Groups available in different site collections

Is it possible that I create a group that is available to assign permission to, under different site collections ?

You may not be able to create a group avaialable in multiple site collections.

The nearest possible option is - you can set User Policy on a web application which would allow you to set the following permission types in all its site collections.

•  Full Control - Has full control.
•  Full Read - Has full read-only access.
•  Deny Write - Has no write access.
•  Deny All - Has no access.

You can select individual AD users / AD security groups as part of setting up web app user policy from Central Admin...

Link a document to a document set

Do you want some other documents in your document set without uploading it???

1. Edit your document set content type 
2. Add a new content type "link to documents".

This would help you to add any number of document references in your Document Set by creating Document Links.

SharePoint 2010 search : How it works???

SharePoint 2010 search architecture is made up of the following components

• Crawler
• Indexing Engine
• Query Engine
• Search User Interface 
• Query Object Model

Architecturally every SharePoint 2010 Seacrh component is part of its query architecture and the crawling architecture. The query architecture includes query components, index partitions, and property databases. At the same time Crawl architecture includes components like Crawl component, Crawl database and Property database.


The server which has Web server role in your farm hosts Search Web Parts and Web Part pages for answering search queries. These web components interacts with the user in issuing search requests and accepting search response as results. 


The application server configured for having query components serves query results to web servers. It also holds part of / entire search index. It process the query issued by web server and forwards query requests to one query component for each index partition and then merges results to display to users. The query processor is also responsible for security trimming, duplicate results detection, and gathering and displaying properties.  Application server with crawl components Runs one or more crawler components. 


Database server Hosts search-related databases like Property DB, Crawl DB and Search Admin DB.


The crawl process works as given below

1. When the Full crawl process starts, The Start address of the search source moved to queue. 
2. The Protocol for earch determined and selects the requires Connector. 
3. iFilter opens files and Content index created on crawl server. 
4. Then the Index moved in batches to query server and the relevant Data written to Crawl and Property databases.

The query flow is follows

1. When A search is performed by a user, the WFE serving the call uses the associated search service application proxy to connect to a server running the Query and Site Settings Service also known as the Query Processor.  It uses WCF for this communication. 
2. The QP will connect to the following components to gather results merges\security trims and return results back to WFE: Query Component (holds entire index or partition of an index) Property Store DB (holds metadata\properties of indexed content) Search Admin DB (holds Security Descriptors\Configuration data). 
3. Then WFE displays search results to the user

Client side code to check user permissions

You can check for a specific user permission in client side code using the following snipppet

BasePermissions bp = new BasePermissions();
bp.Set(PermissionKind.AddListItems);
ClientResult<bool> manageWeb = context.Web.DoesUserHavePermissions(bp); context.ExecuteQuery();

The above code snippet checks whetehr the user has AddListItems or not

SharePoint pricing

Have you ever think about the cost factor of SharePoint implementation?


Basically there are three license / edition types available for SharePoint 2010 - Foundation, Standard, and Enterprise. Foundation is a free download, you can download it from Microsoft Site and perform basic SharePoint operations (doc management, collaboration etc) without paying anything for SharePoint License.


Standard and Enterprise editions require the purchase of SharePoint Server 2010 and licensing of the requisite feature set. Standard edition provides the features like web analytics, Content organizer, Document Sets etc along with the Foundation features


The Enterprise CAL is additive (i.e., you must already have the Standard CAL), and the Enterprise license will enable users to experience advanced features like Business Data Web Parts, Excel Services, Chart WebParts. It also provides the opportunity to add on a license for FAST Search Server 2010 for SharePoint. 


The detailed feature comparison can be found at http://www.sharepointedutech.com/2010/08/12/sharepoint-2010-version-comparison-table/


When it comes to pricing, the following are the common licensing/cost components 

1. Windows 2008 Server Standard                - $1029 per Server
2. Windows 2008 Server Client Access License   - $40 per user
3. SharePoint 2010 Server Standard             - $4926 per server
4. SharePoint Standard  Client Access License  - $95 per user
5. SharePoint Enterprise Client Access License - $83 per user
6. SQL Server 2008 Standard                    - $7200 per DB server

The above option will only allow you to setup intranet/extranet sites.
The following option is for internet facing setup where no client access license is requires.

1. SharePoint Server 2010 for internet Sites Standard  - $11,793 per server
2. SharePoint Server 2010 for internet Sites Standard  - $41,392 per server

For enhanced search options you can optionally choose

1. FAST Search Server - $20,250  per server

Note: The prices may lack accuracy since it obtained from some other sites and blogs.


There is another option called Volume Licensing, which could offer you better rates. Check microsoft licensing site for details...

OOTB Analytics feature

There is a web analytics service application coming up with SharePoint 2010. This would allow you to find out how users using your sites and pages.

For this you have to perform the following actions on a high level

1. Create a new eb Analytics Service Application from Central Admin > Service Applications
2. From Manage Services on Server, configure the Web Analytics Data Processing Service and Web Analytics Web Service.
3. You can chk Web Analytics Service is running by click on Monitoring >"View Web Analytics Reports" under Reporting

You could see the web analytics repotts under Site Collection Settings

Once you set up web analytic service application configuration in youe environment, you would get the following reports if you logged in as a site collection admin.

• Number of Page Views  
• Number of Unique Visitors  
• Number of Referrers 
• Top Pages 
• Top Visitors 
• Top Referrers 
• Top Destinations 
• Top Browsers

This is a pure out of the box capability that requires few configuration steps


For details please chk
http://blogs.msdn.com/b/ecm/archive/2010/03/21/introducing-web-analytics-in-sharepoint-2010.aspx
 http://blogs.msdn.com/b/ecm/archive/2010/05/03/web-analytics-in-sharepoint-2010-insights-into-reports-and-metrics.aspx