SharePoint 2010 HR Site Setup and Configuration

Documenting setup of our departments for others and future needs. As the title states this is the setup of our Human Resource Departments site.

1. Access Main Site Collection site [http://intranet]
2. Site Actions > New Site
3. Select Publishing Site
• Title: Human Resources
• URL: hr
4. Wait for site to be created
5. Update features for Human Resources site
• Site Actions > Site Settings
• Site Actions > Manage Site Features
• Team Collaboration Lists > Activiate
6. For our site we will be using the following parts:
1. Welcome
• Static welcome message from HR team
2. Announcements
• HR Accounements (Template: Announcement)
3. Document Library
• HR Document Library (Template: Document Library)
4. Training Schedule
• HR Training Schedule (Template: Calendar)
5. Helpful Links
• HR Helpful Links (Template: Links)
7. Setup HR Announcements
1. Site Actions > More Options
2. Select Announcements from list in right pane
1. Name: HR Announcements 
3. Click Create
8. Setup HR Document Library
1. Site Actions > More Options
2. Select Document Library from list in right pane
1. Name: HR Document Library 
3. Click Create
9. Setup HR Training Schedule
1. Site Actions > More Options
2. Select Calendar from list in right pane
1. Name: HR Training Schedule
3. Click Create
10. Setup HR Helpful Links
1. Site Actions > More Options
2. Select Links from list in right pane
1. Name: HR Helpful Links
3. Click Create

SharePoint 2010: Content Query and Announcement's Body

So recently was asked to make our homepage announcements more informational.  As you can see from below not much in detail.

Currently the items above are pulled from each departments site using Content Query Webpart and SharePoint 2010: Aggregating Announcements (http://cleeit.blogspot.com/2013/08/sharepoint-2010-aggregating-annoucements.html).

So first thing I tried was just to display the Body of the announcement.  Well as you can see below that didn't work.

Content Query does not understand HTML.  So how to escape HTML in Content Query, well off to Google I went. It did not take long to locate Kappa Solutions Technology Blog (at the time rated number 3).

The exact article can be found at:  http://blog.kappasolutions.ca/blog/post/2010/09/12/How-to-Display-HTML-in-Content-Query-Web-Part.aspx

Spiceworks How-To write up: http://community.spiceworks.com/how_to/show/62085-sharepoint-2010-content-query-and-announcement-s-body

As there write up is quite nice I will only link to them for now.

End Results

SharePoint 2010: Importing and Using imported templates

Recently we talked internally about SharePoint and begining to roll it out mainstream.  This involves working with each department and building out their sites.  One department (HR) found a few templates they wanted to work with.  Following is my experience importing and generating a test site from this template: http://www.techsolutions.net/EmployeeTraining.aspx

1. Download and extract your template until you can access the .wsp file
2. Verify the following service is running on SharePoint servers/farm: Microsoft SharePoint Foundation Sandboxed Code Service
• Check out this site for step details (both CA and PS): http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ff535775(v=office.14).aspx
3. Decide if deploying to new Web Application or existing. 
• New
1. Create a new Web Application 
2. Create a new Site Collection against that new Web Application (Select template "Team Site" while creating this Site Collection)
3. Goto 'Site Settings' of that new Web Application
4. Goto 'Solutions' 
5. Upload Application Template ".wsp" file, and "Activate" that when upload completes
6. Create a new "Site" in the newly created "Site Collection" (in step 2), and select the newly uploaded solution in "Template" section
• Existing
1. Goto Site Collection to apply template to
2. Goto 'Site Settings'
3. Goto 'Solutions' 
4. Upload Application Template ".wsp" file, and "Activate" that when upload completes
5. Create a new "Site" in the newly created "Site Collection" (in step 2), and select the newly uploaded solution in "Template" section

Pretty simple but took me a while as services were not running.

Check out my How-To write up on SpiceWorks: http://community.spiceworks.com/how_to/show/46419-sharepoint-2010-importing-templates

SharePoint 2010: Install Microsoft Productivity Hub 2010 SP1

As we are expanding our SharePoint I decided to play with MS Productivity Hub 2010 SP1 (http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=28178) to see if it may help my users become more familiar with SharePoint (and other MS tools).

