SharePoint User Permissions

When SharePoint is installed, by default it will create a set of Permissions, which can be viewed by “Central Administration” => “Application Management” => “Manage WebApplications” => Highlight the WebApplication => Click on “User Permission”.



To secure the contents at various levels within SharePoint sites, it is these permissions that has to be enabled by the administrators. Each permission has a level of it’s own which can be; List, Site or Personal.

These Permissions are grouped/combined to create the Permission Levels. 

List level Permissions…

Permission	Description	Type	Permission Level
Manage Lists	Create and delete lists, add or remove columns in a list, and add or remove public views of a list.	List	Full Control, Design, Manage Hierarchy
Override Check Out	Discard or check in a document that is checked out to another user.	List	Full Control, Design, Approve, Manage Hierarchy
Add Items	Add items to lists, and add documents to document libraries.	List	Full Control, Design, Contribute, Approve, Manage Hierarchy
Edit Items	Edit items in lists, edit documents in document libraries, and customize Web Part pages in document libraries.	List	Full Control, Design, Contribute, Approve, Manage Hierarchy
Delete Items	Delete items from a list, and documents from a document library.	List	Full Control, Design, Contribute, Approve, Manage Hierarchy
View Items	View items in lists, and documents in document libraries.	List	Full Control, Design, Contribute, Read, Approve, Manage Hierarchy, Restricted Read
Approve Items	Approve a minor version of a list item or document.	List	Full Control, Design, Approve
Open Items	View the source of documents with server-side file handlers.	List	Full Control, Design, Contribute, Read, Approve, Manage Hierarchy, Restricted Read
View Versions	View past versions of a list item or document	List	Full Control, Design, Contribute, Read, Approve, Manage Hierarchy
Delete Versions	Delete past versions of a list item or document.	List	Full Control, Design, Contribute, Approve, Manage Hierarchy
Create Alerts	Create alerts	List	Full Control, Design, Contribute, Read, Approve, Manage Hierarchy
View Application Pages	View forms, views, and application pages; enumerate lists.	List	Full Control, Design, Contribute, Read, Approve, Manage Hierarchy

Site level Permissions…

Permission	Description	Type	Permission Level
Manage Permissions	Create and change permission levels on the website and assign permissions to users and groups.	Site	Full Control, Manage Hierarchy
View Web Analytics Data	View reports on website usage.	Site	Full Control, Manage Hierarchy
Create Subsites	Create subsites such as Team sites, Meeting Workspace sites, and Document Workspace sites.	Site	Full Control, Manage Hierarchy
Manage Web Site	Grant the ability to perform all administrative tasks for the website, as well as manage content.	Site	Full Control, Manage Hierarchy
Add and Customize Pages	Add, change, or delete HTML pages or Web Part pages, and edit the website using a Microsoft SharePoint Foundation compatible editor.	Site	Full Control, Design, Manage Hierarchy
Apply Themes and Borders	Apply a theme or borders to the entire website	Site	Full Control, Design
Apply Style Sheets	Apply a style sheet (.CSS file) to the website.	Site	Full Control, Design
Create Groups	Create a group of users that can be used anywhere within the site collection.	Site	Full Control
Browse Directories	Enumerate files and folders in a website using SharePoint Designer and WebDAV interfaces.	Site	Full Control, Design, Contribute, Approve, Manage Hierarchy
Use Self- Service Site Creation	Create a website using Self- Service Site Creation	Site	Read, Contribute, Design, Full Control
View Pages	View pages in a website.	Site	Full Control, Design, Contribute, Read, Approve, Manage Hierarchy, Restricted Read
Enumerate Permissions	Enumerate permissions on the website, list, folder, document, or list item.	Site	Full Control, Manage Hierarchy
Browse User Information	View information about users of the website.	Site	Full Control, Design, Contribute, Read, Limited Access, Approve, Manage Hierarchy
Manage Alerts	Manage alerts for all users of the website.	Site	Full Control, Manage Hierarchy
Use Remote Interfaces	Use SOAP, Web DAV, the Client Object Model, or SharePoint Designer interfaces to access the website.	Site	Full Control, Design, Contribute, Read, Approve, Manage Hierarch
Use Client Integration Features	Use features that launch client applications. Without this permission, users must work on documents locally and upload their changes.	Site	Full Control, Design, Contribute, Read, Limited Access, Approve, Manage Hierarchy
Open	Allow users to open a website, list, or folder in order to access items inside that container.	Site	Full Control, Design, Contribute, Read, Limited Access, Approve, Manage Hierarchy, Restricted Read
Edit Personal User Information	Allow a user to change his own user information, such as adding a picture.	Site	Full Control, Design, Contribute, Approve, Manage Hierarchy

