SQL Server 2008 Sample Databases link

http://msftdbprodsamples.codeplex.com/releases/view/24854

Portal Listings : migration nightmare from Sharepoint 2003 to 2007

A client of mine had extensively used a less known list of Sharepoint 2003 called "Portal Listings". I researched a lot and found that it was kind of an admin feature to regulate what content could be published and what should not be. A portal listing is typically a combination of a document library and a links list. The Link's list serves as the interface linking to documents and metadata at the back.

In our case, the portal listings were used in almost every page of the intranet we had to find a way to migrate it to the new SharePoint 2007. MOSS has nothing called portal listing, a partial replacement is the content by query webpart since it doesn't roll up content as easily as the portal listing.

We first used Quest to migrate the listings but it just wouldn't migrate.AvePoint from DocAve made progress by migrating the Portal Listing content to a Document Library and a link list.

So, now the challenge was to display the data the same way as the portal listing in 2003.

Since, the portal listing used to roll up content from sites and sub sites and have publishing features for every link (ie; start date,expiration date etc ) we needed a web part to have content roll up features and ability to filter on migrated metadata like start date, expiration date etc.

The Content By Query WebPart would roll up content by browsing to a list but the filters would work only if the columns are Site Columns. There is no way to directly make an existing column a Site Column so we had to find another way.

The Solution: Data View

• Open the page in SharePoint Designer
• Insert a Data View in a web part zone
• Add a new data connection by connecting to the portal listing
• You can change the UI, make it link to documents and have all the fun

The only change is that the UI is the SharePoint Designer interface and directly from the SharePoint Site.

However, it is a robust solution and replacement to the antiquated Portal Listing !#@@##