Create Nested Sub-site With ChangeBot (Relative URL)

We always recommend you create a site collection for every extranet site you create. There are many reasons why this is the preferred method, however, some of our customers have found that multiple levels of sub-sites are best for their environment. These customers still want to use ChangeBot to automatically create sites, add users, and other general maintenance items on these nested sub-sites but run into an issue with how to populate the URL. Do you allow your users to manually enter it and possible have a typo?

Below are the steps for setting up your ChangeBot Request Profile so that you can successfully build your Relative URL and provision a site at a subsite level. In the steps below, we have two variables that can be populated with a drop down box (Inputs.Subsite and Inputs.SiteTitle) and the key to making it work correctly is in Step 10... using $inputs.Subsite/$Inputs.SiteTitle to define our Subsite and sub-subsite title to form the URL.

Example Usage:

1. Create an Input Property cooresponding to the subsite name
2. Generate site collection property output through Create Site Collection Activity
3. Create a new activity in the execution plan of your request profile
4. Set the Activity Type to Create Site
5. Click the function button next to the Site Collection box
6. Click the Property Group drop down and select Execution Properties
7. Click the Property drop down and select the Properties.[SiteCollectionProperty] that was previously defined
   

ChangeBot’s PowerShell Activity – Set an AD Group as Site Collection Administrator

This post is the first in a series where we will look at how to accomplish certain tasks utilizing ChangeBot’s PowerShell Activity (available in ChangeBot Premium Edition).  ChangeBot already offers you 50 (70 if you use our ExCM product) activities to accomplish a plethora of site administration and user change request actions. If something you want to accomplish can’t be done via one of those activities, then the PowerShell activity can come to the rescue. 

With the combination of ChangeBot’s already powerful activities and the ability to run a PowerShell script as an activity – there really isn’t much that you can’t automate, audit, and run through a proper approval process, when utilizing ChangeBot. You might even have existing PowerShell scripts you need to occasionally run. Why not put official procedures around the process and let ChangeBot execute the PowerShell scripts via a user request form.

Using SPGA’s Governance Features – Automating Change Requests, such as Adding Users to SharePoint Groups

The letters SPGA stand for Site Provisioning and Governance Assistant. There is certainly a lot of governance that is covered in the initial site provisioning process, such as always having proper approvals, and having the sites stamped out to your exact specifications each time without failure. To paraphrase something SharePoint MVP Dan Holme said at SPC 14:

If a policy isn’t enforced by the technology, it’s not a policy, it’s a guideline.
 
This is exactly what SPGA does, it uses technology to enforce your governance standards. While most purchase SPGA for its ease of site provisioning, while maintaining those governance standards, what about activities that occur post-site creation (i.e. end user change requests)?
The single most important post-site creation item that comes to mind for most organizations, would be adding users to groups. If you care about governance in your environment, you probably have some policies regarding who gets access to what. If you allow your users access to maintain their own groups, how is the technology enforcing those policies? It’s probably not, so they are just guidelines.

Here are a few top benefits of using SPGA to manage your group membership:

• Your SharePoint environment will be more secure than ever because you can now easily ensure that you’ll never have unauthorized access to a site
• For the first time ever, you can use approval workflows to approve security modifications.
• You can finally answer the previously unanswerable question, “how did user X get access to the HR site?” 

This article will detail how to create a SPGA Request Profile, for adding users to groups on their site.
Besides the governance process mentioned above, I’ll give you two more benefits of using SPGA to add users to groups. First, how many times are your SharePoint administrators called because a site owner has removed their own access to the site trying to modify permissions? I’ve been there, I know it happens. Managing permissions in SharePoint can be complicated to those that don’t manage permissions frequently.

SharePoint Site Provisioning and Governance Assistant (SPGA) Free Edition - Installation and Demo Video

A couple of weeks ago, we released the Free Edition of SharePoint Site Provisioning and Governance Assistant (SPGA 2010 and 2013).  You can read about it here if you missed the announcement.

We also recorded the webinar that we recorded last week about the new product.  Here is a 30 minute excerpt that we uploaded to YouTube that gives you a quick overview of the product and an actual installation and usage demo.  The live demo starts 3 minutes and 10 seconds into the clip:

Enterprise-ready SharePoint Self-Service Site Collection Creation for FREE

In previous posts, I discussed the pain involved with creating new site collections in an enterprise environment.  There was a tease in my last post about a free solution for this.  We've been excited about this for several months and it's finally here.  Site Provisioning and Governance Assistant - Free Edition is now available from PremierPoint Solutions.

SPGA Free fills all the deficiencies with both manual site collection creation and SharePoint's self-service site creation.

With SPGA Free, administrators define the types of sites available for request, along with other optional parameters, such as who to assign as site collection administrators, where the site goes in your farm, and which quota template should be used.  Those optional parameters can also be directed by the information completed in the request form if you choose.  Your users have a place to easily fill out a form and start the process.  Standard SharePoint approval workflows may be used to ensure proper approvals are obtained prior to provisioning.

This is very exciting news for SharePoint administrators.  Best of all it is completely free, and you can get it installed, configured, and provisioning sites in less than an hour.  

I really think this could be a real game changer for SharePoint administrators and users everywhere.  Give SPGA Free a try and let us know what you think.