Personal level Permissions…

Permission	Description	Type	Permission Level
Manage Personal Views	Manage Personal Views	Personal	Full Control, Design, Contribute, Approve, Manage Hierarchy
Add/Remove Personal Views	Add or remove personal Web Parts on a Web Part page.	Personal	Full Control, Design, Contribute, Approve, Manage Hierarchy
Update Personal Web Parts	Update Web Parts to display personalized information	Personal	Full Control, Design, Contribute, Approve, Manage Hierarchy

A blog post on Permission levels soon to be released.

Manage SharePoint Farm Administrators

To Manage SharePoint 2010 Farm Administrators, follow the steps given below.

Go to “Central Administration”, select “Security” and go to “Manage the Farm Administrators Group”. Within this screen we can manage the Farm Administrators.

To remove a user, select the user by clicking on the checkbox on the leftmost column, go to “Actions” and click on “Remove Users from Group”.

(The reason why I wrote this simple blog post is, in one of the popular SharePoint 2010 Administration books I read recently, they have guided the reader in a wrong path)

Corporate portal with classic authentication or with claims-based authentication

These design samples illustrate a typical corporate deployment, with the most common types of SharePoint sites represented. The two samples differ only in the mode of authentication that is implemented -- one uses classic authentication and one uses claims-based authentication.

You can download it in PDF, Visio or in XPS formats from here.

Fortune 500 Companies Using SharePoint

Below text is extracted from an article written by Julian Corlaci about Fortune 500 companies using Microsoft SharePoint.

“Microsoft is still claiming SharePoint Server as the fastest growing product in company history, which is very impressive coming from such a diversified software maker powerhouse.”

“According to Association for Information and Image Management (AIIM) one in two corporations are now using SharePoint Server and in 22% of the companies, every employee uses this popular Microsoft collaboration tool. SharePoint usage is widely spread due to its complex collaboration structure and its flexibility. From enterprise search, enterprise content management (ECM), Business Process Management, business intelligence, records management, archiving, Intranet/Extranet, file sharing to public-facing websites, which will be covered in this article.”

Read More

Nothing But SharePoint ( www.nothingbut sharepoint.com)

www.nothingbutsharepoint.com, a wonderful community site, totally dedicated to SharePoint. Public launch happened today.

Give it a try.

Free Sessions - Claims Based Authentication and Visio Services in SharePoint 2010

Sri Lanka .NET Forum

.NET User Group Meeting – December 2010

Session1: Claims based authentication SharePoint Server 2010 utilizes a new authentication model called claims-based authentication(CBA). CBA is based on the concept of identity and utilizes open source standards and protocols so that it works with any corporate identity system, not just Active Directory and not just Windows-based systems. Lean how SharePoint 2010 has expanded its authentication mechanism beyond Windows Authentication and Forms Authentication. Session 2: Visio Services in SharePoint 2010 A picture is worth a thousand words, and Visio provides the canvas and the tools to create drawings that represent ideas and concepts ranging from network topologies to landscape design, and process diagrams to UML. Using Visio you can connect the information stored across disparate repositories to shapes, and now the drawing is dynamic instead of static.   Speaker: Prabath Fonseka Software Architect - IronOne Technologies MSc. in Advanced Software Engineering MCPD, MCTS, MCP Date: 3rd December 2010 (Thursday) Time: 6.00 PM Onwards Venue: Training Room (Sithuvili) , 11th, DHPL Building, Colombo 02 Entrance: Free

Deploy Project Server 2010 on SharePoint 2010

By any chance if you come across the requirement of installing and configuring Microsoft Project Server 2010, technet has provided a nice and easy guide of deploying Project Server 2010.

