One of our product will consist of multiple SharePoint solutions. Now we're wondering what would be the best way to provide an easy deployment to our customers? At the moment we deploy each solution by hand, which is OK during development process but not acceptable for our customers.
For your information, we're using VSeWSS 1.3 for development and solution packaging.
So how do you offer your solutions to your customers? Do you write installation scripts using STSADM commands? What other options do we have?
WSPBuilder
Personally I use WSPBuilder for packaging and find it much easier to work with than VSeWSS. However if VSeWSS is working for you then that's great.
One of many the benefits I found of using WSPBuilder is that it's easy to integrate into a build system. It's just a simple, but clever, commandline tool.
Batch File
For deploying multiple SharePoint solutions to our customers I usually provide a batch file that contains the necessary STSADM command and prompts them to enter any environment specific data i.e. site collection urls etc...
SharePoint Solution Installer
There is also a nice GUI installer,called SharePoint Solution Installer, that you can use in-conjunction with SharePoint solution files. Check it out it might suit your needs.
alt text http://i3.codeplex.com/Project/Download/FileDownload.aspx?ProjectName=sharepointinstaller&DownloadId=18625
SAF - SharePoint Action Framework
It's worth pointing out SAF; which is an extremely comprehensive framework that can automate installation and configuration tasks, using either MSBuild, Powershell, Stsadm or a custom SharePoint feature.
We just use plain old batch/cmd files. If you need to "productize" this, just wrap up all solutions in a selfextracting rar package and have it run the batch file after unpacking.
Stick to Microsoft products. Powerbuilder is being groomed to gradually take over from STSADM for this type of task. In a farm scenario (remember, yours may have to grow over time), this would be the tool to use to push out solutions to all front-end Web servers.
EDIT:
MS are preparing a final version of VSE 1.3 to ease the migration of 2007 solutions to the 2010 environment.
Have you looked at Microsoft SharePoint Designer?
not sure if it will do all you need, but it does allow you to package sites or individual objects that you can then run on another SharePoint install.
Related
Previously when provisioning list, libraries, site columns, content types, list definitions etc in SharePoint I typically used SharePoint features, deployed via a WSP - or used PowerShell scripts. This meant I had a package that could be deployed to DEV / TEST / PROD.
I'm working with SharePoint within Office 365 and unsure on the best way to provision lists / libraries / features within SharePoint.
Options:
No Code Sandboxed Solutions
Trying to avoid using these as the information from Microsoft on whether they are deprecated is flaky - however sandboxed solutions would allow me to deploy features with list definitions etc. I know sandboxed solutions with c# are definitely deprecated, but the info around no code solutions is poor.
Apps
I know apps can provision at both the app and host web level, but creating lists, libraries etc using the CSOM seems like a lot of effort and a step backwards.
PowerShell
The SP Online PowerShell is nowhere near as powerful as on-prem SP. I can provision site collections through this, but not lists or libraries...
I'm keen to know how other developers are deploying to Office 365, specifically around provisioning sites with specific list definitions, libraries, content types and so on...
Thanks
Microsoft did clarify the position on No Code Sandbox solutions - http://blogs.msdn.com/b/sharepointdev/archive/2014/01/14/deprecation-of-custom-code-in-sandboxed-solutions.aspx
Also if you are looking at using Powershell to deploy then you might want to go down the route of using CSOM from within PowerShell - SharePoint Client Browser for SharePoint 2013 is good for setting up a session also very good for viewing the content of a 365 tenant - http://spcb.codeplex.com/
I have been using code based provision for almost two years without any issues at all.
Server side model works just fine, CSOM has some limitation but stil cool one and JSOM could deliver the same feature set as both CSOM and SSOM, sorta 95% :)
PowerShell is not the best option as it hard to integrate into CI, put some unit testing and regressions.
As you mentioned, this is "step back", but if only you don't have any framework or foundation for that. My libraries are internal one, but there is SPGenesis at codeplex and SPMeta2.
As community don't really care, need or with such libraries for provisioning (yep, let's face it), there are much such libraries at all, but there are lots of "MVP" samples sorta "hello world" level.
Finally, what I would suggest is to invest your time and effort in code based provision.
This is a future, that's it ;)
UPD
Struggling with SharePoint's API inconsistency, bugs, "by-design" behaviour, unaffordable amount of time to write, support and upgrade WSP packages and XML, a team of passionate SharePoint professionals decided to come up with robust, testable and repeatable way to deploy such artifacts like fields, content types, libraries, pages and many more.
Enjoy and let us know how it goes.
SPMeta2 at GitHub
SPMeta2 at Nuget
SPMeta2 Documentation Wiki
SPMeta2 Bugtracker
I am starting to do a lot of sharepoint development lately, and some of the things that I have done and I dont like is to use sharepoint designer directly for things like pagelayouts, lists definitions, master pages, etc.
From my point of view I think its more organized to do everything in Visual Studio. In that way you can connect each solution to a source control database and deploy/retract/upgrade easier with scripts.
