Have Your WSS v3 Sites Gone Out of Control?

In a Windows SharePoint Services (WSS) v3 deployment, you can easily lose control of the creation of sites.  Everyone wants the ability to create sites, and you don't want to have to create the sites for them, so you grant them site creation access, but then you quickly realize that there is no real thought process baked into creation of sites!  Some are listed in the Quick Launch while others are not, and the same holds true for the top navigation bar.  Some sites users have access to while for other sites they do not because Unique Permissions was selected.  And on and on and on.  **Breathing heavily**

Now that we got that off our chest, let's take a deep breath as I introduce you to one of our Web Parts called Site Creation Plus Web Part. Think of this  product like a streamlining of site creations, taking the complexity out of the creation of sites because you, as the SharePoint Administrator, can define all the settings from the get-go.

Let us first discuss the Tool Pane, where all the magic happens:

So why do users come up with the oddest of names for URLs?  Well, with the Site Creation Plus Web Part, you can define the URL for the user by selecting either the Title or Description of the new site -

Have you ever spent hours setting up a site template for project sites, laying it out just the way you want it, only to have someone create a new project site and choose a bland Team Site instead?  With Site Creation Plus Web Part, you can select the appropriate template for them! -

Next part is permissions.  Should it be unique or inherit?  If unique, what should I name the default groups?  Let's take the confusion out of the picture completely!  First, you can define if the user will have a choice at all -

If hide User Permission Section is selected, you can define if all sites created are inheriting or using unique permissions.  Now whether you defined all sites are Unique or allowing the user to select the type of permission themselves, you can define the default Visitors, Members, and Owners groups for them -

If you select Create a new group you can optionally include the Title or not by entering [Title] in the field.  If you select Use an existing group, all SP groups of the Site Collection are listed in the drop down menu -

Now that we have the Permissions of the new site ironed out, you can now choose how the Navigation will be implemented-

The last set of options is built to assist in the organization of the sites.  For each site that is created using the Web Part, you can optionally set it up so that an entry is added to a Links list.

This allows quick and easy access for users to the sub sites, and users can further organize the Links list to meet their own needs since it is just a standard out of the box SP list.  No more scrolling through large amounts of sites in the Site Content page!

So now that I've got you hooked, why not give it a try?  Like all our products, we provide a fully functional 15-day trial!  So go on and click here, http://store.bamboosolutions.com/ps-61-6-site-creation-plus-release-11.aspx, add the free Trial Download to your cart, and take it out for a test-drive!