How can I create nested sub sites?

Question

I'm a Sharepoint newbie and have been tasked with migrating our old custom Active Server Pages intranet site to something equivalent in Sharepoint.

The challenge I'm coming across is how to create subsites and "sub-subsites" for lack of a better term.  The best way I can think to describe our current site is that it is visually divided into tabs representing different parts of our organization.  When a tab is selected, the top-level content within it is shown with sub-navigation leading to "sub-sites".  These sub-sites have varying permissions.  For example, let's say our site has the following tabbed sections: Home, HR, Departments, Documents.  If I want to see our Finance department, I'd click on the Departments tab then click on a Finance link in our equivalent of the Quick Launch bar.  This brings me to the Finance page where Finance staff can edit content and I can view content.

Is there a best approach to structuring a Sharepoint 2010 site so top navigation can represent genaral groups of sites while portions within each group represent a separate site with varying permissions?

Thanks!

-Chris

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-Chris

Answer 1

Hi Chris:

You could try making the desired navigation in Sharepoint 2010 with the following:

1. First go to your top level site of the site collection.
2. Choose Site Actions - Site settings
3. On site settings, in the site collection administration column select Site Collection Features
4. Activate the SharePoint Server Publishing Infrastructure Feature.
5. Go back to the Site Settings page and choose Manage site features in the Site Actions column
6. Select and activate the Sharepoint server Publishing Feature.

Now you should have the Navigation link enabled on Site settings, under Look and Feel.

In the navigation page, you could create a link Called Departments, and under it specify the links to the different Subsites.

Please check these two links for more reference.

http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/sharepoint-server-help/configure-the-top-link-bar-for-site-navigation-HA102105259.aspx#_Toc278883933

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ee695757.aspx

Cheers!

Carlos

Answer 2

Hi Carlos,

It doesn't appear that this feature is installed.  When I go into the Site Collection Features, there is no "SharePoint Server Publishing Infrastructure" feature available:

Looking further into what appears to be on my Sharepoint installation, I found there appear to be missing template categories that include a "publishing" site.  The categories I do have available to me when creating a site collection are "Collaboration", "Meetings" and "Custom":

There are no "Enterprise" or "Publishing" categories.  I am running Sharepoint Foundation, not Enterprise, so I would expect not to see an "Enterprise" category.  Is the "Publishing" templates along with the features you're talking about an Enterprise edition feature?  I can't seem to find anything online that tells me what templates are available in which editions of Sharepoint.

Thanks,

-Chris

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-Chris

Answer 3

Hi Chris.

SharePoint publishing is a Server feature, so you are correct in assuming that it's not available in Foundation.

Check this link for some basic understanding of navigation in Foundation:

Plan site navigation (SharePoint Foundation 2010)
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc288409.aspx

Regards

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Thomas Balkeståhl - Technical Specialist - SharePoint - http://blog.blksthl.com
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