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Two More Small Notes about Features with a Big F

In the process of working on some other topics for posting, I've noticed a couple of small details that you'll want to keep in mind when working with Features in SharePoint. I realize they may be kind of nit-picky, but I work in a world where not paying attention to the tiniest of details can lead to days or weeks of re-work. NOTE: Please read my previous post if you need some background on the difference between features and Features in WSS v3 and MOSS 2007. The first is that when you're in the Site Settings pages, the links for administrating your Site Features and your Site Collection Features use the term "feature" in all lowercase. Don't be alarmed, these are the admin pages you'll want to check out if you need to activate or deactivate Features in your site or site collection. The other thing I noticed was that when you open one of those Feature administration pages, the list of features displayed has some icons showing up to the left of each available Feature. I've opened these pages quite a few times in the past, and this was the first time that I've noticed that there are some difference between some of these icons. The most common one appears to be this: . This is the Generic Feature icon. It shows up next to basic Features like "Office SharePoint Server Publishing" and "Reporting". Another icon you'll see is ; the Workflow Solution Feature icon. This icon appears next to all the out of the box workflow-related...

When a Feature Isn't the Same Thing as a feature

Hopefully it isn't any sort of a great revelation to anyone that the latest versions of SharePoint (WSS v3 and MOSS 2007) have a lot of great new features, such as blogs, wikis, Excel Services, and many more. I also hope that almost a year after their release, that you've gotten a chance to experience and use some of these new features. But there is one item in the update feature sets for SharePoint that may be a cause for some confusion: Features. Huh? What kind of recursive nightmare am I trying to perpetuate? Features are a feature? That doesn't make any sense, does it? Well, in SharePoint it does. One of the new features in the latest version of SharePoint is a piece of functionality titled "Features." Please don't hate me for this confusing wordplay; I didn't come up with it. And I would go so far as to encourage you not to hate on the SharePoint product team for this either; I've wracked my brain to try and come up with an alternative name for this and failed. I'm not here to criticize (this time ), I'm here to edjamakate you. Once you get beyond the name, Features are great. Out of the box they provide an easy way for site admins and farm admins to turn on and off different components of a SharePoint site. Depending on your version of SharePoint, you'll find stock Features that determine what web parts or workflows are available for use within a site. You don't have to install any applications or run an administrative process...

Master pages/page layouts deployed as Feature not updating

Since Deploying master pages and page layouts as a Feature has been the most heavily commented article on this blog, and several of the posters seem to have run into the same problem, I wanted to write a quick post with some more information from my experiences Read More......( read more ) Del.icio.us | Digg It | Technorati | Blinklist | Furl | reddit | DotNetKicks

Save as template with Publishing feature turned on

I came across this when trying to save as site as a template the other day - the option didn't exist. Beware - one of those nice quirks! http://blogs.technet.com/stefan_gossner/archive/2007/09/19/save-site-as-template-option-and-the-publishing-feature.aspx Posted on SharePoint Blogs...( read more ) Del.icio.us | Digg It | Technorati | Blinklist | Furl | reddit | DotNetKicks

STSADM export, Content Deployment, Content Migration API, Features/Solutions - deployment options compared

Back in May I wrote a post titled SharePoint deployment options : Features or Content Deployment? , which discussed some thoughts on what was the "right" way to move assets from development to production (and perhaps environments in between Read More......( read more ) Del.icio.us | Digg It | Technorati | Blinklist | Furl | reddit | DotNetKicks

Deployment using STSADM export or content migration API

Having focused on deployment using Features for several articles, back in May I wrote an article titled SharePoint deployment options : Features or Content Deployment? , which explored some of the decisions around deployment strategies for SharePoint Read More......( read more ) Del.icio.us | Digg It | Technorati | Blinklist | Furl | reddit | DotNetKicks

Farms, Web Apps, Site Collections, Sites - what is configured at what level?

I have been a bit slow getting started with my blog but here it is my first post! This post covers what features and other items are configurable at each level - I do not believe this list is complete. Therefore if you have more to add to this please comment on my blog or email me jennyeverett215j@hotmail.com and I will add it on. Feature Description Level Data Connection Library Adds Data Connection Library feature Farm Excel Services Farm feature Adds farm-level Excel Services Features to the Windows SharePoint Services framework Farm Global Web Parts Installs additional web parts common to all types of sites. Farm Spell Checking Enable Spell Checking in WSS list-item edit forms. Farm Worker Process isolation Faulty code could bring down applications by web app, this is less likely at any other level. Also security breaches would be per web app. Web App/App pool Office Server Enterprise Search Uses the Office Server Search Service for search over broad enterprise content. In addition to list and site scopes, provides search over people profiles, business data, remote and custom content sources. Uses multiple tabs to display results in the Search Center. Web App Office Server Site Search Uses the Office Server Search Service for site and list scoped searches. Web App OSS Enterprise web application features Features such as the business data catalog, forms services, and Excel Services, included in the Office SharePoint Server Enterprise License Web App OSS Standard web application...

Activate features through code

For a recent project I did, I had to activate a feature programatically. I needed some research to achieve this, so I thought I'd just put it in a post. It's only a few lines of code, so nothing hard to do here ... Basically, what it does is update the FeatureCollection object of a given Site or Site Collection. Adding a feature to this collection automatically activates it. ! Do make sure the feature is already installed in the farm/site/web/... when trying to activate it. SPWeb web = new SPSite ( "http://yourserver.com" ).OpenWeb(); SPFeatureCollection featureCollect = web.Features; featureCollect.Add( new Guid ( "xxxxxxxx-xxxx-xxxx-xxxx-xxxxxxxxxxxx" ), true ); //True to force activation That's all it takes :) Hope it helps someone ... Posted on SharePoint Blogs Del.icio.us | Digg It | Technorati | Blinklist | Furl | reddit | DotNetKicks

Which SharePoint edition is right for you?

When purchasing a SharePoint solution customers are faced with many options. There are a number of SharePoint editions which vary in feature sets and prices. In this post I will try to share my experiences with this problem. Since there are so many options I will focus only on three major products: Windows SharePoint Services 3.0, SharePoint Server Standard and Enterprise. Other products like Forms Server and Search Server will not be covered in this post. Level 0 - Windows SharePoint Services SharePoint Services are the fundamental part of each SharePoint edition, biggest advantage being low cost (free for customers of Windows Server) and basic but very important collaboration features (listed in Table 1.) For most small to medium companies WSS will be a great choice. It will provide your customer with great functionalities and decision makers will love it since it is free. If this solution gets adopted by your customer's IWs, you will probably have more opportunities for further customization and development. Level 1 - SharePoint Server 2007 with Standard CAL This is more mature and more expensive version of SharePoint. It will give you almost everything you might want from a collaboration solution. This product is very affordable, since its CAL is part of Core CAL and many customers have already bought it with their enterprise level agreements. Customers with such an agreement only need to pay for a server license. Standard CAL will be great for companies who are: looking...

Site definitions - custom code in the site creation process

This is the second article in a series of three, where I aim to show how to customize the site creation process (known as site provisioning) with your own API code. The full introduction and series contents can be found at http://sharepointnutsandbolts Read More......( read more ) Read More... Del.icio.us | Digg It | Technorati | Blinklist | Furl | reddit | DotNetKicks