Requirements:

• Windows XP or later 
• 2007 Office System or later
• SharePoint (SP) Server 2010 SP1 with August 2011 CU 
• Silverlight 4
• Farm Administrator privileges

1. Navigate to http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=28178 and download all files saving them to location accessible from SharePoint (SP) Server(s)
• CoreInstall2010SP1.exe 14.0 MB
• ContentPack2010SP1-1.exe 460.0 MB
• ContentPack2010SP1-2.exe 441.4 MB
• ContentPack2010SP1-3.exe 470.4 MB
• ContentPack2010SP1-4.exe 718.8 MB
2. Unpack all downloads to a directory on one of the servers in your SP farm.
• Created folder called MS Productivity Hub 2010 SP1
3. Verify Administrative rights to User Profile Service Application (By default only SP installation account does)
• Open the Central Administration site. The Central Administration site can be found under the Start menu, in the Microsoft SharePoint 2010 Products folder. 
• Within the Central Administration site, navigate to Service Applications under Application Management > Manage Service Applications. 
• Find the User Profile Service Application in the list. Highlight the row by clicking on the row to the right of the link (do not click the link as this will take you to another page). 
• With the User Profile Service Application row highlighted, click the Permissions button in the ribbon toolbar.
• In the Permissions dialog, verify that your account (or the account being used to install the Productivity Hub) is specified with Full Control before proceeding with Productivity Hub installation. 
• Click OK once you have verified and / or added your account with Full Control permissions.
4. Decide where you want the Productivity Hub site to reside within your existing SharePoint Server 2010 farm. 
• You can choose to deploy the site to a new site collection or to an existing site collection. The installation process will attempt to create or replace the chosen site collection with a new Productivity Hub site collection.
• I choose to install in new web application and site collection.
• Web Application
• Authentication: Classic
• IIS Web Site
• IIS Web Site: MSPHUB
• Port: 80
• Host Header: [name for address]
• Ex: internal / training /etc
• Path: [Change only if needed]
• Security Configuration
• Authentication provider: MTLM
• Allow Anonymous: No
• SSL: No
• Public URL
• URL: http://sptraining:80
• Zone: Default
• Application Pool
• Pool Name: SharePoint - MSPHUB
• Security Account: Configuarable (Predefined SP_Farm)
• Database Name and Authentication
• Database server: [Enter Database Server Name]
• Database Name: WSS_Content_MSPHUB
• Database Authentication: Windows authentication
• Failover Server: [Enter if available]
• Search Server: SharePoint Server Search
• Service Application Connections: Default
• CEI Program: No
• Site Collection
• Central Administration > Create Site Collection
• Web Application: [Select Web Application created above]
• Title: MS Productivity Hub
• Description: MS Productivity Hub Repository
• URL: [web application]/
• Template: Blank Site
• Primary Site Collection Administrator: [Desired User]
• Secondary Site Collection Administrator (if needed): [Desired User]
• Quota Template: No Quota
5. Once you have determined which site collection to use, open the SharePoint 2010 Management Shell from one of the SharePoint front end web servers.
• The SharePoint 2010 Management Shell can be found under the Start menu, in the Microsoft SharePoint 2010 Products folder. 
6. From within the management shell, change directory to where you’ve placed the Productivity Hub installation files.
• cd "C:\MS Productity Hub 2010 SP1" (remove " if typeing)
7. Run the following command from the management shell prompt: .\install [sitecollectionURL] 
• Example: .\install http://myhubsite/  or .\install http://sptraining/
• Select Y to overwrite
8. Monitor the management shell window to answer any prompts and to ensure success (this may take a few minutes). Once the install process completes, the initial site collection will be deployed to target URL. If you chose to install the default content packs during the installation process, you now have those content packs installed. If there are other content packs you wish to install, please do so now before proceeding to the next step. 
9. Next, open the Central Administration site to initiate a full crawl of the new site collection. The Central Administration site can be found under the Start menu, in the Microsoft SharePoint 2010 Products folder. 
1. Within the Central Administration site, navigate to your default Search Service Application instance under Application Management > Manage Service Applications. 
2. From the Search Administration page, click Content Sources from the left navigation menu 
3. Find the relevant Content Source that encompasses the new site collection and choose Start Full Crawl from within its drop-down menu. If you only have “Local SharePoint Server Sites” listed as a content source, perform a full crawl on it. 
• NOTE: The full crawl process may take a few minutes to a several hours depending on the size of your SharePoint server farm. This step is necessary to index the content of the Productivity Hub site collection. 
10. Installation is now complete. You can now navigate to the Productivity Hub site in Internet Explorer and set permissions for your end users and coaches who will need access to the Productivity Hub. Permissions are controlled from the home page. Use Site Actions > Site Settings > People and Groups. Add the relevant users and Active Directory groups to the following SharePoint security groups based on role: 
1. Hub 2010 Members – most users should be placed here. They will be able to view, tag, and rate content, and participate in forums. 
2. Hub 2010 Coaches – same access level as Members, but with access to the Coach Help and the ability to manage content of the Productivity Hub site. 
3. Hub 2010 Owners – Administrators should be registered here. They will have full access to manage content and forum posts, view Site Admin Help, SA Benefits Help, and Coach Help pages; and modify site permissions.
4. Hub Visitors – users who need read-only access to content and forums should be added to this group. Tagging and ratings will still work for these users.