Copying pages from one site collection to another

So you want to move content pages from one site collection to another? 

Easy! Just open the pages library in explorer view copy the page/s you want to move and paste them to the destination pages library once again using explorer view.

Nope.

Invalid page layout errors!

Why?

SharePoint hard codes the page layout location URL within the .aspx page.

How do I fix this?

A) You could write some powershell using the SP object model to copy files.

or 

B) You could download the ASPX page locally, manually edit the Page Layout URL and then upload the page to the new pages library.

The problem I had was not having any access to central admin so....no powershell. So with great apprehension chose option B.

BUT...

I had about 175 pages to move and to open, edit and save 175 pages individually was just not feasible. So I went old school. How many of you remember Windows GREP? What this small utility does is it allows you to search and replace strings within an entire folder.

Result!

PS option B works!

Searching MOSS 2007 from within SharePoint 2010

I was looking for information on searching 2007 sites from SharePoint 2010, and found very little (perhaps it was my own poor searching methods, but nevertheless for those with the same affliction as myself here's how to set up searching of MOSS 2007 from SharePoint 2010!): 

Step 1:

1.       Grant read access for the search service account on all sites you wish to crawl/index

Step 2:

1.       Go to central admin

2.       Go to Manage service applications

3.       Highlight the Enterprise search service application and click Manage

4.       Click on Content sources

5.       Click on New content source

a.       Give the content source a name

b.      Select SharePoint sites from the list of available content source types

c.       Enter the address/es of the SharePoint site/s

d.      Specify the crawl schedules

e.      Check the Start full crawl of the content source option

f.        Click OK

6.       The content source has now been created and will start crawling immediately (if read permissions have been granted on these sites for the search service account)

Step 3:

1.       Go to central admin

2.       Go to Manage service applications

3.       Highlight the Enterprise search service application and click Manage

4.       Click on Scopes

5.       Click Create new scope

6.       Give the new scope a title that staff will understand and recognise

7.       Click OK

8.       The scope will now appear in the current list of scopes, click Add rules

9.       From scope role type select Content Source

10.   Select the content source you created earlier from the drop down box

11.   Click OK

Keep it simple stupid!

So, like all SharePoint consultants/architects/devs/project managers I've witnessed my fair share of the heartache of failed projects for various reasons, but the one that *really* gets to me is when SharePoint solutions are over engineered - and we overlook the actual business and strategic objectives the solution aims to meet.


I use a phased approach when taking on an intranet project (particularly when the organisation has never made use of an intranet or SharePoint previously).


Phase 1 consists of purely branding and page layouts customisation and perhaps 1 or two content aggregators (for news, etc.). Start getting end users used to the idea of searching for general content and policy documents through the intranet as opposed to emailing/IM'ing/phoning HR to request the information/policy/template they are looking for.


Phase 2 is where we start getting to the fun stuff: collaboration / LOB application integration / document management / etc. And this phase should only start once phase 1 has been live and rolled out to staff for at least 3 months. 


This ensures your SharePoint solution is eased into the organisation, and it assists in user adoption, in that users aren't thrown into the deep end and forced to change their mindsets from day 1.


I've found that when an organisation goes the Full Monty with SharePoint from day 1 and embraces document management and collaboration aspects of SharePoint without fully understanding the product and training it's end users efficiently (or even developing effective governance policies and processes) users push back and return to their bad habits.


As consultants and architects it is our duty to sometimes say "no", the customer is not "always right" the customer is king, and WILL return and provide repeat business if their implementation is a success and by implementation I do not mean only technically.