MOSS Role Based Templates

7 New Role-based templates for Moss (known as the Splendid 7).

 These templates look really interesting and are definately a great idea to access important job/role information in a graphical/dashboard interface.

View templates here.
http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/sharepointserver/HA102147321033.aspx

Read more about templates here.
http://blogs.msdn.com/sharepoint/archive/2007/01/22/announcing-role-based-templates-for-sharepoint-my-sites.aspx

HotFix: Fixes error when creating My Sites

Issue that the hotfix package fixes

This hotfix package fixes the following issue that was not previously documented in a Microsoft Knowledge Base article:

A user tries to create a My Site site in a portal site that has the Enable Self-Service Site Creation setting enabled in SharePoint Server 2007. However, the user cannot create the site. Instead, the user receives the following error message:

There has been an error creating the personal site. Contact your site administrator for more information.

 

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/937207

 

MOSS Development Environment

I am in the process of setting up a clients MOSS development environment and reasearching various ways things can be achieved. I did some browsing a couple of weeks ago and didn’t find much content. But then on Monday I came across an article written by Microsoft (realeased April 2007) explaining the how to configure MOSS for Team-base development.

This article discusses two different forms of development that demand different development environments, namely assembly and artifact:

• Assembly: Similar to traditional application development using Visual Studio to develop webparts, site/list definitions, etc…
• Artifact: This relates to the look and feel of the site (master pages, css) and relates more to content.

What I found interesting was that the assembly development environment is based on the traditional form.
–> development –> progress to testing –> progress to production

But the artifact development environment is actually considered a production environment as MOSS has an inbuilt workflow approval process for content modfications.
–> production authoring environment –> production environment

I think this is just the article I was looking for 🙂

MOSS 2007 Setup Accounts

Installing MOSS 2007 in a farm environment requires a few dedicated accounts and can be quite a confusing process. I came across a couple of great resources so I thought I would save you the heart ache and post them here. 

This information was found on TechNet and in Bill English’s book Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 Administrator’s Companion

It is strongly recommended that you use a dedicated account to log in and install Windows SharePoint Services and SharePoint Server 2007 servers. This account can also be used as the identity of the Central Administration site application pool, or it can be unique. By design, the Welcome menu displays “system account” if that account is used to log on to any application pool or Web site. This behavior continues even if the application pool identity is changed to the Network Service. This means your administrator account should not be used as an application pool identity or to install an SharePoint Server 2007 server.

Account	Purpose	Scope	Used By	Needed	Requirements
Setup User	User account that is used to run setup on each server.	Farm	Person installing	Setup	Member of the administrator group on each Web front-end (WFE) server and application server computer in the farm. Member of the following SQL Server groups with SQL Security administrator and database creator rights on SQL servers.
SQL Server Service	This is the security context used By Central Administration for creating databases and other SQL configurations.	Farm	MSSQLSERVER, SQLSERVERAGENT	Setup	Member of the administrators group on each server on which setup runs, administrators group on each SQL Server computer, database system administrator, and member of the SQL security administrator and database creator SQL Server groups.
Server Farm	This account is also referred to as the database access account.	Farm	Central administration site application pool identity	Setup	Member of administrators group on each WFE server and application server computer in the farm with SQL security administrator and database creator rights on SQL Servers. Database Owner (DBO) for all databases and additional permissions on WFE server and application server computers are automatically configured for this account when SharePoint is installed.
SSP App Pool		App	SSP App Pool Identity	SSP Creation	No configuration is necessary. The following permissions are automatically configured for this account when SharePoint is installed: DBO for the Share Service Provider (SSP) content database, read/write permissions for the SSP content database, read/write permissions for content databases for Web applications that are associated with the SSP, read permissions for the configuration database, read permissions for the central administration content database, and additional permissions on WFE server and application server computers
SSP Service Account	Used to run timer jobs and for interserver communications.	Farm	SSP Timer service; SSP Web services	SSP Creation	Same as SSP App Pool Account
Windows SharePoint Services Search	Used as the service account for the Windows SharePoint Services Search service. There is only one instance of this service, and it is used by all SSPs.	Farm	Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 Search service	SSP Creation	Must be a domain account, but must not be a member of the farm administrators group. Permissions automatically configured for this account when SharePoint is installed include the following: read/write permissions for content databases for Web applications, read permissions for the configuration database, and read/write permissions for the Windows SharePoint Services Search database
Search Default Content Access Account	The default account used by a specific SSP to crawl content. It is used when an account is not specified for a content source.	App	Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 Search service	SSP Creation	Must be a domain account, but must not be a member of the farm administrators group. It requires read access to external or secure content sources that you want to crawl using this account. Additional permissions for this account are automatically configured when SharePoint is installed.
Search Specific Content Access Account	This is an optional account that is configured to replace the default content access account to crawl a specific content source.	Rule	Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 Search service	Create a new crawl rule	Read access to external or secure content sources that this account is configured to access.
User Profile and Properties Content Access Account	Account used to connect to a directory service, such as Active Directory, a Lightweight Directory Access Protocol (LDAP) directory, Business Data Catalog (BDC) application, or other directory source and used to import profile data from a directory service. Note: If no account is specified, the Search Default Content Access account is used. If the Search Default Content Access account does not have read access to the directory or directories that you want to import data from, you will need to specify a different account. You should plan for one account per directory connection.	App	Profile Import	SSP Creation	Read access to the directory service. For an Active Directory service connection that enables Server Side Incremental, the account must have the Replicate Changes permissions for Active Directory directory services provided by Windows 2000 Server. This permission is not required for Windows 2003 Active Directory. Manage user profiles right. View rights on entities used in Business Data Catalog import connections.
Excel Services Unattended Service Account	Excel Calculation Services uses this account to connect to data sources that require user name and password strings for authentication. The SSP App Pool account is used if none is specified. For security, plan to use a low-privileged account that does not have the database privileges of the SSP App Pool Account.	App	Excel Services Service	SSP Creation	Read/write access to the Excel data sources.
App Pool Identity	Used to access content databases associated with the Web application. Plan one for each application pool.	App	Web Applications	App Pool Creation	No configuration is necessary. SQL Server privileges that are automatically assigned to this account are member of Database Owners Group for content databases associated with the Web application, read/write access to the associated SSP database only, and read permission for the configuration database. Additional privileges for this account on WFE servers and application servers are automatically configured by SharePoint.