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc197280.aspx

In this section:

• Deploy Project Server 2010 to a server farm environment
  This series of articles describes the steps necessary to install Microsoft Project Server 2010 in a server farm environment. This includes installing and configuring Project Server, creating a Microsoft Project Web App site, and configuring reporting.
• Deploy Project Server 2010 to a test environment
  This series of articles describes deploying a test installation of Microsoft Project Server 2010 in a virtual environment. The purpose of this series is as follows:
• Install Project Server 2010 to a stand-alone computer
  Microsoft Project Server 2010 can be installed in a stand-alone configuration that uses Microsoft SQL Server 2008 Express. This configuration is useful for demonstration, but should not be used for a production environment.
• TechNet Webcast: Project Server 2010 upgrade and migration
  This Microsoft TechNet Webcast discusses Microsoft Project Server 2010 features, requirements, and deployment considerations that IT professionals need to know about.
• TechNet Webcast: Project Server 2010 - Backwards Compatibility Mode
  This Microsoft TechNet Webcast discusses the Microsoft Project Server 2010 Backwards Compatibility Mode (BCM) feature, which helps you to accelerate deployment of Microsoft Project 2010.
• In-place upgrade to Project Server 2010
  This article describes the process of doing an in-place upgrade from Microsoft Office Project Server 2007 to Project Server 2010.
• Database-attach full upgrade to Project Server 2010
  This article describes how to do a database-attach full upgrade to Project Server 2010, in which you back up the required databases in the old farm and then restore them in the new farm.
• Database-attach core upgrade to Project Server 2010
  This article describes how to do a database-attach core upgrade to Project Server 2010, in which you are basically using backup copies of your Office Project Server 2007 databases that contain your project data.
• Virtual migration environment (VME) guide for Project Server 2010
  The Project Server VME is a virtualized Office Project Server 2007 environment that contains all the necessary applications and utilities required to migrate Microsoft Office Project Server 2003 data to Office Project Server 2007. To migrate from Project Server 2003 to Project Server 2010, first you must migrate your data to Office Project Server 2007 format.
• Upgrade to Project Server 2010 from Project Server 2003
  This series of articles provides information and procedures about how to migrate from Microsoft Office Project Server 2003 to Project Server 2010.
• Deploy language packs (Project Server 2010)
  Microsoft Project Server 2010 language packs enable Project Server 2010 users to view Microsoft Project Web App and project sites in multiple languages without requiring separate installations of Project Server 2010.
• Deploy Project Server 2010 with Exchange Server
  These articles describe how to configure integration with Exchange Server, enabling Microsoft Project Server 2010 users to view Project Server tasks in Microsoft Outlook.

SharePoint 2010 Farm Topologies

Normally a SharePoint Farm topology vary on number of factors.

1) Number of users.
2) Redundancy requirements.
3) Service applications being used.

Looking back at SharePoint 2007, it was SSP (aka Shared Service Provider) we had. But with the new service applications model in SP 2010 the users have greater flexibility in deployments.

Given below are the different Farm Topologies used in SP 2010 Deployments.

Single Server Farm
This is ideal for a user base of less than 100. This farm consists of a single server catering the requirement of the Web Front End (WFE), Database Server and the Application Server.

Two Server Farm
This farm is equipped with one Database Server and one Webserver that performs all the application services. For high availability a clustered or mirrored database server is recommended. This farm can cater the requirement of 100 to 10,000 user base.

Two-Tier Small Farm
This environment is adequate for a user base of 10,000 to 20,000 with low service usage. Two Web Servers, one Web Server performing the tasks of the Application Server and the Database Server (clustered or mirrored).

Three-Tier Small Farm
Three-Tier small farm is much more similar to a Two-Tier Small Farm. A dedicated Application Server is added to cater the requirements of the Services. To improve the performance of the Search Service a the Search Database can be moved to a dedicated Database server. This Farm Topology is ideal for a solution with a Search Database containing nearly 10 million items which can be considered as a large Search Database. Though its optional, it’s a good practice to have a Database Cluster or a mirror.

