Tuesday, June 21, 2011

Where is the Intranet Collaboration Template in SharePoint 2010

by Fabian Williams

Synopsis

So I am on a client site this week yet again and I am doing an Envisioning, ADS, and a SharePoint Intranet Base Install.  Now that I am about to talk Taxonomy and Information Architecture, we touched on just having a few sites to begin with so they are not overwhelmed,  but more importantly I only have a limited time on this project and there are quick wins that I can have by using that old Microsoft Office SharePoint Server (MOSS) templates called “Intranet Publishing Portal Template” which was under the Publishing Tab for Creating Sites. Now in SharePoint Server 2010 that Template is not in the GUI under that Tab, however you can get to it and provision a site using that Template using PowerShell

Disclaimer

I have seen a few conversations by folks in the community that I have great respect for taking the position of both using that Template for provisioning new sites in the SharePoint 2010 world v/s NOT using that Template and rather using the newer templates on Microsoft SharePoint 2010
Microsoft does have some guidance on it on the Technet Planning Sheet Sites
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc262410.aspx
Pay attention to the last paragraph on the page which reads in part…
“Some Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 site templates, such as the site directory, news, and collaboration portal templates, are not available as an option in SharePoint Server 2010…These templates are also still available as options in the UI if the SharePoint Server 2010 farm is upgraded from Office SharePoint Server 2007. Otherwise use the social tagging features in SharePoint Server 2010 to get much of the functionality provided in these templates”

How To

SO here we go…
If you are provisioning a Site Collection for an Intranet Site in SharePoint 2010 “I have seen” where folks use Templates out of the Tabs of either of the below two screenshots below. There are several food for thought as to using one over the other; one way is to start out with a Blank Site and just activate the features you need accordingly.
clip_image001
New SharePoint Site
clip_image002
New SharePoint Site

Powershell to the Rescue

So you can, with three (3) commands gain access to the Template that you had in MOSS, see below for the command and execution
clip_image001[4]
Just to Verify; run the following command and look 9 from the bottom
clip_image002[4]
To actually provision the site you need to run yet another PowerShell command as indicated below which identifies the template of choice with the other parameters needed.
clip_image003
And BoooYaaaH you have your Intranet Collaboration Site Created in SharePoint 2010 with all the starter sites at your disposal.
clip_image004

In Closing

Remember I told you. Microsoft does not have this in the GUI for whatever reasons which means that I did above is probably unsupported or has issues buried somewhere, or maybe not. The truth of the matter is that I dont know.
Use at your own risk
I welcome any questions, comments, rants :-)

Cheers!

SharePoint 2010 - Which Site Template Is Right For my Intranet?



When MOSS 2007 came out I created a blog post very similar to this one.  It turned out to be one of my most popular posts and I received many comments and private emails thanking me for putting the post together.  Since the post helped out so many folks I decided to create an updated version for SharePoint 2010.

SharePoint 2010 ships with many predefined site templates you may use to create site collections and sub sites. Sometimes the out of the box site templates will meet the needs of your project. Other times, the out of the box site templates may need to be enhanced.
Knowing which site template has the functionality you need to deploy, or use as a baseline for a custom site definition, is one of the key decisions you make when you architect a SharePoint deployment. This being said, it is important to understand the templates SharePoint 2010 comes with out of the box and what sub sites, lists and pages they support.
This post outlines the site templates SharePoint 2010 comes with out of the box and what sub sites, lists and pages they support.  As usual, I’ve documented several useful pieces of information developers will find handy when working with the out of the box SharePoint site templates.
If you install Silverlight on your machine you’ll be presented with a fancy new interface to create sites (shown below).  As you can see, SharePoint 2010 offers some guidance when creating new sites by providing descriptions and preview images for each out of the box template. However, not all of the descriptions list which resources the site comes provisioned with and the preview images are no help at all. See the image below, I think you will agree.
site creation screen
To better understand the inventory of out of the box site templates, I created a site collection based on each out of the box site template. After creating 29 different site collections (that’s 6 more than MOSS 2007 if you are keeping track) I realized it would be hard to remember what each one looks like and what resources they offer. So, I decided to take some screenshots and document the site templates.

Preview Images

If you care to see what all of the preview images look like, you can find them in the following directory on your SharePoint server:
C:Program FilesCommon FilesMicrosoft Sharedweb server extensions14TEMPLATELAYOUTS1033IMAGES
The file names for the preview images corresponding to each site template are listed in the tables below.

A More Detailed Look

If you care to see what each of the home pages for the site templates look like you can download screenshots of each and every site template in this zip file. The screenshots should provide you with a good understanding of the different layouts that come with each out of the box template.  This should save you a lot of time creating each type of site template on your own machine!
Here’s an example, showing the new Business Intelligence Center; oh how fancy!
Business Intelligence Center

Important planning information related to the out of the box site Templates!

