hello-hello
harrybbbb here - the author of Windows Small Buisness Server
2003 Best PRactices (the purple book). I like to upload a few
pages per day of my book and today we discuss document storage
structures and uploading a document in Windows SharePoint
Services (WSS) in SBS 2003.
enjoy...harrybbbb
Harry Brlesford, CEO at SMB Nation, www.smbnation.com
Microsoft Small Business Specialist (SBSC), MBA, MCSE, MCP,CNE
, CLSE and even CNP
###
Document Storage Structure
As
promised, you’ll first create the document storage
structure.
1.
Log on as NormH on
PRESIDENT with the password Purple3300.
2.
Launch Internet Explorer from Start, Internet. The Springer
Spaniels Limited Home page will appear (which is the WSS
default portal).
3.
Select Documents and
Lists.
4.
Click on the Create
button and the Create Page will be displayed.
5.
Select Document
Library.
6.
The New Document
Library page will appear. Type Clients in the Name field. In the
Description field, type This is a data storage area for clients
of Springer Spaniels Limited. Verify your screen looks similar to
Figure 7-3.
7.
Make sure the Yes
radio button is selected beneath Display this document
library on the Quick Launch bar in the Navigation field.
8.
In Document Versions,
please CAREFULLY read the description text and then select Yes
beneath Create a version each time you edit a file in this
document library. Go ahead and accept the default settings under
Document Templates.
9.
Click on Create to
create the document library. The document library has been
created.
10. Click on
the Home button on the right-side of the WSS tool bar.
Notes:
Figure 7-3
Creating the
document library for SPRINGERS.
Next, you’ll create the folder structure for some
SPRINGERS customers. I assume you are still on the PRESIDENT
computer and at the WSS Home page.
1 &nbs
p;
Select Documents and Lists.
2 &nbs
p;
Select Clients under Documents and Lists.
3 &nbs
p; Select
New Folder. Name the folder: Walters Kennels. Click Save and
Close. Repeat this step to create another folder for Jones
Family.
4 &nbs
p; Minimize
Internet Explorer (keep it open) but stay on the Clients page
(where you should be at this point).
Create and Upload a Business Document
You
will now create a business document on the PRESIDENT machine that
you’ll then upload into the WSS document management system.
Note that I assume you have installed Microsoft Office 2003 on
this workstation (as per the discussion in a prior chapter in the
context of Business Contact Manager). If such isn’t the
case, you should install Office 2003 now before proceeding. You
need Office XP or
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Office 2003 to exploit all WSS
functionality. You could sorta follow this example using WordPad
to create the document, but it won’t be the same.
1 &nbs
p; Still
logged on as NormH on PRESIDENT, click Start, All Programs,
Microsoft Office, Microsoft Office Word 2003.
2 &nbs
p; Create a
business document (type in a sample business agreement, etc.).
Then save the file to the My Documents folder as Breeder1.doc.
Close Microsoft Office Word 2003.
3 &nbs
p; Maximize
Internet Explorer and click on the Jones Family folder visible on
the Clients page.
4 &nbs
p; Click
Upload Document.
BEST PRACTICE: There is an even cooler
way to upload the document that I’d encourage at this
juncture. While in Word 2003, select File, Save As. Then select
My Network Places on the lower left. Observe the SharePoint
folders that have been published (General Documents on
companyweb, Jones Family on
companyweb). Drill down into the Jones Family folder and
save the document (perhaps as Breeder2.doc). This method exploits
SharePoint’s deeper integration with Office 2003 and more
nifty features are enabled. This would be the preferred way to
add a document.
5.
Click Browse, select
Breeder1.doc, and click Open. Then click Save and Close. Your
screen should look similar to Figure 7-4.
BEST
PRACTICE: So you want to upload multiple documents at once, not
one at a time as this example would suggest. It’s easy!
Notice below in Figure 7-4 that there is a select on the far left
column titled Explorer View. Simply click that and you’ll
see the document corpus presented in a traditional Windows
Explorer-like view. You can now drag and drop multiple documents
from another Windows Explorer session into this window to upload
multiple documents at once. Cool!
