Upgrading to 3.0 Help

1) To speed up the upgrade, microsoft has provided some tools in order to upgrade your WSS 2.0 to version 3.0. Read the full article here.

2) Additionally:

"With the recent arrival of Windows SharePoint Services (WSS) 3.0, many administrators are faced with the task of upgrading their existing WSS 2.0 sites and data to their new WSS 3.0 environments. Though WSS 3.0 provides extensive tools that adequately migrate site data and upgrade site structure, additional work might be necessary to upgrade the structure of customized sites or site templates. However, additional work might be necessary to upgrade the structure of customized sites or site templates. Fortunately, the Microsoft® Solu­tion Accelerator team has released the Upgrade Toolkit for Win­dows® SharePoint® Services Sites and Templates, which provides guidance and tools around this practice (see the "WSS Resources" sidebar). This column focuses on some of the challenges and solutions associated with upgrading customized sites to WSS 3.0 environments"

Read more about this Utility Spotlight HERE.

3) Below is an image of the WSS site and site template upgrade workflow:

Document workspaces misconception

In WSS 2.0 there is a lot of automated features that can mislead users and even administrators. For example, each time a default web site is created a set of lists are already included. By this i mean the Announcements, contacts, events, links and tasks are already in your website by default (i.e. shown below)





The built in lists are part of a template for creating a website in sharepoint - even when creating a "blank" website. Document workspaces is a term that abstracts people from what it really is. A "Document Workspace" is simply a website.


with it's own set of lists and libraries included in it.

Recycle Bin in WSS 3.0 - Very Handy Indeed!

The Recycle Bin is a new feature in WSS 3. In version 2, once a document is deleted -it's gone! One would have to revert to an older version of the database in SqlServer to restore the document. Even for a accidental deletion of a document - just minutes ago!

WSS 3.0 offers the Recylce Bin!

A brilliant way of protecting your organization from the possibility of inadvertent or malicious deletion of important documents all from within the portal!

WSS is Microsoft's answer to DNN

Very interesting comparison between two platforms. DNN for certain has evolved from the IBS portal, which WSS also share a lot of similarities. This matrix of features show a great deal of information when deciding a CMS solution: Features Matrix Showdown

If you to read more about DNN and WSS head to head, the forum below is a good start:

Rebranding Sharepoint!

I found a very useful blog regarding rebranding Sharepoint. This should come very useful for designers who wish to customize their WSS site. There are many elements to remember - this blog covers each of them, in a laundry list fashion - on what to change when customizing your wss site. Here is the link: http://www.heathersolomon.com/blog/articles/SharepointDesignGotchas.aspx

How Sharepoint Lists work internally?

For anyone who has worked with lists in Sharepoint will come to wonder - How does this work? On occasion I did notice some weak spots: i.e no referential integrity between two lists - unlike two separate tables with unique keys and foreign keys. Although a Sharepoint list is pretty powerful especially when one has to create a spreadsheet with a form all from the browser. Now, I have some understanding on how lists work - but may be not totally.
I understand that by looking at the database, a list comprise of two tables (can be found in the content db of a sharepoint site):


1) the dbo.Lists table, and 2) the dbo.UserData table. Each time a list is created, an entry goes on the dbo.Lists table along with the necessary info (unique id, list title, created by, date and other metadata). Included in this entry is a "field" that defines the Columns inside that list - this is in the "tp_Fields" field. An screenshot of this is shown below:



From this single entry in the dbo.Lists table defines the makeup of a list.
Now the tricky part comes in the dbo.UserData table - where the user entries are entered. The table consists of over a hundred columns. A screenshot of the fields for this table is shown below:


Every time a user enters a data into a list, the stored procedure picks up: the list id, site id, user info, time stamp AND THEN plug in the rest of the data onto the proper column corresponding to the right datatype the list creator dictated from the initial creation of the list - columns whether it be nvarchar, float, datime etc.

Figuring out how this is done somewhere within the tp_fields column and the stored procedure is one ambitious task. Anyone have some explanation to this feel free to post. Thank you

Master Pages are not so "Global"

One thing I was wishing they would have changed in WSS 3 - Master pages to affect ALL pages within the site. I am talking about the "Create", "Edit", "View" pages. Why can't Master pages act more like a "skin" or a "theme" where - it is carried throughout the entire web site.
Am I alone on this?

Wikis in Sharepoint 3 - Amazing!

I have seen several wiki platforms but I must say - the layout, functionality, ease of navigation as well as the simplicity of the Wiki library is the best I've seen so far.