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Posts Tagged ‘Site Templates’

Custom Templates – Save Site as a Template

Posted by Ramprasad Navaneethakrishnan on May 9, 2009

In my last post, I explained all the out-of-the-box templates availalble in Sharepoint 2007.  In some cases (say a unique business requirement that needs a site template that doen’t fit in any of the one available out-of-the-box),  the templates available out-of-the-box, cannot be utilized right away. We might want to create a template that is customized to a requirement.

MOSS 2007 lets us create a site that is customized to our requirement and allow as to save and use that site as a template. How? Read further..

Now, I want to create a site template that will have the following elements. To make it very simple, I am having  just the following two elements.

  1. Document Library
  2. Picture Library

No available out-of-the-templates suites this requirement. Hence we build our own template

Creating Template Structure

  1. Go to Site Actions –> Create
  2. Select Site and Workspaces
  3. Give a title to the Site, enter the Url in the corresponding box.
  4. In the Select Templates, select Blank Template under the tab Collaboration
  5. Provide the administrator id and click Ok to create the Blank Site
  6. From the newly created Blank Site, go to Site Actions –> Create
  7. Selecte Document Library in the Libraries and Lists section.
  8. Give the name and decscription for the Docuemnt library and click Ok.
  9. Again goto Site Actions –> Create.
  10. Select Picture Libraries in the Libraries and Lists section.
  11. Enter the name and description for the Picture library. Click Ok.

Now we have created the structure for our template. The next step is creating a Template from this structure

Creating Template

  1. Go to Site Actions –> Site Settings
  2. Select Save as a Template from the section ‘ Look and Feel ‘.
  3. savesiteastemplate1
  4. savesiteastemplate2
  5. Enter the name for the template and the template file name. I am giving the name of  ‘TrainingTemplate’ for both template and the filename.
  6. Note the template file is has an extension of .stp.
  7. Give a short description for the template.
  8. Click Ok to create the template.

Once the template is created, it will be available in the Site templte gallery as shown below.

Now lets create a site based on the template we just created.

  1. Go to Site Actions –> Create
  2. Select Sites and Workspaces.
  3. Now you can see a Customtab in the templates section as shown below
  4. Select the Custom tab. This will show the template ‘TrainingTemplate’ we just created.
  5. Select the template, fill other required details like primary site administrator. Click Ok.
  6. Now the created site will have Document libraries and Picture libraries by default as shown below.

Hope this is useful.

Thanks.

Posted in MOSS 2007 | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , | Leave a Comment »

Introduction to Site Templates

Posted by Ramprasad Navaneethakrishnan on May 9, 2009

Sharepoint 2007 comes with some out-of-the-box site templates that allows Administrators or Information Workers to readily create sites by choosing one of the available templates that suites their requirement.

The out-of-the-box Site Templates available with Sharepoint 2007 are broadly classified into 4 categories as mentioned below.

  1. Collaboration
  2. Meeting
  3. Enterprise
  4. Publishing

Collaboration Templates

  • Team Site:
    • This site is for team members to collaborate on any tasks or projects. To facilitate this type of collaboration, it includes the following webparts
      • Document library : To manage documents associated with the task / project
      • Announcement List : Create / Manage announcements with the project team
      • Discussion Board : A forum to discuss on tasks / issues assocaited with the project
      • Calendar Lists : Keeps track of the various schedules associated with team members / project
      • Task Lists : A list that keeps track of task items assigned against members of the project
      • Links : A single place to keep track of  links to sites that are needed for the project

 

teamsite

  • Blank Site:
    • As the name suggests, its just a blank site with no webparts populated by default. This is a good place for building a fully customized site.

 

blanksite

Document Workspace:

  • This template is suitable for a team documentation project or a team of technical writers where there is a need in creation and modification of common documentation.
  • It has the following webparts associated with it.
    • Document Library
    • Tasks List
    • Links

 

documentworkspace

  • Blog Site:
    • A site for a team or person to post ideas and observations which site visitors can comment to.