Medium Farm
This is a Three-Tier Farm. The general rule in planning is to have 10,000 users for a WFE Server. In the First Tier we can utilize two or more Web Servers. In the Second Tier there are two servers dedicated to crawling contents and serving search queries and one or more servers for all other application services. In the Third Tier there are dedicated servers for Search Databases and one or more servers can be used for all other SharePoint Databases.

The middle tier can be expanded to to handle the growth by adding more servers to cater the requirement of application services.
*optional servers are in gray color.

Large Farm
A Large Farm is built on the Server Group concept as it used in the Medium Farm. Additionally a Large Farm could consist of dedicated servers for Sandboxed code.

It's always recommended to use the concept of “server groups” to group services with similar performance characteristics together onto a single server and then add servers based on the needs of those particular services.

Visual Studio 2010 and SharePoint 2010 Launch at SLIIT

SLIIT is one of the most popular Universities in Sri Lanka. I was invited to host two technical sessions in the month of August for the launch of VS 2010 and SP 2010.

The first session was on Visual Studio 2010. Covered most of the new and cool features of VS 2010 IDE.

My second session was all about my love SharePoint 2010. Actually this was a totally new experience for most of the participants as it was the first time they heard about SharePoint. But feedback I received made me amazed, session was a kick start for many students.

Read Uditha’s Blog for more pics.

ASP.NET Workshop at Wayamba University

This was a two day session. I was invited as a guest speaker to host a session on ASP.NET. The attendees were very enthusiastic about the session. As it was a Workshop they were managed to work on Visual Studio and to create ASP.NET applications.

Visual Studio is a product which can be used to develop applications without having a clue about basic concepts or core of it. But as a techie, that’s something I strongly refuse to do nor guide anybody. So with the chance I got, I hosted the session giving an introduction on how ASP.NET handles a client requests.

Thanks to Mr. Wellington, Microsoft Student Champs and to Wayamba Uni Team.

I was at Tech.Ed 2010 Sri Lanka

Yep I’m way too late to publish this post. But today I found few community sessions I did, which I couldn’t publish in my blog, so its always better to be late than never.

It was in February 2010, Microsoft Sri Lanka organized Tech-Ed 2010 Sri Lanka. The second day, 9th February 2010 was a remarkable day for me. I was invited to host a 1 hour Session on Microsoft Wrokflow Foundation 4.0 by the organizing committee. Though 1 hour is not enough, I gave an introduction to WF and to the new features of WF 4.0.

Bruce Schneier, the security guru was one of the guest speakers. I was lucky to sit for a pic with him

SharePoint 2010 SDK

An updated version of SharePoint 2010 is available for download which is around 334Mb. The Microsoft SharePoint 2010 Software Development Kit (SDK) contains conceptual overviews, programming tasks, code samples, and references to guide you in developing solutions based on SharePoint 2010 products and technologies.

What’s New in this SDK Update

This free update replaces previous 2010 versions of the SDK and includes the following:

    * New code samples:  Silverlight List Viewer, plus new samples in Business Connectivity Services (BCS), Enterprise Content Management (ECM), and User Profiles and Social Data
    * Updated documentation, including: new and updated How To, reference , and conceptual content
    * Updated IntelliSense XML files for tooltips and auto-complete in Visual Studio

Here are two MSDN topics listing new and updated content and code samples in the AUG2010 version of the SDK (14.0.4763.1031):

    * What’s New in the SDK for SharePoint Foundation 2010
    * What’s New in the SDK for SharePoint Server 2010

A complete listing and description of the 44 code samples currently available in the SDK can be found here on MSDN Code Gallery: http://code.msdn.microsoft.com/sp2010sdk.

Have fun with SharePoint :)

SharePoint 2010 PowerShell Commands

I was playing with some PowerShell Commends. Suddenly came to my mind, how to get the whole SharePoint 2010 related PowerShell Commands. Simple as given below.

Open the PowerShell Window (aka SharePoint 2010 Management Shell), type the command…

Get-Command –PSSnapin “Microsoft.SharePoint.PowerShell” | select name, definition | format-list > C:\SP2010_PowerShell_Commands.txt

Have fun with PowerShell.

