What is a SharePoint site template

SharePoint site templates are pre-built definitions designed around a particular business need. You can use these templates as they are to create your own SharePoint site and then customize the site as much as you like. You’re probably familiar with the default site templates, like Team Site, Blog site, and Group Work Site as shown here.

You can create your own site template based on a site you’ve created and customized in SharePoint. This is a powerful feature in SharePoint that allows you to create a custom solution and then share that solution with your peers, the broader organization, or outside organizations. You can also package the site and open it in another environment or application like Microsoft Visual Studio and further customize it there.

When you save your site as a template, you create a Web Solution Package, or WSP. A WSP is a CAB file with the solution manifest. The solution you create gets stored in the Solution Gallery for the SharePoint site collection. From there, you can download a copy of the solution or activate it on the server.

Activating SharePoint Designer

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An unexpected error has occurred

Problem Description:

If you try to import a spreadsheet from within SharePoint Designer 2010 to create a list in SharePoint 2010 then you will get an error

"An unexpected error has occurred."

What exactly I am doing:

1.   Browse to a SharePoint site

2.   From the Site Settings menu click on "Edit In SharePoint Designer"

3.   Within SharePoint Designer, choose left menu "Lists and Items"

4.   From the Ribbon menu click "List from Spreadsheet"

5.   SharePoint Designer will launch the SharePoint site within a browser

6.   Add a title on the list and choose File then click Import

7.   You will get error message "An unexpected error has occurred"

After hours of troubleshooting and debugging, I got this issue resolved by using the following workaround.

Workaround:

1.   The URL when you try to load the page from SharePoint Designer will look something like the following and it will not work:

          http://server/_layouts/new.aspx?ListTemplate=SpreadsheetImport

2.   Append to the URL on the page that is being called from Sharepoint Designer with the following and reload the page.

          &ListBaseType=0&DisplayName=Spreadsheet+Import

Example:

http://server/_layouts/new.aspx?ListTemplate=SpreadsheetImport&ListBaseType=0&DisplayName=Spreadsheet+Import

I hope the above mentioned information will help you to resolve your issue. If you have any queries/questions regarding the above mentioned information then please let me know. I would be more than happyJ to help you as well as resolves your issues J J

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Cannot open pages in sub sites with SharePoint Designer 2010

What is happening? | What the issue is?

Cannot open pages in sub sites with SharePoint Designer 2010 even if users have Design or higher permissions at the sub site level

SharePoint Designer is a powerful application that enables the rapid creation, editing and deployment of content on the SharePoint platform. As such, certain mandatory permission levels are required. You use SharePoint Designer to create and customize data sources, views and forms, workflows, master pages, and more. When performed together, you can create real business solutions on the SharePoint platform.

Points to be noted: SharePoint Designer is designed to request and use SharePoint permissions that grant the rights of managing & designing at the SharePoint site level it is not design to use the permission at a smaller granularity level such as list item level permissions...

Conclusion:

To be able to use SharePoint Designer and modify SharePoint content, an user needs to be a member of one of the following groups at the site collection level: Site Collection Administrators group, the Designers group, and Owners group.

Reference Documents:

1.   http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc262939.aspx

2.   http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc721640.aspx

Workarounds:

1. Give the user Design permissions to the Master Page gallery and read permission to the rest of the site.

2. Copy down the Master Page to the sub site instead of inheriting.

Finally, it seems that this issue is by designJ

If you have any queries/questions regarding the above mentioned information then please let me know. I would be more than happy to help you as well as resolves your issues J J