SharePoint 2010 Disaster Recovery for End Users : Templates

One way that end users can capture and save such customizations within the SharePoint environment is through the use of templates. For example, a template can be used to bundle up the changes that are made to a list, modifications that have been made to the columns it contains, views that have been added or changed, and more. In addition to capturing these structural changes, templates can be used to save data and content. In the case of the list example, end users have the option of choosing to include the data that is in a list at the same time the structural information is captured in a template.

Once you have created a template, it is available for re-use within the site collection it was created within. End users can also download templates that have been created for use in other site collections and SharePoint environments; this use is most attractive to the average end user from a content protection and disaster recovery perspective.

With the removal of personal Web package export and backup creation capabilities from Share-Point Designer 2010, templates remain one of the few mechanisms that end users have at their disposal to package and move content out of SharePoint sites in a structured form. Templates that can be created, exported, and imported by users come in two varieties: list templates and site templates.

List Templates

The first type of template that end users can generate through the SharePoint browser-based UI is a list template. The overwhelming majority of data and content within SharePoint is stored in list form, so the ability to create a reusable template from virtually any list in SharePoint is quite powerful.

As described earlier, a list template allows end users to capture the structure and customizations that are tied to a specific list or document library in SharePoint. At the same time, end users can choose to include all the list item content that the list or document library possesses at the time of template creation.

The process of list template creation can be distilled into the following sequence of steps:

Templates that are present in the List Template Gallery as a result of the steps just described are available for end users to select when they go to create a new list or document library in the site collection. You can also download templates in the List Template Gallery with the Save Target As option that is available when you right-click a template name, as shown in Figure 1.

Figure 1. Saving a template from the List Template Gallery.

Templates that you download can be imported into another site collection using the Upload Document option on the ribbon of the List Template Gallery. Once you have uploaded a list template to the List Template Gallery, it becomes available for use in the creation of new lists in the destination site collection just as it had been in the source site collection.

Site Templates

The second type of template that can be generated from within the browser-based UI is a site template. Whereas you use a list template to capture the structure and content of a single list or document library, you use a site template to capture the equivalent information for an entire SharePoint site or subsite. The template process doesn’t recursively capture subsites below the site targeted, though—only the site itself.

In most regards, the process of creating and using a site template is the same as the process that was described for list templates. There are a few differences worth noting, though.

• The link to create a template is located under the Site Actions menu of the Site Settings page.

• Templates that you create are stored (somewhat nonintuitively) in the Solutions Gallery for the site collection. You can download existing templates from the Solutions Gallery, and you can upload templates that you want to import to the Solutions Gallery.

• Templates in the Solutions Gallery are available for selection when end users want to create a new site or subsite, such as through the New Site options on the Site Actions menu.

SharePoint Designer and Templates

If you have used SharePoint Designer 2010 and examined the application’s ribbon while working with either a site or list, you have probably seen the Save As Template button that is shown circled in Figure 2.

As was the case with SharePoint Designer 2007, this button doesn’t launch application-specific functionality within SharePoint Designer 2010. Instead, it opens a browser window and directs the browser to the savetmpl.aspx application page in SharePoint’s _layouts virtual directory. From the savetmpl.aspx page, you have the ability to create both site and list templates. That’s the extent to which SharePoint Designer assists with site and list template creation.

Interestingly enough, the savetmpl.aspx page is the same page from which site and list templates are created when using the browser-based UI for these tasks. In reality, SharePoint Designer doesn’t really provide template creation capabilities—it simply hands control over to a SharePoint application page and removes itself from the operation.

An Administrative Perspective on Templates

Much like versioning, the creation and use of both site and list templates are tasks that end users can carry out on their own without having to trouble you, the administrator. There are a few template-related points of note, though, that you should be aware of.

Templates and Publishing Sites

When your users begin working with templates, they may report that the links to create site and list templates don’t always appear within the Site Settings and List Settings pages. In addition, your users may report that the Template Creation button on the ribbon in SharePoint Designer is sometimes grayed out.

In most cases, this behavior is by design and is tied to site collections that are based on publishing templates such as the Publishing Portal and Enterprise Wiki. Due to some of the unique relationships that exist within publishing sites, such as the relationship between layout pages and content types, Microsoft does not support the creation of templates from publishing sites and lists within them. This lack of support is reinforced through the disablement of template creation links in publishing sites.

Strictly speaking, it is still possible to create templates for publishing sites and lists by navigating directly to the savetmpl.aspx application page within the _layouts virtual directory of a publishing site, but it is obviously not recommended and supported for reasons already mentioned.

Setting Limits on Templates That Can Be Generated

Another common barrier that users encounter with templates is the maximum size of the template they can create. By default, the maximum size of a list or site template that can be created is roughly 50MB in SharePoint 2010. Attempts to create a template that is larger than 50MB are met with an error dialog box similar to the one shown in Figure 3.

Figure 3. Error that results from attempting to create a template that is too large.

Storage of 50MB is typically ample for templates that include structural elements without site content and list items, but templates that include content from large lists and sites can easily exceed this limit.

As an administrator, you have the ability to increase or decrease the maximum size limit for list and site templates that end users can generate from within SharePoint sites. However, before making changes to the limit, there are a few points worth mentioning:

• Any changes that you make to the maximum size limit apply to all site collections within the SharePoint farm.

• The creation of large templates can place a significant load on the Web server where the template is generated. This can adversely affect the performance of your SharePoint environment.

• Attempts to create templates that are too large may lead to erratic behavior and browser timeouts. The actual point at which undesirable behavior manifests varies from environment to environment, so you should understand how your farm behaves under load before setting the maximum template creation size to too large of a value.

If changing the maximum template creation size is something you conclude that you want to do, there are two ways to accomplish it. The recommended approach involves a few simple lines of PowerShell script to change the MaxTemplateDocumentSize property value on the content Web service for the SharePoint farm:

$cws = [Microsoft.SharePoint.Administration.SPWebService]::ContentService
$cws.MaxTemplateDocumentSize = <new maximum>
$cws.Update()

Alternatively, you can fall back to using STSADM.exe to make the same change:

STSADM -o setproperty -pn max-template-document-size -pv <new maximum>

In both the PowerShell and STSADM.exe examples, the <new maximum> value specified is the new template size creation limit in bytes. A value of 150000000, for example, changes the maximum template creation size to approximately 150,000,000 bytes, or 150MB, for all site collections within the farm.

Templates and Security

As an administrator, there is an additional point you must consider when determining how templates are or are not going to be used within your organization: security. Although the creation of templates that contain only structural information don’t pose much of a concern, a user’s ability to include list item content within a template does. If sites or lists contain sensitive content, that content can be written out in a template by default. Once the content is written to a template and subsequently downloaded, anyone who can access the downloaded template has access to a copy of the content data that was exported.

There are a couple of simple options available to you if you want to restrict how templates can be created and downloaded.

• You can tune and reduce the maximum size of a template that can be created. Because list item content can quickly “bulk-up” a list, some experimentation may allow you to set a maximum template creation size that is adequate to allow the creation of structural templates without permitting the creation of templates that include list item content.

• By controlling the permissions on the List Template Gallery and Solution Gallery for a site collection, you can control who can create templates, who can access templates, whether or not templates can be deleted, and more.