SharePoint 2007 “Meeting Workspace” template limitations

Michael — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 10:47:34 GMT

On one of the recent projects we built the monthly based reporting system. We provided users the freedom of choice of the reporting indicators, from the predefined list, and allowed them changing values of selected indicators.

From the very beginning we couldn’t decide which template to use as a baseline for our project and considered using “Meeting Workspaces” (MW). The advantages of them were that you can create number of calendar-driven Workspace sites with custom recurrence. It fitted our conceptual model ideally – you create the content ones and it’s available across all months + you can add custom content for the specific month.

But the reality of Meeting Workspaces is too far from grace, limiting its usage.

First of all, you can’t save Meeting Workspace as template including the content. As I understand it’s “behaviour-by-design”, because the MW is based on the single huge list, where content is splitted by “InstanceID”. You can’t just save the template for the specific month - SharePoint can’t save only part of your list. Secondly, you can’t set different permissions for the lists per month, due to the same behaviour – it’s the same list not different once. Third, calendar URLs are not “InstanceID” driven and Meeting workspaces don’t provide collaboration behaviour, because when you open the new month the list content is based on active month selection (see this post)

Such limitation changed our decision towards using the Blank site and customized list, saving the site as template to be used for the new period.

I really wonder to know the usage of Meeting Workspace when you can ignore such limitations.

SharePoint 2007 to SharePoint 2010 Farm Migration. Phase 1 – Configuration Analysis

Michael — Sun, 01 Nov 2009 11:06:00 GMT

Introduction

In the current series I’d like to describe how to analyse the SharePoint Farm and prepare it for the SharePoint 2010 migration. We will review the following 3 sections:

Farm Architecture and Configuration Analysis (current)
User and Group Analysis
Farm Migration

The first and the most important step in SharePoint 2007 –>SharePoint 2010 migration is the understanding of existing SharePoint environment to get enough information to design the new Farm.

Let’s review in details the following template that I’m using to document the farm settings and tools that allow to gather all necessary information (we don't describe search, excel and other services settings here)

Farm Information
1. Farm Servers and Services
2. Web Applications
3. Content Database and Site Collections
4. Alternative Access Mapping
5. Farm Solutions
6. Enabled Farm Features
7. Search Settings
Site Information
1. Web Parts
2. Web.config changes
3. Site Definitions
4. Customized & Checked-out Items
Sites Topology
1. Sites
2. Sites Structure Diagram
3. Site Collections with Diagrams
Issues

1. Farm Information

Content: This section enlists farm servers, components from the farm and general information about farm configuration (email settings)
Tools: STSADM –o “preupgradecheck” (Upgrade Planning Information section for servers and components) & Central Administration to get the mail settings

a) Farm Servers and Services

Content: table with the farm servers and assigned roles
Tool: Use the Central Administration & SharePoint Manager 2007 to get this information

b) Web Applications

Content: List of web applications and its URS
Tool: Central Administration

c) Content Database and Site Collections

Content: Table with the following info – content database name, number of sites, size, list of site collections
Tool: SharePoint Diagnostic tool for the Content DB size; Central Administration and SharePoint Administration Toolkit (Batch Site Manager Solution)

d) Alternative Access Mapping
Content: Table with AAM Internal/External URLs and Zones
Tool: “preupgradecheck” log & SharePoint Diagnostic

e) Farm Solutions

Content: Table with the installed solutions and sites where they are active
Tool: SharePoint Manager 2007 / Bamboo SharePoint Analyser

1.f) Enabled Farm Features
Content: List of enabled features on the farm level
Tool: Central Administration
1.f) Search settings
Content: SSP settings (servers, databases name, crawling settings)
Tool: Central Administration & SharePoint Diagnostic

2. Site Information

a) Web Parts

Content: list of installed web parts
Tool: Bamboo SharePoint Analyzer

b) Web.config changes

Content: list what was changed in web.config for SharePoint sites
Tool: SharePoint Diagnostic shows web.config for each web application, but developer/admins own the knowledge about the changes

c) Customized & Checked-out Items

Content: list of customized & checked-out items
Tool: SharePoint Designer, choose Sites menu –> Reports –> Shared Content –> Customized Pages / Checked-out items

3. Sites Topology

a) Sites

Content: list of sites
Tool: Site Settings of the root site –> “Site hierarchy” item

a) Site Structure Diagram

Content: diagram of the root site
Tool: SWAT tool –> right mouse click on the site name and Show Site Diagram

4. Sites Topology

Use “preupgradecheck” log to document all found issues
use SharePoint Designer Diagnostic tab, to discover the potential issues

Tools

To get the necessary information I recommend to use the following tools:

Bamboo SharePoint Analyser
SharePoint Manager 2007
STSADM –o “preupgradecheck”
SWAT
SharePoint Administration Toolkit - SharePoint Diagnostic tool & “Batch Site Manager Solution” feature
SharePoint Designer

Resources: http://www.sharepointjoel.com/Lists/Posts/Post.aspx?ID=245

SharePoint world of ECM and Information Management : Templates