Microsoft Sharepoint Products and Technologies Resource Kit eBook

Chapter 35: Building Applications Using Windows SharePoint Services Data 953
own site called the “How Cool Support Area,” where it hosts running discussions,
posts follow-up alerts on support calls, and performs other such functions.
The Support Group has just released How Cool Version 2, and after receiving
many repeat calls regarding some minor upgrade issues, it set up a Problem/Solutions
Knowledge Base List Web Part to enable various support people to post common
problems and their solutions. Since doing this, support people were able to cut their
research time in half. After a review, the Support Group found that many clients had
already been to the company website seeking support before they called in, so it
decided that offering this same list to outside customers would be an ideal way to
reduce outside calls to the Support Group. The Support Group wanted to offer the list
to customers with some differences, including making the information read only,
making the information searchable, and doing this in a way that required minimum
effort for the Support Group to maintain.
The Technical Requirements
Your mission as a developer is to expose the content held in the Windows SharePoint
Services site component using a page in an external-facing ASP.NET application.
The Sample Setup Process
The setup process we will use for this sample project consists of presetup steps and
setup steps, as detailed in the following list:
■ Presetup Steps
■ Set up a user account, and grant it the permissions necessary to create the
sites.
■ Add the new user account to Microsoft SQL Server.
■ Create new Internet Information Services (IIS) virtual directories to hold
the sites.
■ Create a new Windows SharePoint Services site as the Support Site.
■ Choose the Windows SharePoint Services template.
■ Create a new ASP.NET application to simulate the External Site.
■ Create an ASP.NET Home Page in the External Site.
■ Setup Steps
■ Verify the Windows SharePoint Services content database for the site.
■ Use Windows SharePoint Services Site Administration to add a Web Part.
■ Add some data to the Web Part.
■ Locate the Web Part GUID.