Available Sub Site Templates

The next table lists the WEBTEMP XML fragment files each site template and configuration are defined in, the concatenated template and configuration string you need when making sites with the site template programmatically, and the file name of the preview image. If you wish to change the out of the box preview images I recommend backup up the existing preview images, then replacing them with your new preview images that have the same file names. Feel free to use the images I created from screenshots of each site template’s out of the box home page to do so. You can download them here.
Note: You may have to perform this process again after a service pack is applied in the future. Editing the various WEBTEMP files that come out of the box is not a recommended approach; that’s why I recommend this approach.
As I mentioned before, knowing which sub sites, lists, and pages are available within a given site template are key peices of information you will want to know when you architect a SharePoint solution.  The table below displays which sub site templates are available for a given parent site template.
Select a site template to filter the table:

Available Sub Site Templates Site Definition Config Concatenated String Preview Image Name Defined in this WEBTEMP File
Team Site STS 0 STS#0 stts.png WEBTEMP.XML
Blank Site STS 1 STS#1 stbs.png WEBTEMP.XML
Document Workspace STS 2 STS#2 stdw.png WEBTEMP.XML
Blog BLOG 0 BLOG#0 stbg.png WEBTEMP.XML
Group Work Site SGS 0 SGS#0 stgb.png WEBTEMP.XML
Visio Process Repository VISPRUS 1 VISPRUS#0 custprev.png WEBTEMPVISPR.XML
Basic Meeting Workspace MPS 0 MPS#0 stmw.png WEBTEMP.XML
Blank Meeting Workspace MPS 1 MPS#1 stbm.png WEBTEMP.XML
Decision Meeting Workspace MPS 2 MPS#2 stdm.png WEBTEMP.XML
Social Meeting Workspace MPS 3 MPS#3 stsm.png WEBTEMP.XML
Multipage Meeting Workspace MPS 4 MPS#4 stmm.png WEBTEMP.XML
Assets Web Database ACCSRV 1 ACCSRV#1 WEBTEMPACCSRV.XML
Charitable Contributions Web Database ACCSRV 3 ACCSRV#3 WEBTEMPACCSRV.XML
Contacts Web Database ACCSRV 4 ACCSRV#41 WEBTEMPACCSRV.XML
Issues Web Database ACCSRV 6 ACCSRV#6 WEBTEMPACCSRV.XML
Projects Web Database ACCSRV 5 ACCSRV#5 WEBTEMPACCSRV.XML
Document Center BDR 7 BDR#0 preview.png WEBTEMPBDR.EN-US.XML
Records Center OFFILE 1 OFFILE#1 strc.png WEBTEMPOFFILE.XML
Business Intelligence Center BICenterSite 0 BICenterSite#0 bicenterlogo.png WEBTEMPPPSMA.XML
My Site Host SPSMSITEHOST 0 SPSMSITEHOST#0 perstemp.gif WEBTEMPSPS.XML
Personalization Site SPSMSITE 0 SPSMSITE#0 stps.png WEBTEMPSPS.XML
Enterprise Search Center SRCHCEN 0 SRCHCEN#0 template_srch_cntr.png WEBTEMPSPS.XML
Basic Search Center SRCHCENTERLITE 0 SRCHCENTERLITE#0 template_srch_cntr_lite.png WEBTEMPSRCH.XML
FAST Search Center SRCHCENTERFAST 0 SRCHCENTERFAST#0 template_srch_cntr_lite.png WEBTEMPSRCH.XML
Enterprise Wiki ENTERWIKI 0 ENTERWIKI#0 IPPT.gif WEBTEMPSPS.XML
Publishing Portal BLANKINTERNETCONTAINER 0 BLANKINTERNETCONTAINER#0 IPPT.gif WEBTEMPSPS.XML
Publishing Site CMSPUBLISHING 0 CMSPUBLISHING#0 stpb.png WEBTEMPSPS.XML
Publishing Site With Workflow BLANKINTERNET 2 BLANKINTERNET#2 stpw.png WEBTEMPSPS.XML

New Site Templates

The following site templates are new to SharePoint 2010.
Group Work Site
Visio Process Repository
Assets Web Database
Charitable Contributions Web Database
Contacts Web Database
Issues Web Database
Projects Web Database
Business Intelligence Center
Enterprise Search Center
Basic Search Center
FAST Search Center
Enterprise Wiki

Deprecated / Removed Site Templates

The following site templates are deprecated or removed in SharePoint 2010.
Wiki Site
Site Directory
Report Center
Search Center with Tabs
Search Center
Collaboration Portal
News Site

