Help me stun SharePoint

February 20, 2009 5:51 AM

[MS SharePoint Filter] We have a SharePoint subsite that needs to be kinda disabled for a wee bit until our SP guy gets back from vacation and updates some workflows (yay management decision). Specifically, everyone with access needs to be set to Read Only and a message needs to be added to every page ("This site is unavailable because blah blah blah).

The only way those of us still in the office know to deal with this is brute force; go in and edit each page and permission. This is a huge pain and I know there has to be a more elegant solution.

I looked into SharePoint Features but I couldn't find anything that nearly matched the functionality I was looking for and I feel I'm missing something simple.

Anyone here have an idea of how to do this (especially in an easily reversible way)?

posted by Ikazuchi to computers & internet (9 comments total)

You can edit the Permissions just for that subsite.

On the subsite you need to change -> SIte Actions -> Site Settings -> Users and Permissions -> Advanced Permissions -> ACTIONS -> Edit Permissions ->

Set the permissions however you need to.

Then, your SP Admin will go back in and can set them ti be inherited from the parent site again.

(Usually, the default is to inherit from the parent, if this isn't the case, the SP Admin can still redo the permissions for the Users/Groups under this site pretty easily)
posted by emjay at 6:11 AM on February 20

That will work, however you mentioned the need to place a "reason" message on every page.

Actually what will happen using Ikazuchi's method is users may get the "you don't have access" error page when they try to do anything they used to be able to do. That error page also offers a link to request access. They won't know why they can't access it, so there may be an inundation of access requests depending on how many users are involved.

The only way to "easily" place a message on each page (which really is not a good idea, IMO) is to use SharePoint Designer, and I doubt anyone other than your absent guy is able to use that. You'd have to alter the master page OR go page-by-page adding in a message, which will be very unpleasant to do AND to remove after the fact.

Is there some reason why a general (non-SharePoint) email to all users stating that that particular site is down won't get the message across? Then use the method described above and just ignore or politely reply to any subsequent access requests that may come in?
posted by I_Love_Bananas at 7:16 AM on February 20

Sorry, should read "using emjay's method. Sorry!
posted by I_Love_Bananas at 7:18 AM on February 20

emjay has it for the permissions. I can think of a couple of ways to set a subsite-wide message without using SharePoint Designer:

Change the title of the site from "Subsite" to "Subsite - "Temp Read Only Due to Etc"

Add a new sub-subsite titled "Site is Temporarily Read Only: Click for more info". Have this site appear in the tabs across the top of the subsite and/or in the Quck Launch. The sub-subsite would simply be a page explaining the status.
posted by mikepop at 7:18 AM on February 20

That's good mikepop! Didn't think of that. Then again, I have this to deal with.
posted by I_Love_Bananas at 7:20 AM on February 20

Mostly it comes down to the obstinacy of our users and the way management handles them.

The main part I was hoping for was an installable feature that could leave everyone's access how it currently is but override it to read-only when activated. We have a lot of custom permissions on lists in this site (and a lot of lists).

The message (possibly as a javascript page overlay) would have been icing.

We have brute-forced the permissions to Read Only (with references as to what to change them back to after the modifications are made) and added a message to the main landing page about the situation.

Thanks for the suggestions! Any further ones that could be useful if we have to do this again (which knowing our management, we will) would still be greatly appreciated.
posted by Ikazuchi at 7:24 AM on February 20

I don't know of any non-custom installable feature like the one you described, but that would be nice to have in one's SP arsenal. I am sure one of the many vendors (Bamboo or some such) either has that available or is now working on it after reading this post.

Are the relevant workflows done in SPD? And only one person has the power?
posted by I_Love_Bananas at 7:28 AM on February 20

Perhaps another alternative would be to have a generic message display page (see here)

This is really something your SP Admin should be doing though. Maybe for next time?
posted by emjay at 7:56 AM on February 20

The right answer on getting a message on every page of a site is to create a new Master Page (or make a copy of the existing one and edit it) that contains the text that you want and then use that Master Page for your subsite. This is something you can use with SharePoint Designer.
posted by mmascolino at 8:03 AM on February 20