SharePoint

Review of: SharePoint Content Deployment Wizard

By Praveen Modi ⋅ February 24, 2009 ⋅  Email This Post ⋅  Print This Post ⋅ Post a comment
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The SharePoint Content Deployment Wizard from Chris Obrien is a excellent tool for SharePoint 2007 content deployment.

Advantages:

• Ability to “cherry-pick” content to deploy using a tree view - this is from entire site collection down to individual lists, folders, list items (including files)
• Dependencies of selected content (e.g. referenced CSS files, master pages) are automatically included in the export - check ‘Exclude dependencies of selected objects’ to disable this.
• All required content types, columns etc. are automatically included in the export.
• In contrast to STSADM export, it is possible to retain GUIDs during deployment. This is required for scenarios where the destination should be a mirror-image of the source, such as staging/production environments for the same site
• Open Source and free

Disadvantages:

• Cannot automate the deployment using scripts.
• No file system files (assemblies, SharePoint Solutions/Features etc.) are deployed - these must already be present on the target for the import to succeed).
• Following content does not get captured by the Content Migration API - alerts, audit trail, change log history, recycle-bin items, workflow tasks/state.
• Does not support incremental changes.
• No official Support available

Things to know:

• Content is exported using the Content Migration API (PRIME) as a .cmp file (Content Migration Package)
• Tool must be installed locally on the server which hosts the site
• Not all features of the Content Migration API are supported by the tool
• It must be run under an account which has the appropriate permissions to the SharePoint site - use the Windows ‘Run as..’ feature to do this if necessary.

Scenario’s (When to use this tool):

As per the author “I would suggest the tool could well have a place in your SharePoint toolbox, but it’s likely to be something you use every now and then, rather than all the time.

The two main scenarios where I use the tool are:

• At the end of the development phase when I need to move a site from development to staging/production. Here, the tool allows me to be sure that all relationships/linkages between objects will be preserved (so no problems with ListViewWebParts/DataViewWebParts/InfoPath forms for example)

• Any odd occasions where I have a need to move a particular document library/list, or a particular set of files (e.g. master page, page layouts, CSS etc.). This assumes by the way, that the files were not deployed with a feature - I wouldn’t recommend mixing the deployment methods like that.

Helpful links:

Chris Obrien’s Blog

http://www.sharepointnutsandbolts.com/2007/12/introducing-sharepoint-content.html

Download from CodePlex

http://www.codeplex.com/SPDeploymentWizard

Tags: Chris Obrien SharePoint Content Deployment Tool, Free SharePoint Content Deployment Tools, Free SharePoint Deployment Tools, Free SharePoint Tools, MOSS, MOSS Content Deployment Tool, SharePoint, SharePoint Content Deployment Tool, SharePoint Content Deployment Wizard, SharePoint Tools, SharePoint tools at Codeplex