SharePoint 2010 : How to Enable anonymous access to List and Libraries - Part 2

In part 1(SharePoint 2010: How to enable anonymous access), I discussed about enabling Anonymous access to the web application after it was created, and in this blog, will discuss about enabling Anonymous access to a document library.

I have created a test team site with a document library name "My doc lib" and a test user who does not have access to the team site, as shown below
Here are the steps to configure the Anonymous access to the Lists and Libraries(ex., My doc Lib) and before proceding to the steps, lets login with the new user and try to access the document library

Ok, test Passed :) , Document Library Access is denied for the test user and here are the steps.

Step 1: Go to the library settings of the document library

Step 2: Click Permission for this document library

Step 3: Now the permission Tools page will be displayed, but this page(Ribbon) will not display the anonymous access option, because this libary is inheriting the permission from its parent, and in this scenario it inherits permission from the Team site.

Step 4 -Stop Inheriting Permissions from the parent

Step 5: Now the anonymous access option is enabled in the ribbon

Step 6: Click on the Anonymous access button on the Ribbon, and click on View item.

Note: Anonymous users cannot Add, Edit, Delete items in the document library, they can have only view permission.


Step 7: Login with the test user to verify whether the anonymous access is enabled

Done!, now the anonymous user is able to access the document library, see top right corner.

SharePoint 2010: How to enable anonymous access - Part 1

For some reason if you want to enable anonymous access, after creating your Web Applications, then here are the steps to enable it to your site.
Step 1 : Goto Central Administration ->Application Management ->Manage Web Applications


Step 2 : Select the web application for which you need to enable anonymous access

Step 3 : Select Default (Authentication Providers)
(Note:I created my web application with Claims authentication)

Step 4 : Select Enable anonymous access

Step 5 : Save

Step 6 : GoTo the site for which you need to enable anonymous access

Step 7 : Click on Site actions -> Site Permissions

Step 8: Click on Anonymous Access

And for Step 9, we have three options to select

1. Entire Web Site - Select this option to enable Anonymous access to the entire web site
2. Lists and Libraries - Select this option to enable Anonymous access only to your lists and libraries, This way you can provide access only to a particular list or a library for your anonymous users.
3. Nothing

Step 9: Select List and Libraries ( I am not enabling anonymous access to the entire site)

Step 10: Done, anonymous access is enabled for your site's Lists and Libraries.

Ok, Mission accomplished, and we have enabled anonymous access to our site lists and libraries, but the big question is for which list and library of our site.

Let see how to enable anonymous access to our document library in Part 2 - How to Enable anonymous access to List and Libraries.

SharePoint 2010 Migration

SharePoint 2010 is the new business collaboration platform from Microsoft, which greatly improves features that were offered in MOSS 2007. After every release of new software in the market, the hottest debate is whether to migrate or to live with the existing implementation of the previous version of the Software.

Many of our clients have shown interest to migrate from MOSS 2007 to SharePont 2010 and wants to know the advantages of the New SharePoint 2010 over MOSS 2007 Platform and Roadmap for up gradation. Yes, SharePoint 2010 does offer better business collaboration platform, but the first big question comes to mind is, Do you really want to migrate? And what are the pros and cons of the new platform.

SharePoint has come a long way, its no more a single server product and it integrates multiple technologies, as the technology grows and it paves way for more innovation and SharePoint is not an execption. There are tons of features which makes the New Platform as a single choice for all our business requirements,However final decision should be made only based on the pros and cons of the current implementation of MOSS 2007 and migration of SharePoint 2010.

In these series of blogs we will see different ways that we can use to migrate from MOSS2007 to SharePoint 2010.

Software and Hardware requirements

Firstly SharePoint 2010 is no more 32 Bit platform, is now only 64 Bit Platform, this means we need 64 Bit Hardwires for all Web, App and Database servers, and 64 Bit windows servers that are capable of running SharePoint 2010.

Here are the brief requirements for SharePoint 2010

• SharePoint 2010 is now only 64 Bit
• Windows Server 2008 SP2 or Windows Server 2008 R2
• Microsoft SQL Server 2008 R2 64 Bit Edition or Microsoft SQL Server 2005 64 Bit Edition

See SharePoint 2010 Hardware and Software Requirements for more detailed information

SharePoint Architecture has changed, No more SSP's we have Service application for each application like we have now Managed Metadata Service, Excel Service, Word Services, et al. These architecture changes involve lots of planning before migrating existing MOSS implementation.

Let us see the migration approaches that are available with SharePoint 2010

Before determining the migration approached its better to evaluate the current MOSS implementation, and document all the artifacts of the portal.

Typical documentation would include the following

• Farm Topology
• List of Servers
• Accounts
• Site Collections
• Features
• Custom Code
• Databases
• Service Pack Updates
• AAM(Alternate Access Mapping)
• Customization (Master pages etc)

SharePoint supports the following upgrade approaches

• In-Place upgrade
• Database Attach upgrade to a new farm
• Read-Only database
• Detach Database

We will see all step by step upgradation using the above options in my future blogs and other tools that are available in the market which can ease our migration process.

Sharepoint 2010 Master Pages

Master pages are the starting point for branding sharePoint sites, There has been quite a changes in the new SharePoint foundation Master Pages.

Firstly it no more HTML Table based layouts, Now the Layouts are based on Div, we could see that by opening the v4.Master page from the following location - %Program Files%\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\Web Server Extensions\14\TEMPLATE\GLOBAL

And the second advantage is content placeholders are the same for both Application and Content Pages, which results in consistent Look and Feel across content pages and Application pages.

SharePoint has a default minimal master page for branding. Minimal.Master page can be found at the following location of your SharePoint installation - %Program Files%\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\Web Server Extensions\14\TEMPLATE\GLOBAL

Here are some links on Master pages
Default Master Pages in Sharepoint foundation
Upgrading an Existing Master Page to the SharePoint Foundation Master Page
Randy Drisgill's Starter master page
BrandingSharePoint.com
Erik Swenson SharePoint 2010 Base CSS Classes

Free Ebook on SharePoint ECM

A free eBook on Sharepoint ECM features and Integration/Competition with other ECM Solutions, is available for download from AIIM's 8 Things eBook Series website

SharePoint 2010 as an ECM platform - Part 1

MOSS 2007 had strong ECM features and provided Out of Box support for Document Management, Web Content Management, and Records Management, And the new SharePoint 2010 has improved those features by improving overall Document Management and Content Management.

These series of blogs will discuss SharePoint 2010 ECM features and how to use / implement them.

Taxonomy

Taxonomy is how you categorize and organize your organization contents. Metadata are everywhere, however most of the organization does not have any strategy in organizing their data. Organizing and Managing Contents are vital part of ECM, as part of the organization’s content management it is imperative to have an organization wide strategy to define and structure the contents.

Though we can implement Taxonomy using MOSS 2007, but it does have its own limitation, such as content types are available only to the site collection under which they are created, which means we cannot use them in another site collection. Site collection scoped Content types always limit reusability and the scope of using them across multiple site collections and across farms. However the new release of SharePoint has overcome these limitations and has better ECM features than its predecessor MOSS 2007.

Managed Metadata Services

Managed metadata service is part of the services that is part of new SharePoint Services based architecture. Management metadata service is nothing but the term store and enables management of enterprise level content types.

The Advantages of MMS:

1. Centralized Term store

2. Can create more than one Services

3. Available across the Enterprise i.e. across Farms , Site Collections

4. Managed Terms

5. Location based Terms

6. Can Import Terms

7. Reusability of terms

8. Copy Terms

9. Merge Terms

10. Deprecate Terms

11. Move Terms