Any experience on Sitecore CMS using Windows Sharepoint Services?

Question

Hi guys,

I plan to develop a solution based on Sitecore CMS which would allow the client company to manage their documents in a Sharepoint-fashion (versioning, diffs??). Of course, we're after limiting the number of licences required for the project, and the client doesn't yet have licences for MOSS, so we couldn't simply use the Sitecore Sharepoint Connector which from everything I read requires the MOSS installation, and won't work with bare WSS.

From what I know Sitecore CMS doesn't version documents as such, but is there a possibility for a workaround?

Ideally we'd work with Documents and Files in the same fashion as with normal pages, which enables DIFFs and stuff.

Any ideas?

Thanks,

Marcin B

Answer 1

You can lock and version content items or Media Library items similar way as in Sharepoint. You also have diff but that is only for html/text content, it's not working with Media Library content like images or office documents. On those you have just lock + download + edit + upload + unlock with new version. It's easy to create versioning/lock GUI in frontend using Sitecore API in Extranet if you think that in edit you lock item and on save you create new version of it. I did this once on Sitecore 5.3.1 it was enough for my requirements. My implementation was with similar logic as SVN commit where you upload file to MediaLibrary in a folder and you can write "commit" comment.

I would suggest exploring a bit API and try out if you can do all in Sitecore, I don't think you need any extra module or Sharepoint license for this. Especially if you make some nice AJAX widgets that make "lock + download + edit + upload + unlock with new version" seamless customer could be happy with it and would save a lot with licenses?