Internet presence scenario: Build the site

Applies To: Office SharePoint Server 2007

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Topic Last Modified: 2016-11-14

Important

This article is one of a series of articles that describes an end-to-end scenario that outlines how to plan, design, build, and maintain an enterprise's Internet presence Web site based on Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007.

Previous article	Configure the failover infrastructure
Next article	Deploy the solution
Beginning of scenario	Internet presence scenario (Office SharePoint Server 2007)

Building a site includes creating the site structure, designing artifacts such as layouts and master pages, developing and adding any customizations, and initializing the site with content. To accomplish this, two sets of activities take place. In the authoring server farm, the content manager and site designer collaborate to create the site structure, master pages, layout pages, and other authored site elements. In the development environment, the developer and tester create the initial developed site elements and test them. The developer also creates some programs to help in the initial site-building process in the Authoring server farm.

Creating the site structure

Action	In the authoring farm, a server administrator on the Infrastructure team creates the Web application and then the authoring site collection. To ensure that all the needed features are available, the administrator chooses the Publishing Portal template. The content manager manually creates the primary subsites: Corporate Information, Products, News and Events, and Career Center. Manually creating the full set of nested subsites, as specified in their spreadsheet based on Microsoft Office Excel 2007, would be time consuming and error prone. To automate this process, the content manager saves the spreadsheet as an XML file. A developer then writes a program that traverses the XML record of the site hierarchy and creates the sites and subsites automatically.
Outcome	A completed site collection with more than 500 nested sites.
Resources	Create or extend Web applications (Windows SharePoint Services) Create a site collection (Office SharePoint Server) Create a SharePoint site (https://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=128709) Sites (How Do I... in Windows SharePoint Services) (https://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=128710)

Designing the master page

Action	The site designer next creates the site’s master page. By using the article, How to: Create a Minimal Master Page (https://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=128711), she learns how to create a minimal master page which she will customize. By starting with a minimal page, she increases her control over the appearance of the master page and avoids the risk of manually altering a default master page. She copies the minimal master page markup from the article, saves the new master page to the site’s Master Page gallery, and sets it as the site’s master page. She then opens the master page in Microsoft Office SharePoint Designer 2007 and customizes it along with the associated cascading style sheet definitions that the master page will reference.
Outcome	A completed site collection with more than 500 nested sites.
Resources	Joel Oleson's Blog - SharePoint Land - Master Page and Themes on WSS sites in MOSS (https://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=128712) Microsoft Enterprise Content Management (ECM) Team Blog – Using the minimal master page (https://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkID=107860) How to: Create a Minimal Master Page (https://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkID=128711) Customizing and Branding Web Content Management-Enabled SharePoint Sites (https://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkID=128715) Create or edit a master page (https://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkID=107856) How to Create a SharePoint Server 2007 Custom Master Page and Page Layouts for a Web Content Management Site (https://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=128716) CSS Reference Chart for SharePoint 2007 (Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 and Windows SharePoint Services v3) (https://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=128717)

Configuring navigation

Action	The site designer next configures the site’s top and left navigation links. This includes the top link bar and the Quick Launch area on the left side of the page. She configures navigation settings by using the site administration page at various levels of the site hierarchy. After the site’s basic navigation experience is implemented, the organization plans to develop a custom navigation control to use in the Products subsite to make it easier for customers to navigate the various product descriptions.
Outcome	Navigation links are exposed properly at each level of the site hierarchy. The links reflect the site hierarchy, which has been designed with navigation in mind.
Resources	Customize site navigation (https://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkID=107709) Configure and manage a shared navigation structure across sites (https://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkID=107710) Add a table of contents to a publishing page layout (https://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkID=107712) Add a list of summary links to a publishing page layout (https://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkID=107713) Office SharePoint Server navigation deep dive (https://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkID=107714) How to: Customize Navigation (https://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkID=107715)

Designing the layout pages and content types

Action	Next, the designer creates the set of required content types and layout pages to author and display the site’s content. She does this in the following order: She creates the few additional columns that are needed for additional fields of content in some page types. She creates a set of content types that derive from the Page content type, to represent each type of page that will be used in the site. By using Office SharePoint Designer 2007, she creates new layout pages or modifies existing pages to match their related content types. On some layout pages, she also adds Web parts for specialized purposes, such as to display lists of links that a query returns.
Outcome	Twenty custom layout pages Four custom column types Eight custom page content types
Resources	Create a site column (https://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkID=107665) How to: Add a Column to a Site (https://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkID=107666) Create a site content type (https://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkID=107659) Create a publishing page layout (https://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkID=107638) Customize a publishing page layout (https://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkID=107639) About page layout and site template settings (https://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkID=107850) See the Set the preferred site templates and page layouts section. Field Controls and Control Templates (https://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkID=107865) Customizing pages by using Web Parts (Windows SharePoint Services 3.0) (https://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkID=107867) ECM Blog -Have a field day (https://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=128718) Customizing pages by using Web Parts (Office SharePoint Server 2007) (https://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkID=107868) Insert or delete a Web Part zone (https://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkID=107870) How to: Create a Custom Field Control (https://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkID=107866) How to Create a SharePoint Server 2007 Custom Master Page and Page Layouts for a Web Content Management Site (https://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkID=107863)

Copying the site to the integration farm

The developer needs a site in which to develop and test his customizations. The organization decides to migrate the whole new authoring site by configuring a content deployment path and manually running a content deployment job between the authoring farm and the integration farm. Because content deployment is configured in SharePoint Central Administration, the site’s content manager is given administrator privileges in the authoring farm’s administrators group.

Action	Working with the IT administrator of the authoring farm, the content manager creates a content deployment path that targets the integration farm. He then creates a content deployment job to run once. He configures it to deploy the entire site collection and he manually runs the content deployment job.
Outcome	The site is deployed to the integration farm.
Resources	Administer content deployment Content Migration (https://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=128719)

Configure content migration

Action	The content lead, developer, and tester collaborate to migrate the content from the current Web site to the new site based on Office SharePoint Server 2007. They use a tool that is certified by Microsoft to migrate content to the Office SharePoint Server 2007 Pages libraries. Under the direction of the content lead, the developer configures the tool to properly migrate each type of content, and the tester provides feedback and verification. They first migrate sample content to the integration farm, verify, and iterate the process until they are satisfied with the results. Lastly, the developer reconfigures the tool to migrate the full set of content to the authoring farm. They migrate and verify the full set of content.
Outcome	Content is migrated from the previous site to the new site.
Resources	Migration and Upgrade Resource Center for SharePoint Server 2007 (https://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkID=104403) Content Migration (https://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkID=128719)

Develop custom site elements

Action	The project’s developer and tester work together in the development farm to develop the required custom elements to complete the Web site. Detailing the complete set of steps that are taken to develop these elements is beyond the scope of this scenario document. Use the links at the end of this section to find SDK documentation and content describing best practices for designing and building sites based on Office SharePoint Server 2007.
Outcome	The initial set of custom coded elements includes the following: A custom field control to render multimedia files on the Home page A custom business data catalog database connection to connect to the career opportunities database A custom Web part to provide interactivity with the career opportunities database A custom navigation control to provide three levels of expansion of navigation elements in the Quick Launch area of the page and to save its state by using cookies
Resources	Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 SDK documentation and technical articles (https://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=128722) Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 SDK documentation and technical articles (https://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkID=119284) About designing and building sites Implementing Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 and Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 Solutions (https://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=108059) Sample code acceptance checklist for IT organizations

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