SPGA Free Edition Quick FAQ

• Where do I get more information on the new free edition of SPGA?
• What is the difference between the SPGA product PremierPoint Solutions has sold for years and this new free edition?
• How can I get support?
• SPGA Free has a full set of documentation, including articles, to help you in installing, configuring, and using the product - click here to view.
• What if my company requires or desires a formal support contract for this product?
• You do have the option of utilizing PremierPoint Solution's professionally staffed support engineers to receive the same level of support available with the Premium Edition of SPGA.  Click here for more information on obtaining formal support.
• I'd like to use the free edition to start.  What if I decide to upgrade to Premium or just want to try the premium edition out at some point?
• The installer is the exact same.  The features that are active are based on your license key.  So you may start with the Free Edition, and then trial or purchase the Premium Edition and simply update your license key.

Enterprise Ready Self-Service Site Creation

In my previous article, What process do you use to provide new SharePoint site collections to your users, I made mention of SharePoint's out-of-the-box self-service site creation process not being an enterprise ready solution.  This is a widely accepted opinion for very valid reasons. 

Working as a SharePoint Administrator, and with other administrators, there are two main reasons self-service site creation is not a viable enterprise solution.  The first is lack of approvals.  There should be someone, or some team, that ensures the request makes sense for your SharePoint environment.  Without approvals, there is no way to do so.  Everyone I have worked with required some sort of approval process, usually a business owner over an area and an IT approval as well.  You don't want the approval to become a bottleneck, just a brief stop along the way that ensures the integrity of your SharePoint environment.

What process do you use to provide new SharePoint site collections to your users?

A better way to create SharePoint sites is a topic that has been around as long as SharePoint itself.  There are many pain points to the process that any SharePoint administrator, and user for that matter, go through.  Let’s just start off by making the assumption that you want a little more control than what self-service site creation offers.  Some SharePoint experts have commented that self-service site creation in SharePoint is not an enterprise ready solution.  My next my post will go into more details on that topic and offer a solution that is enterprise ready, but in this post I’d like to share some of the problems from my experience and give our readers a chance to chime in. 

So let’s discuss what you do based on the above assumption that you require something better than SharePoint’s out-of-the-box self-service site creation.  

SPGA 2013: A Site Vending Machine

Recently we announced the release of our newest software add-on: 
Site Provisioning and Governance Assistant for SharePoint 2013 (SPGA 2013).

The beauty of SPGA 2013 is that it enables every site to be provisioned just the way you want it – every single time. It’s a site vending machine that generates on demand, uniformly and automatically.

Why is this so important?

Case Study: Plante Moran is saving $260,000 By Automating Creation of New Sites

Approving new SharePoint site requests and creating and provisioning these sites, while struggling to maintain the uniformity of your taxonomy, look-and-feel, and governance standards, can quickly eat up your IT department's time and resources. Site Provisioning and Governance Assistant for SharePoint 2010 (SPGA) is a tool from SharePoint Solutions which can completely automate this process from request right through to provisioning, saving your IT department countless hours of labor.  A completely automated “set it and forget it” site creation solution! In our new Case Study, read how Plante Moran, one of the nation’s largest CPA and business advisory firms, has saved more than $260,000 and in excess of 3,500 man hours –so far—using this remarkable product.

SPGA Now Provides Site Lifecycle Management for SharePoint 2010

by Tony Bierman

Today we’ve released a significant update to our Site Provisioning and Governance Assistant for SharePoint 2010 product. Prior to this release, SPGA was already a great tool for managing the process of requesting and creating new SharePoint 2010 sites. With the addition of these new site lifecycle management features, SPGA users can now manage the entire SharePoint 2010 site lifecycle from creation to expiration and decommissioning.

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?

Recorded Webinar: Site Provisioning and Governance Assistant for SharePoint 2010

Yesterday's Site Provisioning and Governance Assistant for SharePoint 2010 webinar was very well attended. Based on the webinar's turnout and the multitude of questions we received from participants, there is certainly a lot of interest in the features SPGA 2010 has to offer for SharePoint site creation and governance. Who can blame you for wanting to stop wasting so much valuable time creating, managing and governing SharePoint sites? It just makes sense that so many people are looking for a solution like SPGA 2010 to automate these processes.

Just Released: Our Cool New Site Provisioning and Governance Tool

SharePoint Solutions is pleased to announce the release of our newest SharePoint 2010 software add-on, Site Provisioning and Governance Assistant for SharePoint 2010 (SPGA 2010). The “cool factor” on this one is off the charts and you’re going to want to check it out.

As an IT professional, you know how hard it can be to maintain the kind of control you want on SharePoint 2010 sites. New sites propagate like bunnies and can quickly get out of hand, often leaving you with a backlog of work to get them approved, created and provisioned the way you want – keeping your organization’s taxonomy, governance, and look-and-feel intact.

Not any more.

SPGA 2010 allows you to create site request profiles, from which your users can select the kind of site they need. You set all the boundaries on the front end, including workflow for approvals if you like. Then, when a user fills out the site request form, they set into motion an automated set of processes that quickly and automatically approve, create, and provision the site. There’s no way they can mess up your site uniformity or company standards, because you’ve baked everything into the profile in advance.

Is that cool or what?

Users are empowered; your workload is reduced; everybody’s happy.

Take a moment and look over the SPGA 2010 product page. You’ll be amazed at the difference that this powerful tool can make in your life.