Applying Master Pages with Extranet Collaboration Manager 2010

by Matthew McBride, Software Division

Extranet Collaboration Manager 2010  (ExCM) is a SharePoint add-in developed by SharePoint Solutions that streamlines SharePoint extranet collaboration and simplifies SharePoint extranet administration. In ExCM, a master page can be applied to the anonymous pages (registration, sign-in, and password reset) to achieve a desired look and feel.  There are three options when selecting a master page:

• ExCM anonymous master page (vanilla)
• Site default master page
• Custom master page

You should consider two factors when choosing the master page for your site:  branding and anonymous access.  You also need to take into account the anonymous access configuration of your Web Application and the site that will run the anonymous pages.

SharePoint Life Cycle Management

Most organizations lack a formal SharePoint life cycle management process. What frequently happens is a company finds itself facing uncontrolled SharePoint growth. SharePoint quickly becomes a disheveled mass of new sites, old sites, stale sites, and even duplicate sites. Left to their own devices, users begin creating business-critical applications in obscure SharePoint sites that IT doesn’t even know about. Without proper guidance and controls for style, navigation or branding, every team, department and business unit has a site that looks and feels different from everybody else’s. Further complicating the matter, SharePoint users (you know, those folks who have to do their jobs in order to keep the doors open and the paychecks flowing) become disillusioned because the uncontrolled SharePoint growth negatively impacts the relevance of search results, making it more difficult for them to find the content they are looking for. Decision-makers come to realize that without the proper tools, it is costly to manage SharePoint.

SharePoint Governance Plan

Is SharePoint 2010 Governance Planning on your mind?  Not sure where to start? In the Microsoft TechNet topic entitled Plan site creation and maintenance (SharePoint Server 2010), Microsoft is quick to point out that before you deploy and make sites available to users, you will need to answer questions such as:

• Do you want to tightly control site creation or to allow many users to create sites?
• At which level in the site hierarchy should additional sites be created?
• How do you find and remove unused sites in your environment?