Introduction

Let's get down to business with Share Point 2007. In this article we will setup a new Share Point Site, and go through the whole process in a step by step fashion. The main idea is to get the basic understanding right, so later you can learn advance concepts easily.

Understanding the Basics

We need to explore certain key items, from the very beginning. Firstly, let's say you just installed Share Point Server 2007, and you wanted to create your first Share Point Server 2007 Site the following diagram, visualize the process.

Bingo, sounds confusing, honestly it is, but don't worry too much, its part of getting started deal, that every body signs. Now, let's explore the whole process in more detail.

The first step is the creation of Web Application, this is essentially an Internet Information Application IIS Web Application, and this is the first building block. This is because as underneath the surface, Share Point 2007 relies on ASP.NET 2.0, and for that this is the starting point.

Now the second step is creation of Site Collection, this is purely a Share Point terminology and a prime means of containment. Site Collections is a container (container of sites, see next paragraph), which allows you perform administration and management task at higher level and those will effect the entire site underneath it.

The last is creation of a Site; the site will contain all the data and will be main point of interaction for collaboration and knowledge sharing. So for us right now, this will be the end result for all the activity as an end user.

There are couple of questions that may be pondering in your mind like why such a complex division is required? and when to use what?. These are important questions, but let's first started with creation of a Share Point Site, once we understand the basics, then we will address these issues, in more detail.

There are some more, surprises ready for us, so let's get working.

Site Creation Procedure

Go to the Share point 3.0 Central Administration, under Application Management, select Create and Extend Web Application, see figure below.

Click Create a new Web Application, this will open the following page.

This is actually the fist step (Create Web Application) that we talked about previously. As you can see, this page requires us to enter number of key information. Just to see what will be happened when we enter this information, lets open an IIS (see figure below)

Let's start entering the information, we not going to change any defaults for now, the only things we need to enter is the Application Pool Account Details, see the following figure.

Click Ok. You will see the following page, saying "Operation in Progress". That's right; our new web application will be ready in few moments.

Once done, you will see the following page.

Before moving forward, reset the IIS, you can do it by going to Run dialog and type "iisreset", and hit OK. Wait till IIS is reset.

Now , just to make sure, go back to IIS and refresh the website folder , you will see out newly create Share Point Web Site .

So all set to go, now let's create the Site Collection, and remember this is the second step. From the "Application Created" page, you can see the link titled "Create Site Collection". Click it, and it will take you to the "Create Site Collection" Page.

Enter the any Title and Description that you want, go to Primary Site Collection Administrator, and enter the name of account that you want to be admin for the whole Site Collection. Yes that means the sites underneath this site collection. So be careful. Once done hit the OK. You will see the same "Operation in Progress" Page , which you seen when we create Web Application.Once done you will see the Page titled "Top Level Site Created Sucessfully".

Click on the link and it will take you to the newly created top level site within the site collection. See figure below

Yeah once we created the Site Collection we get a Top Level Site for us. But lets go and create a site of our own. From the left hand menu , click "Sites". This will open page as shown below.

Click on the "Create" menu button, this will open a Create page that list all the items what we can create (see below)

On the extreme left, you can find Web Pages Column, click on the "Sites and Workspaces", this will open the following page.

Enter any Title and Description that's suites your need. Under Web Site Address type in name of the new site, this will be shown in the URL. Once done click OK. You will again see the "Operation in Progress page", once it is done with creation of new site, you will be taken to the newly created site, see figure below.

Congratulations, our newly created site is now ready.

Conclusion

In this article, we explore the basics behind site creation and what actually Share Point web application corresponds to. This ideally put us, in a position, where we can now, look into more important topics, this include several, administrative and operational decisions, that are related to concept of Web Application, Site Collection and Sites. We will cover these topics, in future articles.

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