My idea is to create a vs solution like this:
1. One for list and content type defintions.
2. One for webparts.
3. One for branding
but maybe this approach has any disadvantage, what other approaches are you using?
The real answer is going to be: it depends.
I do not think there is one best way to organize a Visual Studio solution or SharePoint solution packages. In the end, you need to find what works best for your organization and go with that.
The only guidance I have seen is from the SharePoint Online documentation:
If the development team is designing a solution that requires more than 10 WSP files, the team should reconsider its architecture. It is difficult to manage and deploy so many WSP files within a single deployment window, and the solution risks rejection because of the complexity for SharePoint Online of managing it.
A large number of solution packages (WSP files) that need to be tracked and managed pose a challenge for deployment. The more solution packages in a customization, the greater the possibility that something will not be installed correctly, the longer the solution will take to deploy, and the easier it is to mix incompatible versions of solution packages. We recommend that customers scrutinize their deployment plans and keep the number of solution packages to the minimum number needed for the project. Keep in mind that a solution package can contain several features, so there is no necessity to have one solution package for each feature.
And I would agree with this. You seem to be outlining 3 Visual Studio solutions and/or SharePoint solution packages for what really are 3 Features within a single SharePoint solution package.
I tend to create one Visual Studio solution for each project. For a very large project, that single Visual Studio solution might contain several projects where each represents a SharePoint solution package.
For Farm solutions, each SharePoint solution package will contain a number of Features and files that are all related in terms of functionality or application. If two or more SharePoint solution packages share common Features, I will put those shared Features into a separate solution package.
Sandbox solutions tend to be much smaller than Farm solutions. While my Farm solutions usually represent an application, my Sandbox solutions are more focused to solve one particular issue. So my Sandbox solutions usually only contain one Feature that does not rely on other custom Features or solutions.
As I said in the beginning, I do not believe there is one hard or fast rule. It is usually determined by the preferences and style of a particular development team. Try a couple different ways in the beginning and eventually you will find what fits your team best.
We are deploying sharepoint MOSS 2007 at our work. I'm trying to come up with a sharepoint development and deployment methodology. We have Dev/QA/Prod environments and I need a way, preferably automated to deploy changes from Dev to QA and from there to prod.
We are creating site collections web parts etc. Some of it is done directly within sharepoint, some through Sharepoint designer or visual studio. I'm looking for a way to extract this and deploy it to other enviornments.
I tried stsadm backup/restore import/export etc but they all move the data along with it as well. I just need the structure deployed. Content deployment paths and jobs does the same thing as well.
We use MSBuild & Curisecontrol.net for other .net projects to automate build/deployment process. I'm looking for something similar with sharepoint if possible.
What are your best practices for this? Since my team is learning we don't have a defined process and we are open to change our development process if needed.
First off, it's a hard problem.
Probably the 'best' method is to put everything into solution packages - but its quite hard to do correctly.
There is a lot of opinions out there - the best I can do is give you further reading
SharePoint Solution Deployment Strategies
SO - How do you deploy your SharePoint solutions?
ROSS - A commercial toolset to help with deployment
DocAve Deployment Manager
SharePoint development / deployment isn't as finely tuned as it is with regular .NET. I haven't heard of anyone using CI solutions for this.
Your basic unit of deployment is a solution package (a WSP file). It's basically a CAB file with a different extension. WSPBuilder is helpful for creating them. (http://wspbuilder.codeplex.com)
SPSource (http://spsource.codeplex.com) is pretty good for reverse engineering some stuff that you build in a web browser, such as Content Types and Lists. It's my preferred way of doing this stuff - trying to cut them by hand is no fun. I've had SPSource reverse engineer simple lists into 2000 line XML files.
Powershell is important for SPT 2010. James Kovacs has built a build tool called psake which plugs into PSH. It looks pretty straightforward, though I need to figure out PSH properly first.
Spend some time on http://sharepointdevwiki.com as this an evolving resource.
Microsoft patterns and practices group have released some guidance as well at http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dd203468.aspx
LearnDevNow.com is also selling online training videos that are pretty good and very affordable (about USD100). They will show you many of the good ways of doing things.
Cheers
Mike
Here's the scenario
I created a Site which in I used custom lists, webparts, custom developed webparts, workflows et cetera. You can see the site as an application.
What I am trying to do is to create a solution package which holds everything I build in that site so that I can give the solution file to an sharepoint administrator who can install the solution to his sharepoint environment.
For example look at the free application templates you can download from MSDN, I am trying to achieve the same as they did. One solution file to hold them all!
Any idea's?
Cheers!
Get STSDev and SharePoint Manager. STSDev is goog for creating the solution you want and SharePoint Manager can be used to get the SchemaXML from the customisations you have already created.
You will need to package up the webparts and everything. Unfortunately, this is a pretty hefty learning curve, so expect to do a lot of reading on this subject and some experimentation. However, this is time well spent as a solution is the "only" way to release a custom site definition.