SharePoint 2010 for Developers

Today the 13th May, I did another successful presentations with demos on “SharePoint 2010 for Developers” at dotNetForum monthly session. Actually it’s a very special day to all the techies as 12th was the Global Launch of Office 2010 and SharePoint 2010.

Though it was bit warm without the air condition, there were over 100 attendees. In the two hour session I covered 3 main topics.
. What’s new in SharePoint 2010 (for Developers)
. Visual Studio 2010 tools for SharePoint
. Deploying SharePoint 2010 Web Parts.
With the time constraints, I was unable to cover the 4th topic, “Deploying SharePoint 2010 Workflows”.

My sincerer thanks to all the participants and special thanks to Jinath and Wela.

Business Process Automation with SharePoint and Workflow Foundation

Yeah, I know I’m late on this too. On Friday the 7th May 2010 at ANC auditorium I hosted a workshop on “Business Process Automation with SharePoint and Workflow Foundation. Actually it was my 1st workshop (Free of charge) at NetAssist, a nice crowd of over 90 participants were attended.

This workshop targeted both the Business users as well as the technical users. Started with an introduction to SharePoint 2007, followed by InfoPath 2007 forms and Workflow on SharePoint Designer and OOB Workflows. I’m happy as the Q&A session too went very well, many questions came from the business users. Photos after the brake. Thanks everybody who attended.

SharePoint 2010 and Office 2010 Global Launch

Are you ready for the BIG DAY? SharePoint 2010 and Office 2010 Global Launch. Watch the keynote done by Stephen Elop, President of the Microsoft Business Division, join the virtual launch conversation, and participate in on-demand sessions where you’ll learn more about how Microsoft products can solve the unique productivity challenges you’re facing as you look to the future.

Keynote is focused on...

• Deliver maximum productivity across PC, phone, and browser
• Enhance IT choice and flexibility
• Leverage a platform for developers to build innovative solutions

Microsoft SharePoint 2007 Development – Fun with Lists

List Management

List is more like a Table in a Database. Of all the tasks a SharePoint programmer can do in SharePoint, working with Lists is the mostly common task.
Namespace: Microsoft.SharePoint
Classes: SPList, SPListItem, SPListItemCollection

With MOSS 2007 and WSS, we get different kinds of lists. To name them…
. Announcements list
. Contacts list
. Discussion Board list
. Links list
. Calendar list
. Tasks list
. Project Tasks list
. Issue Tracking list
. Survey list
. Custom list
. Custom list in Datasheet view
. KPI list (SharePoint Server 2007 only)
. Languages and translators (SharePoint Server 2007 only)
. Import spreadsheet

This article doesn’t cover what SharePoint is or its usage. Targeted audience is the programmers who are already familiar with SharePoint who’s looking for a programming introduction to Lists in SharePoint and leverage the features of SPList and SPListCollection classes in SharePoint Object Model.

Enumerating Lists

Yes you see it right, its Lists. Before getting to the list items, let’s try to get a collection of lists implemented in a site. So basically in other words we are trying to enumerate through any SPListCollection instance.

First we need to create a SPSite object and get all webs in to a SPWeb object by calling the AllWebs() method of the SPSite object. Then it’s just a matter of iterating through the SPLists objects available in the SPWeb object.

Create a new C# console application and paste the code below changing the SPSite class’s input parameter url.

using System;
using System.Collections.Generic;
using System.Linq;
using System.Text;

using Microsoft.SharePoint;

namespace AllLists
{
class Program
{
static void Main(string[] args)
{
SPSite site = new SPSite("http://dc:8844");
SPWeb web = site.AllWebs[0];
foreach (SPList list in web.Lists)
{
Console.WriteLine("{0}{1} - {2} items.",
list.Hidden ? "*" : "",
list.Title, list.ItemCount);
Console.WriteLine("Created by {0}", list.Author.Name);
Console.WriteLine("{0}", list.Description);
Console.WriteLine("................................");
}
Console.WriteLine("\n{0} lists found.", web.Lists.Count);
Console.ReadKey();
}
}
}
 

Enumerating list items in Lists
It is the SPList you have to iterate through to find the SPListItem. But you might run in to some errors if you do the list iteration against a top level site collection instead of a team site.