Available Lists

Similarly, the table below displays which lists are available for a given site template.
Select a site template to filter the table:

Available Lists
Asset Library
Dashboards Library
Data Connection Library
Document Library
Form Library
Picture Library
Process Diagram Library (US Units)
Report Library
Slide Library
Translation Management
Wiki Page Library
Agenda
Announcements
Calendar
Circulations
Contacts
Custom List
Custom List in Datasheet View
Decisions
Discussion Board
External List
Import Spreadsheet
Issue Tracking
Languages and Translators
Links
Microsoft IME Dictionary List
Objectives
PerformancePoint Content List
Project Tasks
Status List
Survey
Tabs List
Tasks
Text Box
Things To Bring
Administrator Tasks
Distribution Groups

Available Pages

Finally, the table below displays which types of pages are available to create within a given site template.
Select a site template to filter the table:

Content Page Publishing Page Web Part Page
Yes No Yes
Yes Yes Yes
No No No

Buried Treasure: Hidden Templates!

Many of the site templates listed in the following table are left over from the previous versions of SharePoint and are marked obsolete. However some of them may be created programmatically. I included the list of all the hidden site templates here for reference.
Hidden site templates (not including Global template or Central Administration):
Site Template Name Site Definition Configuration Concatenated String Preview Image Name Defined in this WEBTEMP File
Wiki Site WIKI 0 WIKI#0 wikiprev.png WEBTEMP.XML
Tenant Admin Site TENANTADMIN 0 TENANTADMIN#0 WEBTEMP.XML
Access Services Site ACCSRV 0 ACCSRV#0 bsprev.png WEBTEMPACCSRV.XML
(obsolete) Records Center OFFILE 0 OFFILE#0 strc.png WEBTEMPOFFILE.XML
Shared Services Administration Site OSRV 0 OSRV#0 WEBTEMPOSRV.XML
PerformancePoint PPMASite 0 OSRV#0 rchome.png WEBTEMPOSRV.XML
SharePoint Portal Server Site SPS 0 SPS#0 spshome.gif WEBTEMPSPS.XML
SharePoint Portal Server Personal Space SPSPERS 0 SPSPERS#0 perstemp.gif WEBTEMPSPS.XML
Contents Area Template SPSTOC 0 SPSTOC#0 spshome.gif WEBTEMPSPS.XML
Topic Area Template SPSTOPIC 0 SPSTOPIC#0 spshome.gif WEBTEMPSPS.XML
News Site SPSNEWS 0 SPSNEWS#0 spshome.gif WEBTEMPSPS.XML
Publishing Site BLANKINTERNET 0 BLANKINTERNET#0 stpb.png WEBTEMPSPS.XML
Press Releases Site BLANKINTERNET 1 BLANKINTERNET#1 stpb.png WEBTEMPSPS.XML
News Site SPSNHOME 0 SPSNHOME#0 template_news.png WEBTEMPSPS.XML
Site Directory SPSSITES 0 SPSSITES#0 template_site_dir.png WEBTEMPSPS.XML
Community Area Template SPSCOMMU 0 SPSCOMMU#0 spshome.gif WEBTEMPSPS.XML
Report Center SPSREPORTCENTER 0 SPSREPORTCENTER#0 strp.png WEBTEMPSPS.XML
Collaboration Portal SPSPORTAL 0 SPSPORTAL#0 WEBTEMPSPS.XML
Profiles PROFILES 0 PROFILES#0 WEBTEMPSPS.XML
Basic Search Center SRCHCENTERLITE 1 SRCHCENTERLITE#1 template_srch_center_lite.png WEBTEMPOSRV.XML

Leverage this information to create SharePoint sites programmatically

The concatenated template and configuration string is used when creating sites programmatically. See the last line of code below for an example.
//Create a new SPSite object corresponding to your top level site
SPSite newSite = new SPSite("http://dev");
 
//Create a new SPWeb object from the newSite object
SPWeb newWeb = newSite.OpenWeb();
 
//Return the collection of sub sites
SPWebCollection subSites = newWeb.Webs;
 
//Create a new sub site by adding it to the sub site collection
//The new site will have the following metadata:
//Full URL once created: http://dev/newsite
//Name: New Site
//Description: This is the description for my new site.
//Local ID set to 1033 – English
//Site Template: Team Site
//Use Unique Permissions: True
SPWeb newSubWeb = subSites.Add("newsite", "New Site", "This is the description for my new site.", 1033, "STS#0", true, false);

Once again, I hope this post comes in handy for you and saves you the time I spent digging through the SharePoint file system and creating dozens of SharePoint sites to find the information. All the information in this post comes from the public beta 2 version of SharePoint Server 2010.  I’ll update this post once SharePoint 2010 goes RTM.