HOWTO: Building a Sharepoint Server 3.0 From Scratch

HOWTO: Building a Sharepoint Server 3.0 From Scratch
rakb200809301915

Phase 1.0 Sharepoint Setup

1. Install fresh copy of Windows Server 2003  With IIS
2. Run Windows Update, update all.
3. Download Sharepoint 3.0 With Service Pack1 http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?familyid=EF93E453-75F1-45DF-8C6F-4565E8549C2A&displaylang=en
4. Run Sharepoint.exe setup
5. Choose Basic (Choose Advance only if you have SQL Server 2005 installed already)
6. Wizard runs –>Services to be restarted IIS, Sharepoint Administration Service, Sharepoint Timer Service.
7. Task 1-10 Configuration
8. Configuration successful–>Click Finish
9. Internet Explorer opens to http://sasdcmpkg:8000/default.aspx (This indicates that Sharepoint was installed correctly). Don’t do anything yet on the site.
10. Open Sharepoint Central Administration from Administrative Tools
11. Perform Administrator Task 1-18 if applicable. (I think you can skip this but just do it anyway)
12. END

Phase 2.0 Sharepoint Setup for Department Site (CMP As an Example)

(Default IIS www port is port 80, in server sasdcmpkg, the port needs to be in 8000 for security reasons)

1. Open the default homepage http://sasdcmpkg:8000/default.aspx (This is the main or root site, don’t do anything special here, this is the root site where all the department subsites will reside)
2. Click the Home tab
3. At Home page, –>Click Site Actions –>Create
4. Under Web Pages –>Click Sites and Workspaces
New Sharepoint Site Page
Title/Description=CMP Sharepoint
Website= http://sasdcmpkg:8000/cmp
Template=Custom –>Choose Team Worksite
Permission=Select Use unique permission

Navigation=NO, Display this site on the Quick Launch of the parent site
Navigation=NO, Display this site on the top link bar of the parent site
Navigation Inheritance=NO, Use top link bar from the parent site
5. Setup Group for this site
Visitor=Use Existing Group
Members=Create a New Group-CMP Sharepoint
Owners=Create a New Group -CMP Owners
6. END

Phase 3.0 Sharepoint Setup for Subsites within the Department Site

1. Click the Home tab
2. At Home page, –>Click Site Actions –>Create
3. Under Web Pages –>Click Sites and Workspaces
New Sharepoint Site Page
Title/Description=TeamEng
Website= http://sasdcmpkg:8000/cmp/TeamEng
Template=Custom –>Choose Team Worksite
Permission=Select Use same permission
Navigation=YES, Display this site on the Quick Launch of the parent site
Navigation=YES, Display this site on the top link bar of the parent site
Navigation Inheritance=YES, Use top link bar from the parent site
NOTE: Repeat steps 1-4 to create additional subsites within the department. take note of the 3 YES answers for the subsites.  This is the option to make the Top Link Bar to be visible on the Department Website.
4. END

Phase 4.0 Sharepoint Search Troubleshooting
If for some reason the search feature is not working, you need to stop and restart the spsearch service from the command line using stsadm.exe.  Do not use the Sharepoint Central Administration site to restart the Search Service or you will need the sqlcmd.exe to drop and create the table which you normally don’t have yet.

1. At the command prompt: type net stop spsearch (to Stop Sharepoint Search Engine)
2. At the command prompt: type net start spsearch to Start Sharepoint Search Engine)
3. Open command prompt, go to folder C:\Program Files\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\web server extensions\12\BIN
4. At the command prompt : type stsadm.exe –O spsearch –action fullcrawlstop (to stop Search Engine Crawl)
5. At the command prompt : type stsadm.exe –O spsearch –action fullcrawlstart (to start Search Engine Crawl)
6. Test Search in Sharepoint Website
7. END

Phase 5.0 Enable .pdf Search in Sharepoint

Microsoft Reference: kb927675 http://support.microsoft.com/kb/927675
1. Read/Perform kb927675
2. Install Adobe PDF iFilter plugin
3. Add registry key mentioned in kb927675
4. In command prompt: type net stop spsearch (to Stop Sharepoint Search Engine)
5. In command prompt: ype net start spsearch to Start Sharepoint Search Engine)
6. Open command prompt, go to folder C:\Program Files\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\web server extensions\12\BIN
7. In command prompt : type stsadm.exe –O spsearch –action fullcrawlstop (to stop Search Engine Crawl)
8. In command prompt : type stsadm.exe –O spsearch –action fullcrawlstart (to start Search Engine Crawl)
9. Test Search in Sharepoint Website
10. END

