. You can use the ‘I need to…’ web part with any list on any site within the site collection. Here’s how to get it working.

Minimum Requirements

• SharePoint Server 2007 – Standard or Enterprise Edition
• A site collection created using the Collaboration Portal template
• Site Admin permission (to edit pages, add web parts and what not)

This web part only works in SharePoint Server, that is Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007. Either version (Standard or Enterprise) will do, but little ol’ Windows SharePoint Services will not do. You can try exporting from a SharePoint Server and importing it to Windows SharePoint Services (like I tried) and you will get an error message when you try to configure it. Probably hackable with a bit of effort but definitely not supported and questionable on the licensing front. Also, the web part is only included within the web part gallery within site collections created using the Collaboration Portal template

Step 1: Add the ‘I need to…’ web part to your site

This bit is easy. On the site where you want to add the new ‘I need to…’ list, go to the home page and click Site Actions – Edit Page. Click Add a web part and choose ‘I need to…’ from within the Web Part gallery (it’s usually listed in the Default Group).

When you first add the web part to a new site, it will display with an error message similar to the one above. This is because the web part in the gallery is configured to point to a specific list from a specific site that doesn’t match the site you just added the web part to. We’ll be fixing that.

Step 2: Create a list to contain the items to appear under ‘I need to…’

We need to create a list to contain the items you want to appear under ‘I need to…’ This will become the list name in the web part properties (replacing /sitedirectory/sites)

• Create a new list based on the Links list template
• Add a new column called ‘Display’, make it a Choice of Yes or No, with Yes as the default. This column and value will be used as the Filter Field and Filter Value in the web part properties (required to make the web part work)
• Add a new item to the list, this will be used to test the web part is configured correctly (I tend to use a dummy link and name)

Step 3: Configure the ‘I need to…’ web part to use your new list

Go back to the page where you added the ‘I need to…’ web part and modify the web part. In the tool pane, modify the web part properties:

• Under List Name, click the Change button and select your new list
• Under Filter Field, select the Display common
• Under Filter Value, select Yes.
• Click Apply to apply the changes made to the web part and see if the ‘I need to…’ web part is now displaying a dropdown menu with ‘Choose task’ displayed instead of the original error message

Chances are, the error message is still showing. I don’t know why but I usually have to perform these steps twice to make the changes stick. So repeat the steps – select the list, set the Filter Field and Filter Value, then click Apply again. It usually works fine the second time:

Final step, before you click OK and close the toolpane for the web part. If you are planning to use long titles for the items to be listed under ‘I need to…’, the default width of the web part will not be long enough to display them. To increase the width, enter a value in the Width: text box. Choosing 200 pixels creates a width about 25% longer than the default width.

And hey presto, you now have a new ‘I need to’ web part configured to display items from your own list.

What you put in the list is entirely up to you. It can be a list of favourites (you don’t need to leave it named as ‘I need to…’ edit the web part properties and change the title to something else, such as ‘Top sites to visit’). More often, it’s a list of processes such as book a vacation, request a something or other… Anything can go in the list as long as it is a link that works (easy way to check – open the link in your browser and see what happens)

Final note:

If all you wanted to do was add items to the existing ‘I need to…’ web part (i.e. below ‘Set up MySite in the first image in this post), you can take the easy route and not set up an entirely new ‘I need to…’ list. Instead, all you need to do is:

• Navigate to the Site Directory
• Click on Site Actions – View All Site Content,
• In the All Site Content page, click on ‘Sites’. In the Sites list, add your items and make sure you check the box ‘Tasks and Tools’ (that’s the Filter Field and Value) for each one

If you have ever played with the wiki libray in SharePoint, you may have noticed that clicking on the title of the library in the Quick Launch menu (sidebar on the left) automatically opens the home page within the library. That’s great if you go to the trouble of creating a home page and linking it to other pages in the library. Otherwise… not so much.

The alternative is to set-up the wiki library so that clicking on it opens the library to display a list of items, just like any other library or list in SharePoint. To do so, go to the library (either via ‘View all site content’ or, after the home page appears, click the title of the library in the breadcrumb trail at the top of the page) and delete the Home page. If you are listing the wiki library on the site home page, you might also want to delete the ‘How to use this wiki…’ page whilst you’re at it.

The alternative is preferable if you are using a wiki library to capture snippets of information that aren’t directly or clearly related to each other (e.g. random hints and tips, supporting notes for forms and applications). In these scenarios, creating a home page with manual navigation to all other pages in the library is an unnecessary and even misleading (too easy to forget a page) overhead.

Delicious tags: wiki

You’re in the UK, your server knows it’s in the UK, yet all the dates in SharePoint are listing in the US format of month/day/year.

SharePoint ignores the regional settings of the server and watches the time in its own little world. To change, go to the top level site in the site collection, click on Site Actions Site Settings. On the Site Settings Page, under Site Administration (4th heading along), click on Regional settings. In there, switch from English (United States) to English (United Kingdom). Check the box at the bottom ‘All sub-sites to inherit these Regional Settings. And hey presto! Your dates now look like they are in the UK (or whatever regional settings you want)

Delicious tags: config settings

I was recently asked if you can integrate help into web parts within SharePoint. As it happens, you can. I had forgotten all about this little feature and thought it might be useful to others. So here’s the ‘how to’:

If you navigate to a site within SharePoint, and click on the little arrow on the right side of the title bar for a web part, you will get the option to minimise, close (if allowed – you can remove these options if you want), and to modify the web part. See image below:

In the image above, I have clicked on the arrow for the ‘Team Diary’ web part. Click on ‘Modify Shared Web Part’ (you need to be Site Administrator to be able to do this) and you should see a tool pane on the right side of your web page. See image below:

Within the tool pane, expand the ‘Advanced’ properties and scroll down. You will see 2 properties – Help URL and Help Mode. Enter the URL of the page that contains the Help information you want to associate with the web part. For Help Mode, ‘Modal’ and ‘Modeless’ will open the URL in a new window. ‘Navigate’ will open the URL in the same browser window (i.e. navigates away from the site). If you look at the image above, you will also see checkboxes for the ‘Minimise’ and ‘Close’ options for the web part. Uncheck these boxes if you don’t want people to minimise or close the web part on the site. Click OK when you are done.

If you now click on the little arrow in the title bar of the web site, you get a ‘Help’ link. See image below:

Note: This method only works if you display web parts within a chrome (i.e. they must have a title bar on display). If you look at any of the images above, the picture of the iceberg is in a web part without chrome, hence there is no little arrow to access the web part menu because there is no title bar. ‘Chrome’ is the term used to describe the title bar and border that can be displayed around a web part.

Filed under: SharePoint

Technorati tags: MOSS 2007; SharePoint