Customizing the Site Directory in MOSS 2007

Like most SharePoint implementers out there I typically like to modify the Site Directory for my customers. I find that the out of the box options for Region and Division are pretty lacking and really fall short of how my clients want to organize and search for SharePoint sites. Luckily, MOSS 2007 makes it quite easy to customize these options. Here’s how.

First, navigate to the Sites page in your MOSS implementation. You’ll see the standard list of categories and a few tabs (see figure 1). The first things I thought when I saw this view was 1) how can I change those categories to be something I care about and 2) how can I change the tabs?

The first step to customizing both of these items is to click View all Site Content above the quick launch bar on the left-hand side. Scroll down to look at the lists. You will see two lists which are quite conspicuous: Sites and Tabs.

First let’s customize the site categories. Click on the Sites list. Then from the Settings drop down, choose List Settings. Add a new column called “Site Type”, make it a choice column, and give it the values “Project” and “Initiative”.

Next, while still on the list settings page, scroll down to the list of views. Click on the Categories view. This view defines what properties are shown on the Categories tab. In the list of columns, find Site Type and check the box so that it will be shown in the view. By choosing to have the property shown in the view it will be shown on the Categories tab on the site directory page.

Save the view and return to the list settings page. Now locate the view called Site Creation Categories. This view determines what fields are displayed when a new site is created. Modify this view to include Site Type as well.

Now, navigate back to the site directory page. You should now see Site Type listed in the categories list (figure 2). If you click the Create Site button you should see Site Type in the list of Site Categories as well (figure 3).

You can see that with further customization you can make the site categories fit whatever site organization model you need.

Next, let’s change the tabs. I don’t like Top Sites and I’d like another tab called Project Dashboard.

Go back to View All Site Content and click on the Tabs list. Immediately you will see what drives the list of tabs on the site directory page. The tabs list contains a list of pages, one (or more in the case of Categories) for each tab. First, let’s get rid of the Top Sites tab. Simply click the Edit icon and then click Delete Item.

Next to add a new tab called Project Dashboard. From the Site Actions drop down select Create Page. Make the URL name of this new page “ProjectDashboard.aspx”. For the Page Layout, select (Welcome Page) Site Directory Home and click OK.

You will now be taken to the newly created page in edit mode. Add a web part for the Sites list to the page and configure it to filter the list to only display sites where the Site Type property is equal to “Projects”.

Now, navigate back to the Tabs list. From the New menu, select New Item. Call the new tab “Project Dashboard”. In the Page text box, enter “ProjectDashboard.aspx”. Click OK. Navigate back to the Site Directory page to see your handy work.

As you can see, this was pretty easy to do. With all of the filter web parts, content aggregation web parts, and other goodies MOSS 2007 comes equipped with it should be possible to build any number of different views into your SharePoint sites.