using System;
using System.Collections.Generic;
using System.Linq;
using System.Text;

using Microsoft.SharePoint;

namespace AllLists
{
class Program
{
static void Main(string[] args)
{
SPSite site = new SPSite("http://dc:8844/sales/");
SPWeb web = site.AllWebs[0];
foreach (SPList list in web.Lists)
{
Console.WriteLine("{0}{1} - {2} items.",
list.Hidden ? "*" : "",
list.Title, list.ItemCount);
Console.WriteLine("Created by {0}", list.Author.Name);
Console.WriteLine("{0}", list.Description);
Console.WriteLine("------------------------");
foreach (SPListItem item in list.Items)
{
Console.WriteLine("\t * {0}", item.Title);
}
Console.WriteLine("\n");
Console.WriteLine("................................");
}
Console.WriteLine("\n{0} lists found.", web.Lists.Count);
Console.ReadKey();
}
}
}

Make sure you add reference to Microsoft.SharePoint.dll assembly prior writing the code above.

Managing Lists
When working with Lists, the source container is always an object created from SPListCollection. Given code give below, I create two Task Lists, selecting the “Task” template.

using System;
using System.Collections.Generic;
using System.Linq;
using System.Text;

using Microsoft.SharePoint;

namespace ManagingLists
{
class Program
{
static void Main(string[] args)
{
SPSite rootSite = new SPSite("http://dc:8844");
SPWeb rootWeb = rootSite.AllWebs[0];

SPListTemplate sourceTemplate = rootWeb.ListTemplates["Tasks"];
Guid newListGuid = rootWeb.Lists.Add("My First Task List",
"My First Task List", sourceTemplate);
Guid secondNewListGuid = rootWeb.Lists.Add("My Second Task List",
"My Second Task List", sourceTemplate);
SPList newList = rootWeb.Lists[newListGuid];
SPList secondNewList = rootWeb.Lists[secondNewListGuid];
secondNewList.Delete();
newList.Description = "My Custom Task List - From Code";
newList.Update();
Console.WriteLine("List creation completed.");
Console.ReadLine();
}
}
}

Browse your SharePoint site, where you could see both the Task Lists you created using code above.

Managing List Items
Managing List Items is same as managing Lists. Okay, let’s add a task item in to task list in code.

using System;
using System.Collections.Generic;
using System.Linq;
using System.Text;

using Microsoft.SharePoint;
using Microsoft.SharePoint.Utilities;

namespace ManagingListItems
{
class Program
{
static void Main(string[] args)
{
SPSite rootSite = new SPSite("http://dc:8844");
SPWeb web = rootSite.AllWebs[0];
SPList taskList = web.Lists["My Task List"];
SPListItem newTask = taskList.Items.Add();
newTask["Title"] = "My Task List Title";
newTask["DueDate"] = SPUtility.CreateISO8601DateTimeFromSystemDateTime(DateTime.Now.AddDays(30));
newTask["PercentComplete"] = 0.1;
newTask.Update();

newTask = taskList.Items.Add();
newTask["Title"] = "This Task will be deleted.";
newTask.Delete();
taskList.Update();

Console.WriteLine("Work completed.");
Console.ReadLine();
}
}
}

Summary
The SharePoint object model is so powerful that you have the full control over each and every component SharePoint provides. This article provides you an entry point to accessing and managing SharePoint Lists in code.

Site Collections or Sub-Sites

Currently I’m working on Sri Lanka’s largest SharePoint implementation. According to the structure and the requirements of the project, my plan was to go for Site Collections. Specially the capacity and security. But I always like ideas from my team members which is helpful and knowledgeable in many different ways.
One of my team members Dinusha, came up with this article by Steve Goodyear.

Determining Between SharePoint Site Collections and Sub-Sites.

SPoint.me

For people who have not heard of SPoint.me, it’s the premier social networking site for people in SharePoint industry. Yes, I know that info is not enough, right?

[Click the image below for a detailed description]

Visual Studio 2010 Launch

It’s less than 2 hours for me to step in to 12th of April, but according to the time zone difference there's few more hours for the big day, launch of Visual Studio 2010 at DevConnections.

