Datasheet

One major difference between SharePoint 2007 and SharePoint Portal Server 2003 is related to the
default setting of the Collaboration Portal. In SharePoint Portal Server 2003, the portal was completely
separate from the site collections beneath it. In SharePoint 2007, the portal is part of the same site col-
lection as the remainder of the sites created beneath it. When designing your portal environment, you
can keep the portal and all divisional and collaborative sites within a single site collection. However,
if you prefer the SPS 2003 method, you can configure the portal to create new site collections when
subsites are created from a special site known as the Sites Directory.
In the first exercise for this book, you create a new site collection based on the Collaboration Portal tem-
plate, which will be known in all future exercises as the Corporate Intranet site.
Try It Out Create a Site Collection
When learning an application such as SharePoint, it is a good idea to create an area where you can per-
form exercises without impacting existing environments or users. Therefore, as your first exercise, you
create a site collection based on the Collaboration Portal template that will act as the starting location for
many of the exercises in this book. This site collection is based on the Collaboration Portal template,
which you selected because it closely matches the requirements of most organizations for an intranet
site. From this site, you can create many of the content elements such as lists, libraries, and workflows
that are required for the next four chapters.
To create a new site collection, you must visit the Central Administration site of your SharePoint envi-
ronment. If you are unsure what the address for this site is, you should contact your system administra-
tor or the person who installed SharePoint. You may also access the Central Administration site by
logging directly into the server and selecting SharePoint 3.0 Central Administration from the Microsoft
Office Server option on the Programs menu.
1. Log into the SharePoint Central Administration site for your server farm.
2. Select the Applications tab.
3. Select the Create a Site Collection link from the SharePoint Site Management group of links. You
are redirected to a page where you must provide information to create the site.
4. The first item in your list of things to identify is the web application on which you will create
the site. Make sure that the web application you select is the correct application. If it is not, you
can click the down arrow to the right of the selected web application and click Change Web
Application.
Typically, you create most SharePoint sites under the web application that is hosted on port 80 so that
end users do not have to see a port number in the address of their sites. For example, a web address of
http://servername is much nicer than http://servername:32124. If you are unsure which applica-
tion to select, ask your system administrator or the person who installed SharePoint.
5. To create a site, you must provide a title, description, and URL for the site. Name the site
Corporate Intranet Site and enter the following description:
Collaborative portal for practicing exercises within the Beginning SharePoint 2007
book.
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Chapter 1: Getting Started with Microsoft Office SharePoint Server
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