I had a group come to me recently that wanted to set up a subsite to their site and allow a group of users create sites under that subsite. Standard issue for SharePoint. In this case they wanted those sites to all start out the same. They had specific things such as two document libraries and a few other specific lists as the default when those sites get created. Also standard issue for SharePoint…by simply creating a site template the users to select they would get what they wanted.
This request didn’t specifically ask for the restriction of site templates, however since we have had numerous other similar requests we now have a lot of site templates available. So…
To make everyone’s life a little easier I decided to restrict the subsites so the users could only use the template created for them. The group manager was very happy-this made it very simple for them to find and thus the creation of their sites was a snap.
The trick to it all is getting to the Page Layout and Site Template Settings page. This isn’t available to you at the Site level, it is only on the Site Settings menu at the Site Collection level (top-level site). That doesn’t mean you can’t use it to accomplish this task.
After creating the desired site template, go to the site above (parent to) the site where you want the users restricted to specific templates. Replace the aspx page portion of the url with
_layouts/areatemplatesettings.aspx
Make your adjustments to the site templates available to subsites in the Page Layout and Site Template Settings screen, then click OK.
Ideas for SharePoint Admin documentation/notes
Posted by sharepoinTony on February 13, 2009
I have been trying to determine what method “I LIKE” best for capturing documentation and administration notes. If anyone out there actually reads this and has ideas, please comment on this topic – I would really like to hear what you do.
My requirements are simple enough: use SharePoint, make it quick and easy for me to document things, make it easy to FIND what I documented or those notes about that widget from 6 months ago, and not cost more than my own effort in setting it up. The last requirement could change, but this is the list I started with.
So far I have tried setting up a Knowledge Base, a Wiki and a Blog.
Of those I thought I would like the KB because I could easily find Related Articles. But I found that I didn’t like the way Keywords are used and I couldn’t create a view to sort or group by keyword. The Wiki became my next effort. It addresses all of my requirements except ‘easy to find’ due to the lack of keywords, categories, or something to group similar or related content. My last move was to the blog. The Categories function better than Keywords found in the KB, but the lack of a “Related Articles ” capability detracts from my mission. I suppose I can create a specific crawl that may help find things for any one of these options. Before I put in the effort I thought I would see if anyone else is doing something I like, because that is what best practices is all about.
Posted in Commentary, SharePoint 2007 | Tagged: Administration, Commentary | 5 Comments »