So time for something even cooler. Use the Import
Files Wizard
(select from Server Management, Standard
Management, Internal
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Web Site, Import Files) to not only
import in bulk but also import deep file structures. Pretend you
had a folder named Ralston that had many sub folders beneath it
(project, accounts, training, etc.). Each sub folder has many
documents. You would use the Import Files Wizard and point to
Ralston (the parent folder) to import everything at once (all sub
folders and files). This is very efficient and the ultimate
preferred approach in a migration.
Figure 7-4
You’ve
successfully created and uploaded the document in WSS at this
point.
BEST
PRACTICE: Taking a second to discuss the storage mechanism in
WSS, you should know that the data files, such as Breeder1.doc,
are being stored in a SQL Server-type database file. That
effectively negates the coolness of Volume Shadow Copy Restore in
Windows Server 2003 to individually recover a single file
(such as Breeder1.doc). Rather, you’ll have to
access said file via WSS (where
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you
could argue the cool versioning capability effectively acts like
Volume Shadow
Copy Restore for all practical purposes).
Speaking of recovering an individual document in WSS,
you need to assume, too, that predecessor applications, such as
Internet Information Server (IIS), are also running for WSS to
function correctly. But don’t let that discourage you from
using WSS because, as you’ll see in a moment, the
versioning capabilities of WSS outweigh such minor concerns (in
my humble opinion). And many document management systems on the
market have similar dependencies, so this isn’t just a WSS
issue. I discuss WSS backup and restore later in the Advanced WSS
Topics section.
Another take on the embedded object in the database
matter worth discussing here. Students in the SBS 2003 hands-on
labs have in the past asked, “Where is the document
stored?” and “Let me use Windows Explorer to go find
the document.” The thing is that you can’t go find
the individual document using Windows Explorer after you’ve
uploaded it into WSS. Case sorta closed.
The
exception to the “law” I just laid out above is that
you can use My Network Places to navigate to the Web folders
(also known as a “network place”) like Jones Family
and retrieve your documents from a Windows Explorer-like
interface. The enabling technology for this is Webdav.
You also need to consider the following storage fact.
When you uploaded the document in the above procedure, it copied
the document into the WSS database. It did not really move this
file but rather kinda copied it. The risk is this: Users,
accustomed to seeing the file at its original location (and still
new to WSS), might inadvertently bypass WSS and open the original
file. This would negate your good efforts to get everyone to use
WSS. Ergo - once you upload the file into the WSS system
(e.g., into the Jones Family), you need to move the
original file (in the procedure above, it was in
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the My Documents folder) to another
folder so those rascal users can’t find it. You need to
force them to use WSS!
Go
ahead and delete Breeder1.doc from the My Documents folder before
proceeding.
6.
Now, carefully select
the drop-down context menu for Breeder1.doc in the Jones Family
folder. This is shown in Figure 7-5 (the reason for this
screenshot is that many students had difficulty finding the
drop-down context menu in the fall 2003 SBS 2003 hands-on labs
that toured the US).
Figure 7-5
Viewing the
drop-down context menu for the Breeder1.doc document.
7.
Select Check Out from
the drop-down context menu shown above in Figure 7-5. The name
Norm Hasborn now appears in the Checked Out To column.
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BEST PRACTICE: You have now checked out
the document, and any other user attempting to access the
document will only have a read-only copy (they would know you
have the edit version). This is the essence of the document
management system in WSS: VERSION CONTROL, baby! It is akin to
how programming code is managed using the library function in
Microsoft Visual Source Safe (VSS) in the developer’s
world. Think long and hard about this BEST PRACTICE the next time
you’re in a quandary about which document is “most
current” (like when you’re writing an SBS book and
managing chapter revisions - let me tell ya!).
1 &nbs
p; Now
select Edit in Microsoft Office Word from the drop-down menu seen
in Figure 7-5 above to open the document. Note this edit menu
option is only available with Office XP or higher. Click OK when
warned by the Internet Explorer dialog box that some files can
harm your computer, etc.
2 &nbs
p; Modify
the document with a few sentences such as that seen in
Figure 7-6.
