Joel Oleson's Blog - SharePoint Land

My Top 10 and a few "MUST HAVE" Management Tools for WSS v2 & SPS 2003

I've been working on a SharePoint Manageability briefing and put together some free tools that I believe really help people that have deployed WSS v2 & SharePoint Portal Server 2003.

For those of you who have been running SharePoint for a while this may contain many tools that you're already familiar with, but for those that may be struggling with your deployment, these tools may come in handy.  Hopefully there's something for everyone...

Metrics & Reports

These tools come in very handy when attempting to gather usage reports across multiple farms.  It’s also very handy in attempting to understand what file types, libraries, etc… are used. 

• SPReport – Usage & Metrics Rollup tool written by Daniel Witriol.  He was showing off how easy it was to use the OM to gather data.  It's incredible how many feature investments were made in the product based on the reports from this simple tool.  I recommend running this tool off hours, but the report is incredible and very verbose...  HTML or XML based report.
• SharePoint SRS Report Pack additional Instructions

These reports are complicated to get going, but the search terms stuff is tough to get otherwise.  If you’ve made investments in SQL Reporting services, this will help you get started creating your own reports for SharePoint.  Totally is just an example.

Server Administration, Troubleshooting & Monitoring

• SharePoint Configuration Analyzer 1.0

I haven’t used this a lot, but it may be a start for understanding your environment.

• STSADM for Windows– Windows Shell API for STSAdm

This tool looked handy.  I’m a command line guy myself.  I’ve heard good things.

• SPSReport – Data Gathering & Troubleshooting Tool

Many of my buddies in PSS use this tool first thing on any environment to understand what’s going on.  I recommend running this off hours.

• WSS & SPS 2003 - Microsoft Operations Manager Application Packs

Used these.  I did a post on the WSS one.  Useful but not necessarily killer.  I recommend using the IIS one with some tunning on the 404’s.  The application pool alerts and the 500 errors are essential to the SharePoint monitoring space.

• Internet Information Services (IIS) 6.0 Resource Kit Tools – the log parser is cool for troubleshooting or ad hoc queries, the wfetch tool among others is great for troubleshooting SharePoint issues
• Xenu Link Checker - Free, but wierd ads.  I've been using this tool for over 10 years for my link checking needs.

Site, Database & User Management

• SharePoint Utility Suite v2.5 – User, Site, & Database Manager & Analyzer

Keith Richie has put in some huge investments to make the life of the IT Pro easier.  This is my number 1 tool on the this list of “must haves”.  Use it for Sites, Users, and managing databases.  Don’t forget to use this to move subsites, My sites, and move users between domains… This stuff is incredible.  He’s now working on the next rev of this and other cool stuff.  I recommend following his blog.

• WSSSplit – Database Split tool

If you don’t use Keith Richie’s tools for analyzing and moving sites between databases, you can use this tool which is specifically designed for locking, backing up, and restoring sites among different databases.

Support Reducing & Enhanced Deployment

• MSIT Recycle Bin 1.2 – IT Document delete capture

Pretty self explanatory.  It is an IT recycle bin for WSS v2 or SPS 2003. Doesn’t have an end user restore feature.  It captures the delete from the Web UI, Web DAV, and FP RPC and copies it to disk.

• Doc Library Template Recycle Bin – Todd Bleeker MindSharp

Here’s your end user recycle bin.  Great for those high profile, must have a recycle bin type of sites.  Great Dev by the way.  Smart smart guy.

• SharePoint Database Explorer  – James Edelen

Needing a doc really fast, and don't have a standby or spare server?  Restore the database and use the database explorer to pull the doc.  I believe this is one of those decent "read" exceptions to going against the database.  Never write, but read is ok in my book.

• SharePoint Portal Server 2003 Training Kit – End user training materials and flash demos (WSS & SPS 2003 focused)

I was very impressed when I first saw this.  I’ve spent many hours showing end users how they can use the product.  This training kit simplified my life.  After this became available, I just started sending out this link.  It’s a must have for every environment.  Don’t be afraid to even put this on your hard disk then throw it on a doc library, it doesn’t have to be an area on the portal or on an IIS virtual server.

• SharePoint Portal Server 2003 Discovery Kit – 6 discovery labs: how to build a divisional portal site solution, how to deploy Web applications, how to use SQL Server 2000 Reporting Services to track and analyze portal site usage, and lastly, how to customize the portal site user interface.  This tool is an exception to my list.  I haven't used it, but what it has I can't find elsewhere.
• SharePoint Import Export tools and other utilities – Import Export tools from various platforms to SharePoint 2003.

…After SPIN and SPOUT came Kimmo’s tools.  Kimmo and company did a great job with these tools which are free and can be used or leveraged in partner products.  He's now working on the 2007 migration API stuff on the import side to make these compatible.