SharePoint University

I am using MOSS 2007.

I have a Project Governance site (parent). There are a few subsites, which are Project Site (Project X, Y, Z etc..), under the Project Governance site.

I want to have a Document Library at the Project Governance site which consolidate all the document of subsites, but each of the subsite can only view/access its own document.

I've read about the "Send to" but it is not pratical in the live environment as subsite user may forget to use "Send to" and the no. of subsite may reach 20. The "Send to" in this case does not serve the purpose of having a "Consolidated View of all subsites' doc". the worst case scenerio is the parent(Project Governance) has to click on 20 subsite to view all the document

pls advice.

Do you really need a library at the parent level? How about setting up a web parts page that uses multiple list web parts to pull in a view of the documents. That would solve a lot of what you are trying to do.

The big plus is that your End User would never have to worry about moving the document anywhere.

Just a thought.
Mark
EndUserSharePoint.com

I would say keep the top level document library and add an XLST filtered view to the sub sites, you should be able to add the tool bar in to upload new files.  This way they end up being uploaded to the top level library but will only show the files associated with that subsite.  You will however have to add an additional field to the main document library.  I would add a choice field and name the choices after each subsite and make it a mandatory field. This will only work however if your users are uploading only one document at a time, if they upload mulitple documents I believe it bypasses the mandatory fields.

Cory,

Much better solution than my original suggestion. By placing the Content Query web part in each subsite, with the filtered views, it's very neat and tidy.

You are correct on the caveat of uploading multiple documents. The inability to check in files automatically and add metadata upon upload of multiple documents is not just inconvenient, it can be heart stopping. I had a client in a panic because they couldn't find documents which they ABSOLUTELY KNEW were in a library. Not even the site collection administrator could see them.

It turns out, the person who uploaded them in bulk didn't know about the manual check in, went on vacation and wasn't heard from again for two weeks.

Regards,
Mark
EndUserSharePoint.com

Mark Miller:

You are correct on the caveat of uploading multiple documents. The inability to check in files automatically and add metadata upon upload of multiple documents is not just inconvenient, it can be heart stopping. I had a client in a panic because they couldn't find documents which they ABSOLUTELY KNEW were in a library. Not even the site collection administrator could see them.

Mark,

I had the same thing happen in my environment. However, if you go into the settings for the document library and choose Manage Checked Out Files, you can see all of these files. You can also "take ownership" of the files so you can see them. Then the appropriate meta-data can be attached to the files and they can be checked-into the library. Hope this is a useful tip!

Chris,

Yep, I've tried that in a couple of instances, but if I'm correct, when they haven't been checked in at least once, they won't be visible to be managed!

Could you run a test on your end and verify that? Have an end user bulk upload a couple files to a library with forced check out, then see what's visible as admin. I'll be very interested in your results.

Mark
EndUserSharePoint.com

I am actually going to be doing this tomorrow if you dont mind waiting.  I have to do this for an entire site with about 20 document libraries. I did think though that if you had full control or are a site collection admin you would be able to take control of anything within the site even if the documents hadnt been uploaded by you.

Intuitively, you'd think that would be the case, but in practice, I have found the site collection admin does not have visibility of documents that have not initially been checked in by the person doing the bulk upload. If it is a configuration issue, I'd like to know. If it's not, then everyone's got the same problem.

 Let me know how it goes.

Mark
EndUserSharePoint.com

Cory:

I would say keep the top level document library and add an XLST filtered view to the sub sites, you should be able to add the tool bar in to upload new files.  This way they end up being uploaded to the top level library but will only show the files associated with that subsite.  You will however have to add an additional field to the main document library.  I would add a choice field and name the choices after each subsite and make it a mandatory field. This will only work however if your users are uploading only one document at a time, if they upload mulitple documents I believe it bypasses the mandatory fields.

it sounds like a very good idea :-)

but i do not know how to use the XLST. can you provide some tips?

I do not have SharePoint designer.

What tool are you using?  Are you just going through the web interface?  You should be able to use Visual Studio as well, I havent myself as I use SharePoint designer.  If you want to work with XSLT you will need to use an authoring tool as you cannot do it with the web interface.

klcheang:

but i do not know how to use the XLST. can you provide some tips?

You can author XSLT files without SharePoint Designer (although SPD helps quite a bit!). They are just text files with the extension XSL. Below is a link to some basic XSLT authoring tips. There is MUCH MUCH more out there, and I would suggest finding a book dealing with XSL.

http://www.w3schools.com/xsl/default.asp

If you are into hardcore XSLT, you can't beat the Michael Kay, Wrox books. I have spoken with him when I was at Oxford during the first XSLT conference. Nice guy, extremely detail oriented.

In general, just think of XSLT as a way to format the output of an XML file. You can easily get a quick handle, enough to do what you are asking for this project.

Mark
EndUserSharePoint.com