Implementing a Document Management System with SharePoint :: Part 1

Installing Windows Server 2008 R2 (64Bit) Step by Step

Please check this post for preface on document management system. I am back with document management system part 1 today which is about installing of Windows server 2008.  Be sure that you have met the minimum requirements of this server software by clicking here.

Now follow these courses of action to install Windows Server 2008:

1. Insert the Windows Server 2008 installation media into your DVD drive. If you don’t have an installation DVD for Windows Server 2008, you can download one for free from Microsoft’s Windows 2008 Server Trial website.

2. When done Restart the computer.

Reboot windows

3. Make your selection and press Next When prompted for an installation language and other regional options

select installation language

4. Next, press Install Now to start the installation process.

click install now

5. Enter your Product ID in the next window, and if you want to automatically activate Windows the moment the installation finishes, click Next.

enter serial key

If you do not have the Product ID available right now, you can leave the box empty, and click Next. You will need to provide the Product ID later, after the server installation is over. Press No.

6. As you did not provide the correct ID, the installation process cannot determine what kind of Windows Server 2008 license you own, and therefore you will be prompted to select your correct version in the next screen.

select windows edition

7. If you provided the right Product ID, select the Full version of the right Windows version you’re prompted, and click Next.

select windows full version enterprise

8. Accept the license terms by clicking to select the check box and pressing next.

license terms

9. In the “Which type of installation do you want?” window, choose the only available option – Custom (Advanced).

choose custom installation

10. In the “Where do you want to install Windows?”, if you’re installing the server on a regular IDE hard disk, click to select the first disk, usually Disk 0, and click Next.

select disk partition

You can also click Drive Options and manually create a partition on the destination hard disk.

11. The installation now begins, and copying the setup files from the DVD to the hard drive only takes about one or two minutes but extracting and uncompressing the files takes more. After 20/25 minutes, the operating system is installed.

The installation process will reboot your computer.

12. After the server reboots you’ll be prompted with the login screen. Press CTRL+ALT+DEL to log in.

logon

13. Click on Other User.

select other user

14. The default Administrator is blank, so just type Administrator and press Enter.

change password

15. You will be prompted to change the user’s password. You have no choice but to press Ok.

16. In the password changing dialog box, enter a complex password like “woRldCup2010!” but be sure you can remember it.

changing password

17. Now you’ll be prompted to accept the fact that the password had been changed. Press Ok.

windows password changed

18. Finally, the desktop appears and you’re logged on and can begin working. The initial server configuration will be prompted, and after performing some initial configuration tasks, you will be able to start working.

Next, I will come up with active directory installation and configuration on windows 2008 R2. Keep in touch with my blog.

For Official Microsoft information on Windows Server 2008, see the Windows Server 2008 homepage.

Implementing a Document Management System with SharePoint : Preface

Overview

Very recently I have finished implementing a document management and collaboration solution with SharePoint 2010 and Office Web Apps. And here I will share that experience from some technical perspective meaning that I will only discuss about the installation and customization part. But before going further I think a very brief description of the requirements will be helpful. Okay, here I go:

The Scenario

“MyCompany (Imaginary) is a service provider and it has many clients. MyCompany prepares both technical and financial proposals for different types of projects and after getting the work order it engage its managers and developers for development and other services. Support representatives are responsible for implementation of project and time to time support. To keep the service record they use paper based form and take sign of customer with service details after providing the requested service.

After that accounts department prepare bills and send to the customers through office staffs/email/courier based on the urgency. Time to time different departments also send various types of letters as well.”

Now the management wants to create such a system which can provide them a single place to store and share the documents, stopping reinvention of same document, reduce time of creating new document by sharing different types of templates across the company. By this system they also want to keep the communication records with the clients such as letters, invoice, and email for quick retrieval and reusage.

Hearing the story I have suggested SharePoint 2010 to give them a relief. And they raise the thumbs. So my assignment has begun.

Planning the solution

I have planned to implement the solution on a single server machine and designed SharePoint document library for storing and retrieval of documents. For different types of documents I had used global content types (such as letter/invoice) and site column from the site collection for usage at different subsite to minimize the effort. By this way I can reuse columns and content types at different sites and libraries. SharePoint 2010 supports global content types; so this is a big deal that leverages the use of content types across the site collections. I will discuss how to create content types and columns on my later post.

Deployment

A single server SharePoint farm generally consists of one server that runs both Database server (i.e Microsoft SQL Server 2008 here) and Application server (i.e SharePoint Server 2010 in my scenario) .It can be deployed if someone is planning a small amount of sites for a limited number of users around 10 to15. And/or  for personal development environment. This configuration is also helpful if you want to implement a farm to meet your needs first, and then add servers to the farm at a later stage.

sharepoint Installation Stack

In this installation I used SQL Server 2008 R2 Enterprise so that I can configure a simple server farm and can add more application and frontend server later. This post is the 1^st of 12 part series step by step approach of deployment and customization of SharePoint solution;

• Install Windows Server 2008 R2 x64
• Install and Configure Active Directory Domain Services
• Install IIS 7 and SMTP Server
• Add Application Server Role
• Install Database Server – SQL 2008 R2 x64
• Install SharePoint 2010
• Configure Email, Search
• Create Site Collection and site
• Create Content Type and Site columns
• Create and configure Document Library
• Create and Configure Document Set
• Filtering documents by User filter webpart

No more today, I will back within a very short time with the first step.