Workflows created using SPD are not portable across sites - they will have to be recreated. As a result, Nathan's solution is probably going to be the only way to go.
Export the site as a template and include all the content. The workflows will point at the old site and will need to be updated manually, I believe. Everything else should work.
I am total beginner in SharePoint and I need some help in starting a project. I have to develop publishing site that will be delivered to the client. I would like to give client deployment experience like he would get when deploying standard ASP.NET application as much as possible. I plan to use Visual Studio 2008 with SharePoint extensions and maybe WSPBuilder or some other tools.
I also need help in structuring whole project.
Here is what I plan to do:
1. Develop minimal site definition
2. Create site from this defionition. How should I do this from code ? Use SharePoint Feature ? How should I activate it ?
3. Develop all the needed infrastructure for the site (master page, layouts, content types, ...) as SharePoint Features.
Is this correct and how should I develop all those parts so I can make a some kind install script so can client create get complete site with one click ?
Site definitions are complex no question about it, but they are very useful if you need to deploy to unrelated enviornments. If you are staying on the same server farm, maybe site definition is overkill. If you are going between domains (i.e. test & prod, then maybe they are worth looking into).
Another advantage to site definitions, esp. if delivering to a client is it feels more like a traditional deliverable. They will have a bunch of files (hopefully in source control) that are their custom site. I think that gives IT dept's a much warmer feeling than an XML file created from the SharePoint UI.
Another benefit of site definitions are you have a lot more control over the pages that make up the site. IMHO its easier to add master pages & custom CSS via site defintion that site template.
I am curious as to what are the 'moving parts' to the site you are trying to deliver? I think that answering that question will determine how to define the project's structure.
Generally, I think you are on the right track. Features and solutions are a must. I would stay away from VSeWSS, its buggy and clunky and generally terrible if you are trying to do anything complex. It tries to be so smart, that it leaves you no control.
That said, it really depends on what you are trying to do. If you are going to build a solution to deploy to the GAC with one assembly, and only building features supported by vsewss you may be fine.
If however, you want to develop, say a timer job wiring that into the VSeWSS feature framework gets tough. Also, if you need multiple assemblies in the solution. YMMV, but I had to junk it and find of a more flexible solution (hello NANT).
A lot of the work you will end up doing is building and checking, and re-checking XML configuration files. Bookmark the Feature Schema reference page on MSDN, you will be spending a lot of time going through it.
Finally, yes, if you have all of the parts packaged as features you should be able to develop a nice install script. Ultimately the script will need to call the STSADM (there are some really nice STSADM extensions here) commands necessary to create the site structure, add & deploy the solution & activate the features. You can start with a batch file, and get as complicated as you want.
Personally I don't find that creating a site definition is really that useful for the sites I have built. They can be very tricky to set up, because of their complex nature.
What I do is use the standard Publishing Site and then using features to add my additional componets (deployed via a SharePoint solution).
You can use Feature Stapling to connect up the feature to the Publishing Site creation.
I've also just done a blog post on how to programmatically modify the workflow which is created by default: http://www.aaron-powell.com/blog/february-2009/programmatically-modifying-sharepoint-workflows.aspx (that also has a link in the comments off to the Feature Stapling concept).
Then I use a combination of SharePoint Solution Installer (http://www.codeplex.com/sharepointinstaller) and batch files to install the components. SSI for all the SharePoint database level installs and batch files for the file system stuff.
Adding another answer, because I have more than 300 characters worth of stuff to say :(
RE: SharePoint solutions generator, again I would say your mileage may vary.
The biggest issue with SharePoint dev is managing all of the "magic strings" across the various configuration files. GUIDs and Fully Qualified Assembly names are the spit and glue that hold the whole thing together, and although it all makes sense its very difficult to manage.
The current crop of tool all try and alleviate the complexity of managing these things, but they require that you work in a certain way, so the tool knows how to inject the appropriate plumbing.
If you plan on doing a lot of work with SharePoint it really behooves you too learn to manage the plumbing yourself. Its painful up front, but really pays dividends.
Basically, I suggest you spend your time learning the platform and not the tools. Once you know the platform, using the tools will be much easier.
If you are doing this as a one-off engagement and just want to get it done, I'm sure you can get any of the tools you've mentioned to do the trick.
I would agree with the use of the out of the box publishing site definition, and then customizing it using Site Collection features (Master Page, Page Layouts, CSS) and site features (create lists, pages, sub sites, defining master pages of sites, etc...).
Feature stapling is great when you want to customize new sites (allow user to create new sites) of well known site templates, like customize the "My Site" look and feel. In this case I don’t think its very useful.
As a tool to help this task, I personally use STSDEV (http://www.codeplex.com/stsdev) to help in creating, programming, debugging and deploying my Sharepoint solutions.
First it creates a good project for Visual Studio (clean, or with some nice "starting point" definitions). Then it includes some “build configurations” that really helps with install, deploy and upgrade in the development machine.