SharePoint Portal Server 2003 Experience (Part 3)
In the first two parts of this series, I discussed some topical information. In Part 3, I’ll just jump all over.
Audiences not being populated with all members of a security group
There is a BUG related to the Audience feature in SPS2003 (all current services packs) that I found during the implementation process.
When you create an Audience using the User -> Member Of option and you specify a Windows security group (group ABC), if any of the users in group ABC also have group ABC as their primary group, it will not find that user.
The reason is because the LDAP query only searches the memberOf attribute in the metadata of each user object, and AD does not store any reference to the primary group information in memberOf, but instead it stores it as an integer in the primaryGroupID attribute.
The easiest way to solve this is to change the Primary Group of the affected users by opening the user account in AD and clicking on [Member Of] tab. You can change the Primary group by selecting a group name, and clicking on [Set Primary Group]. Unless you are using a 3rd party product that requires specific primary groups, the primary group should be set to Domain Users by default.
The other workaround that Microsoft suggested is not even worth repeating.
If you need to reference the open Microsoft support case, send me an email and I’ll give you the case ID.
Local Administrators have full access to WSS sites
By default, any user that is a member of the local machines Administrators group will have full access to all SharePoint sites in your portal. You can disable this behavior with the following hotfix: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/892295/
Static IP in IIS
Your SPS Web sites cannot have a static IP defined in the IIS configuration. It must be set to (All Unassigned). This is by design.
Create custom templates for your WSS sites
The following procedure will allow you to create a custom site template that can be used whenever creating a new site.
1) Create a new site and set up everything the way you want it.
2) Navigate to: Site Settings -> Go to Site Administration -> Save Site as Template
3) Save it as c:\someDir\myTemplate.stp
4) Import the template into the SPS database and make it available for site creators by using the stsadm tool:
stsadm.exe -o addtemplate -filename c:\someDir\myTemplate.stp -title "My Custom Template" -description "A custom WSS template."
5) Now when you create a new site, you will see "My Custom Template" as an option.
6) stsadm.exe/? for more options including enumeration and removal of templates.
Create a custom link in Portal Site Map
The quick launch bar (the vertical link bar on the left) does not directly allow custom links to be added, only links to Areas that you create. This is how to do it without modifying the underlying source:
1) From the portal home page, click on Site Settings -> Manage portal site structure
2) Now you have to pretend that each new "Area" you create is really just a link. Determine where you want to add the custom link, then either Create Area (or link), or Create Sub Area (or link).
** Deleting or editing an existing link/area will directly impact the Area and all data, so make sure you don’t do that until you understand how this all works.
3) Now click on the [Edit] menu option for the new Area you just created.
4) Click on the [Page] tab.
5) In "Area Templates", change the option to: "This area uses the following page as a template".
6) Change the textbox to whatever link you want, ex: http://www.crgitsolutions.com
7) Click [Ok], and you now have a custom link in the portal site map.
Disable Front-Page editing of your sites pages
I strongly recommend you put some manual labor into editing your SPS/WSS pages, as using Front-page only causes more headaches then its worth.
This article explains how to disable editing all together:
http://www.kbalertz.com/kb_838117.aspx
All lists are not created equal
Some of the pre-defined list types are not as functional as others, and you should be aware of this before you use them for production tasks.
For instance, the Attendee list in Meeting Workspaces can not be edited in a datasheet (or Access), exported, nor can it have its existing column settings modified.
If you are already in this situation, check this out:
http://www.sharepointblogs.com/vandest/archive/2006/02/23/5313.aspx
Otherwise, create a custom list to store your Attendees.