Counting…

Microsoft SharePoint 2007 Development – Sites and Webs

Previous Articles Related:
Article 1 - SharePoint Object Model
Article 2 - Features and Solutions

This article doesn’t cover what SharePoint is or its usage. Targeted audience is the programmers who are already familiar with SharePoint who’s looking for a programming introduction to sites and webs in SharePoint and learn how to interact with sites and site collections with the classes SPSite and SPWeb in SharePoint Object Model.

Simplifying Sites and Webs
At a glance, yes, it’s complicating. Though the Webs and Sites sound similar, in SharePoint these are two different concepts. The site, as far as SharePoint is concerned, is actually a site collection. Each site collection consists of one or more root websites. If you use the object model to create a site collection and you indicate that the template for that site collection should be a Team site, what you have actually done is created a site collection and a root website (SPWeb instance) that was provisioned from the Team Site template. So simply that means you cannot have a site collection that doesn’t have a root website. Two things you should never forget.

•SPSite class is the model for a collection of SPWeb objects.
•To get at the list of site collections on a given web application, you simply reference the Sites property of an instance of the SPWebApplication class.

Working with SPSite Class
SPSite class can be used to create, delete and updating of site collections. For the complete listing of all properties and methods, glance through the online SharePoint Software Development Kit (SDK) found on MSDN (http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa905858.aspx).
Enough training in the shallow end, let’s get to the deep end. Hit VS 2008 and create a new windows application. Add reference to Microsoft.SharePoint.dll. Add few textboxes, labels and button to the windows form as given below.



Switch to the coding window.

Then write the below coding in the click event of the button. (TextBoxes have been used as in given in the order).
Let’s have a look at the coding. First I have created a SPSite object called site passing the absolute URL as a parameter. The text on txtSPSite textbox represents the absolute URL.


 

Next step is to create a SPWebapplication object. Site creation is done by calling the Add() on the SPSiteCollection class instance. 
There are multiple overloads that allow you to supply progressively more information to create the new site collection. Okay, let’s see the parameters I have used in the Add() method. First it’s the siteUrl, next the Title of the site and the Site Description. LCID is the Local Identifier. Default is 1033 for U.S. English. Next comes the Template ID, followed by the owner login, owners name and finally the owners email address.

Given above is the windows form filled with sample data according to my SharePoint server.




If you can see the above message in your screen, Congratulations! You have successfully created a SharePoint site programmatically using SharePoint Object Model. Open your web browser http://sharepointsvr:4488/sites/TestNewSite/default.aspx [http://sharepointsvr:4488 is my test server] and you can see a screen similar the one given below. For your convenience I’ve provided the default web templates in the table below.

Template ID	Description
STS#0	Team site
STS#1	Blank site
STS#2	Document workspace
MPS#0	Basic meeting workspace
MPS#1	Blank meeting workspace
MPS#2	Decision meeting workspace
MPS#3	Social meeting workspace
MPS#4	Multipage meeting workspace
WIKI#0	Wiki
BLOG#0	Blog

Updating a site is not easy as creating one. You need to get an instance of the SPWeb class for the root web of the site collection (which was created by default when you created a new site collection).

Working with SPWeb Class
SPWeb class provides most of the functionality of single websites, whereas the SPSite class is designed to deal with site collections.
Let’s add a subweb, a blog as a subweb to the parent site collection we created earlier. To add a new web to the root web of a site collection, you obtain a reference to that site and then call the Add() method on the AllWebs property.

 

Type the code above in your windows application, make sure to add reference to the Microsoft.SharePoint.dll. Pay attention to the overloads of the Add() method. Hit F5 to test the code. If you see the message box with the message “Web created successfully”, yes you have successfully created a blog web.

You can obtain a reference to a SPWeb instance either by obtaining it through an indexer property on a SPWebCollection instance.

There are some properties on a website that cannot be changed after the site has been created. Changes made to a SPWeb instance are only saved after calling the Update() method. One last code block to change the title of the blog site we just created.

Summary
The SharePoint object model is so powerful that you have the full control over each and every component SharePoint provides. But honestly the hard task is to remember the methods and the properties of the classes.
All comments welcome. :)