Best tool for building the database for a MOSS 2007 site?

Question

Hey, guys! I'm building a dynamic site in MOSS 2007 and I've been creating lists through the browser. It works, but seems kind of clunky and there aren't as many graphical reporting tools as other apps like Access (showing foreign keys in an ERD for example).

Note: I do not have access to the server/computer or the administrator nor do I have remote desktop. I have to connect to this server remotely.

I have the following applications at my disposal

Office 2003
SharePoint Designer 2007
Visual Studio Express
SQL Server Management Studio Express

Are any of these compatible with a MOSS site so I can just build the lists, lookups and so forth without having to do it in the browser?

Thanks!

Answer 1

Moving to the General forum.

Not specifically a programming question and includes topics that are covered in different forums. (Also looking for a tool which is also General)

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WSS FAQ sites: http://wssv2faq.mindsharp.com and http://wssv3faq.mindsharp.com
Total list of WSS 3.0 / MOSS 2007 Books (including foreign language) http://wssv3faq.mindsharp.com/Lists/v3%20WSS%20FAQ/V%20Books.aspx

Answer 2

Hello,

 

For your question in title about building database for MOSS, you can use following command:

 

stsadm.exe -o addcontentdb -url <URL name> -databasename <database name>

(details about this command: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc263422.aspx)

 

If you want make a site collection to occupy a whole database, you can use following command:

 

stsadm -o createsiteinnewdb -url http://your.application.com/SiteCollection -owneremail [e-mail] -ownerlogin Application\Owner -sitetemplate sts -title “Title” -databaseserver servername -databasename WSS_Content_Somename

 

For your question about building lists & lookups without using browser:

 

The best way I can think of is to using Object Model through programming. It is strongly not recommended to directly operate on databases to add sharepoint site content, but you can create a separate database and create tables then using SharePoint designer to add controls or web parts (such as data view) on pages to show content from these custom tables.  It can be done through adding these tables as data source for data view or other controls.

 

Regards,

Jerry

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Xing-Bing Yu

Answer 3

Hi,
you have several options to achieve this but first you should consider how it should be used:
If you are only building it once; ie you will not reuse your solution then you should do it in the browser since it is the fastest and cheapest way.
If you are building a reusable solution then you should build a SharePoint feature for this; since is done by using Visual Studio and creating a combination of XML and C#/VB.NET code. You can use Visual Studio Express for this.
My recommendation for this kind of solution (if it should be reused) is to build a SharePoint feature and create an activator that uses the object model to create the lists and lookups.
If you ar asking how to do it, post a question in the development forum.
/WW

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SharePoint Architect http://www.wictorwilen.se/