Phase 6.0 Sharepoint Backup

1. Create a folder c:\backup to contain the backup file (this can be a share drive)
2. Go to c:\Program Files\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\web server extension\12\Bin
3. Open command prompt inside the Bin folder
4. Type stsadm.exe -O backup -url http://sasdcmpkg -filename c:\backup\fullfarmbackup.dat
5. END

Phase 7.0 TTRM (Time to Read The Manual)

1. Watch the Video Demo from Microsoft to get the big picture of sharepoint.
http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/sharepointtechnology/HA102055631033.aspx
2. On the top right corner of the browser while in Sharepoint Site click the blue button with a question mark. The information there will jumpstart your way in creating/modifying your Sharepoint site.
3. SharepointHosting.com created many helpful video tutorials, watch each one if you don’t want to read the manual. (I did). There is a bug in the flash player, you have to click the slider button once and then click the play button or else it will just sit there and do nothing. Great tutorials.
http://www.sharepointhosting.com/video_tutorials.html
4. For the brave and the hungry to customize Sharepoint 3.0, here’s the advance topics.

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/windowsserver/sharepoint/default.aspx
http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/sharepointtechnology/FX100503841033.aspx?ofcresset=1

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc288070.aspx
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc268155.aspx

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/office/sharepointserver/default.aspx

http://wss.collutions.com/default.aspx

http://www.usingsharepoint.com/default.aspx
http://www.wssdemo.com/default.aspx

Phase 8.0 Building the Knowledge Base Site
I’m always fascinated with how Microsoft built their Knowledge Base System. You search google for an error and then a kbNumber comes up with the information to fix your problem. How simple and smart is that.  Well, we have that here now in SAS Sharepoint. With proper planning of the Wiki site (I call it Knowledge Base), we can do the same here at SAS. 

So how can we come up with a Numbering System? 

I propose this KB numbering system: cmpkb200809300501

Why? Because later on, we can configure the Sahrepoint engine for a wildcard search ie. cmpkb*, or *kb2008 etc. (out of the box, wildcard is not supported)

cmpkb200809300501

Meaning:

cmp-department

kb-knowledge base

2008-year

09-month

30-day

0501-time

TEMPLATE:
TITLE
kbNumber
SYMTOMS
CAUSE
RESOLUTION
MORE INFORMATION
REFERENCE
KEYWORD
AUTHOR

Using a timestamp numbering system is a lot easier and no need to manage the numbers in a database.  There will be no duplicate kb number in your department for as long as you write the time you created the document in 24h format.  You don’t need to ask somebody about what to number your kb.  (TRIZ 40 Principle- Self-Service).

CONCLUSION:
In my opinion, the out of the box configuration of Sharepoint 3.0 is more than enough for SAS needs. We just need to establish a good backup and recovery plan. There is no limit to the size of the Windows Internal Database of Sharepoint 3.0 according to  Microsoft. The only good reason why some administrators use SQL2005 instead of the built in SQL database are scalability and backup method in SQL2005 are better. The location of the SQL database is in this folder C:\WINDOWS\SYSMSI\SSEE\MSSQL.2005\MSSQL\Data (not in the usual SQL data location)

The only customization that you have to do from out of the box is to install the Adobe iFilter mentioned in Phase 5.0 above.  What this filter do is index the text inside the .pdf file just like the default feature of indexing .doc, .xls, .ppt and more. Other than that, once you uploaded your documents to Sharepoint, wait for 5 minutes, perform a search and voila!, your document is found.

Another thing to consider is implementing 5S in the design of your Sharepoint Site.  Do it right the first time and you don’t have to undo the things your team doesn’t like later.  I normally uses the folowing guidelines:

1. What is the purpose of the site? Define this purpose and build on top of it. ie. Effective Team Collaboration
2. Use “segmentation” (TRIZ 40 Principle-Segmentation) , divide your department into smaller groups. ie. By SDWT
3. Use the “10 sec rule”, find what I can do in the site in 10 seconds.
4. Use the “3-click rule”, find any information/document in 3-mouse clicks. (not counting the search engine)

5. Before uploading a document:

o Tidy up the contents

o Provide a descriptive filename

6. Use a third person to test your site and ask how confusing it is. Ask for the negative comments, write it down and then fix it.

7. As DMAIC taught us, C-stands for Control.  manage your site everyweek. In Sharepoint, everyone in your team is a contributor and they will add anything without much thinking, let them do that (no limitations) but manage it effectively.  Keep an eye on the progress of the site.