One of the criticisms lodged against
SharePoint is that you install it one
day and the next day you end up with
thousands of sites. Each site brings
with it potential security risks from
improper security settings and massive
storage consumption resulting
from, among other reasons, content
dumping.
Even assuming you don't have
either problem, it's always better to
have a well managed SharePoint environment
than one without appropriate
controls on usage. That's where
site provisioning comes in.
To be honest, there's no magic formula
for managing the site-provisioning
process on SharePoint. Different
companies will have success with different
approaches. But there are
some guidelines that enable every
organization to both provide flexibility
to its end users and ensure an appropriate
framework to help manage
growth, security and usage.
Workflow for site provisioning approval
The use of workflow for controlling
the provisioning process is one of
the most underused tools available
to every SharePoint administrator.
Designing a workflow to govern site
creations for certain users and sites
will ensure SharePoint won't get out
of control. In addition, administrators
can monitor the site creation process and gather valuable statistics on usage.
The challenge is that SharePoint
does not have any native site creation
actions within the workflow framework.
But there are vendors that sell
some terrific workflow add-ons for
SharePoint. Nintex, Skelta Software
and K2 are just a few companies that
produce workflow bolt-ons with site
creation action within their products.
If you don't have the budget to buy
a workflow tool, consider creating a
workflow action in Visual Studio or
hiring a developer to do it for you.
Then, you can create your own workflow
process in SharePoint Designer.
Custom site definitions of templates
Although the act of provisioning is
generally just the creation of a s...
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ite,
make sure that these sites also conform
to your organization's standards
—whether that's structure, content
or metadata. Site definitions and site
templates allow users to create sites
that conform to a specific structure
and enable particular SharePoint
features.
SharePoint ships with several site
definitions, including a team site,
document workspace and a meeting
site. You can also download a few of
Microsoft's "Fabulous 40," which is
a collection of additional site definitions.
If none of those provides the
right structure, consider creating one
of your own.
SharePoint has a feature in every
site that allows you to save an existing
site as a "site template," which is
similar to a site definition in that it
allows you to create new sites based
on the template. You can even preserve
content in the template. Alternatively,
you can use a free site definition
generator tool in the Microsoft
Office SharePoint Server (MOSS)
Software Development Kit.
Create specialized site collections
Site collections are a special construct
within SharePoint. As their
name suggests, they represent a collection
of sites within SharePoint. In a
collaborative environment, where one
site represents collaboration among a
number of parties, the site collection
contains multiple collaboration
spaces for various "projects."
What makes site collections somewhat
unique is that there is a whole
set of site collection-specific management
functions. This means you
can enable features, control certain
aspects of security and set quotas
for individual sites from a centralized
location.
Creating different site collections
for different categories of collaboration
or project work allows SharePoint
administrators to make subtle adjustments to each site collection that
are appropriate for the category of
collaboration within that collection.
Use site collection quotes to control storage consumption
SharePoint is often criticized for massive
storage consumption. To be fair,
storage consumption is more often
the result of poor storage management
or unfettered site creation than
a fault of SharePoint as a product. In
fact, SharePoint has a built-in storage
quota feature to enable administrators
to limit storage consumption.
SharePoint administrators can create
quota profiles that set the maximum
site storage consumption and
then apply different profiles to different
site collections. This translates to
limiting every site in the collection to
the maximum storage size set in the quota.
Quotas are especially effective
for constructs like My Sites in MOSS,
but they are also very useful for more
collaborative environments in purely
WSS environments.
Tie sites to business processes
Whether or not you have implemented MOSS
in the enterprise, it's likely
that you have WSS. And you probably
have at least one use of WSS related
to project work. As such, it makes
sense to take the next step: Tie WSS
sites to other business processes or
applications.
This might mean integrating a
project initiation process that begins
by filling out an InfoPath form and
results in the automated creation of
a WSS site, along with adding the
URL of the WSS site in a line-of-business
application. When business
users interact with either the line-of-business
application or SharePoint,
there will be an obvious link between
the use of the tools and the purpose
for that work.
Now, when the project or process
ends, another automated process can
back up any relevant data in the WSS
site and dispose of it. In this way, the
process that began with filling out
the InfoPath form, which resulted in
the creation of the project site, also
cleans up the site once the project
or process ends.
Site provisioning in SharePoint is
easy, but it's often uncontrolled. By
following a few of these recommendations,
you can keep your SharePoint
environment in check.
Shawn Shell is the founder of Consejo Inc., a consultancy based in Chicago that specializes in Web-based applications, employees and partner portals, as well as enterprise content management. He has spent more than 19 years in IT, with the last 10 focused on content technologies. Shell is a co-author of Microsoft Content Management Server 2002: A Complete Guide, published by Addison-Wesley, and the lead analyst/author on the CMSWatch SharePoint Report 2009.