Meeting Templates

Basic Meeting:

  • A general purpose meeting template that helps to plan, organize and capture the results of the meeting using the following webparts associated with the site
    • Objectives list
    • Attendies
    • Agenda
    • Document Library

basicmeeting

  • Blank Meeting:
    • A blank meeting site that can be customized to suite the requirement
  • Decision Making Meeting:
    • This template is suitable when the purpose of the meeting is to reivew doucments, lists and other informations in order to make a decision. The webparts included are
      • Objectives list
      • Attendies
      • Agenda
      • Document Library
      • Tasks List
      • Decision List

decisionmeeting

 

  • Social Meeting:
    • This template comes handy when organizing a team picnic or party.  The web elements included are
      • Attendies list
      • Directions
      • Image Log
      • Thing to bring List
      • Photo Library
  • MultiPage Meeting:
    • This is similar to Decision Making template but it is designed to accomodate complex decision process. This site comes with two webpages by default and it can accomodate upto 10 individual pages. It includes
      • Objective Lists
      • Attendies Lists
      • Agenda

Enterprise

Enterprise templates are normally used as a top-level or high-level sites in an organizations site collection. It facilitated enterprise level activities in the areas of document management, records management and report management

  • Document Center:
    • A Site to centrally manage enterprise level documents. It has several document management features enabled by default like Major / Minor versionaing, Require check out etc. This templates includes the following webparts.
      • Document Library
      • Relevant documents
      • Upcoming tasks
      • Treeview webpart
  • Records Center:
    • This site template is used to centrally manage organizations data and data sources. The webparts included are
      • Records vault
      • Records routing list
      • Information management policy
      • Unassigned Records library

recordscenter

 

  • Site Directory:
    • A site template for listing, categorizing important sites in the organizations site collection. The webparts included are
      • Categorized Sites
      • Top Sites
      • Site Map
  • Report Center:
    • This site template as part of Sharepoint business intelligence solution communicates metrics, goals, statues and business intelligence informations by means of the foll0wing web elements
      • Dashboards
      • KPI indicators
      • Webpages

reportcenter

 

  • Search Center:
    • A site that enables users to seach for information. It includes webparts
      • SearchResults
      • Advanced Search
  • Search Center with tabs:
    • This is similar to search center except it comes with two tabs. One tab to search through information in the sites and the other tab ‘people’ that enables to search through peoples.

Publishing

  • News Site:
    • A site for publising news articles and links to news articles. The default webparts includes
    • Sample news page
    • Archive for storing older news

Hope this is useful.

A post on creating custom templates can be found here

Thanks.

Posted in MOSS 2007 | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 2 Comments »

Access Denied – Activating Microsoft Office Server Publishing Infrastructure

Posted by Ramprasad Navaneethakrishnan on April 27, 2009

Hi Fellas,

Stuck up with the error “Access Denied” while activating the Publishing Infrastructure feature?? Read this post for solution

I was trying to create a sharepoint site with the Report Center template under the Enterprise tab.

report_center_site_creation

I got the message that I need to activate Publishing Infrastruture Feature in Site Collection before creating site of this type.

site_creation_error

I went to Site Collection Features in the section Site Collection Administration through Site Actions – > Site Settings

site_collection_features

When tried to activate the Publishing Infrastructure Feature, I got the Access Denied error.

activation_error

Solution 1:

Run the following command

stsadm -o activatefeature -name PublishingResources -url <siteurl>

Solution 2:

After some analysis, I found out that the AppPool for the current web application is having limited privileges. I did the following steps to resolve the problem

1. Open IIS. Locate the Web Applications. Go to properties. Select the Home Directory tab. Change the Application Pool to the one used by the Central Administration

2. Do IISRESET

3. Go the Site Collection Features. Activate the feature. Now it gets activated!

4. Go to IIS. Change the Application pool of the web application to the original one.

5. Do IISRESET

6. Now go back and create the Report Cente Site

Hope this will be useful. Forgive me for the horrible screenshots :)

Thanks,

Ramprasad.

Posted in MOSS 2007 | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , | 5 Comments »