Figure 7-6
Note the WSS specific stuff in the
right column of the Word document (this is the Shared Workspace
area I discuss later in the WSS and Office 2003 section). This is
a great example of how Office 2003 better exploits the full
capabilities of WSS.
10.
In the far right column, click
Check-in under Status for NormH. Complete the Check-in Comments
screen similar to Figure 7-7 and click OK.
11.
Close the document in Microsoft
Word.
Figure 7-7
The
Office 2003 check process is much more elegant than using an
older application where different steps would be required for
checking in a document.
BEST PRACTICE: I know what you’re likely thinking
here. It’s kinda weird that you could check in the document
yet the document remained open and could be edited. I find it odd
as well. Consider also that a document can be opened in WSS
without being checked out. Sadly, I’ve confirmed with
Microsoft in doing my book research that out of the SBS 2003 box,
there is no way to enforce that a check-out must occur before a
document is opened.
The
above observations present two challenges. First, there will be a
huge training opportunity for SBSers implementing WSS in an
organization to get them to use it properly and consistently
(that’s aptly called a management consulting opportunity).
Second, these observations are why I call WSS a basic document
management package, something that Microsoft wouldn’t
dispute. It may well be that WSS will ultimately sell a lot of
real document management
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systems like the SBS version of
DocumentLocator from Columbia Soft (www.documentlocator.com).
Still want to talk through these limitations? Okay.
Consider a discussion I had with a SharePoint expert in doing
research for my book. On the one hand, you can argue that WSS
can’t be everything to all people. Two examples of a couple
of limitations are:
•
; &nbs
p; Access Control List (ACL) limitations. WSS doesn’t
use ACLs but rather uses permission controls at the document
library level.
•
; &nbs
p; Offline Access limitations. This is simple. There is no
offline access in WSS.
But
on the other hand, WSS has alerts that aren’t present in
the NTFS file system. And Microsoft found that in the SMB space,
using the Web browser interface to manage files was more
intuitive than Windows Explorer or My Computers.
The
lesson learned is that there are always two stories to each side.
Notes:
12.
Return to Internet Explorer where you should be in the Jones
Family data storage area. Click on Breeder1.doc so that the
drop-down menu appears. Select Version History. Your screen
should look similar to Figure 7-8.
Figure 7-8
This
is the screen that would allow you to roll back to a prior
version of a document. This is VERY POWERFUL stuff!
13. For
more fun, click the Modify versioning settings on the left (under
Actions) on the Versions saved for Breeder1.doc to page to learn
about more settings. Select Yes under Content Approval so that a
user with the Manage Lists right has to approve items
submitted to this list. Click OK.
Notice that after you select the content approval
setting above, there is a new option in the left column titled
Approve/reject items.
BEST
PRACTICE: So does Norm Hasborn have the Manage Lists permission?
Let’s find out by clicking Site Settings on the WSS tool
bar. Then click Manage Users under Administration. Note on the
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list that appears, Norm Hasborn and Bob
Easter are Administrators and the remaining users are simply Web
Designers.
So
how did those two users get to be members of the Administrator
site group in WSS? It’s simple. Back in Chapter 2 in the
User List (just after Table 2-2), you’ll recall that Norm
and Bob were added with the Power User Template. That’s
what did it!
But
I haven’t answered the basic question. Prove that user
NormH has the Manage Lists permission. Click on Site
Administration, click Go to Site Administration under
Administration. Click Manage site groups under Users and
Permissions. Click on Administrator under Manage Site Groups. You
will now see an Administrator membership list (with Norm and Bob
on the list). Then click Edit Site Permissions. Notice that in
Figure 7-9, they have the Manage Lists authority.
So,
one more twist. Hit the Cancel button at the bottom of the page.
Then select Go Back to Manage Site Groups. Then click on Web
Designer (the site group everyone else belongs to) followed by a
click on Edit Site Group Permissions. Notice that the Web
Designer site group also has the authority to manage lists. So
everyone you added from the user list in Chapter 2 (you actually
added them in Chapter 4) could have the Content Approval
permission!
Notes:
Figure 7-9
Administrators
have the Manage Lists right.
