The CorasWorks Design Migrator is an application that serves three purposes, none of which require any development work:
• Migrate SharePoint 2003 pages to SharePoint 2007 pages after an upgrade to 2007, exposing the new functionality available with 2007.
• Easily change the design of an existing SharePoint 2007 page to a different 2007 design, perhaps to give it a new custom look, a brand, or a new logo.
• Easily deploy pre-configured web parts from an existing SharePoint 2007 page to one or more other 2007 pages. For example, you could take an active display that accesses a help desk request system and enables users to add new requests, and push it onto multiple sites.
These powerful capabilities make the Design Migrator the fastest, simplest, and most-cost effective approach to migrating and updating site designs in SharePoint 2007.
The Design Migrator can be run from either a server or from a user’s desktop, as long as the user is at least a site administrator on the affected site(s). When run from a server, the user must also be a server administrator.
NOTE 1: Before you begin to use the Design Migrator, you should be aware of the way in which it manages web part zone IDs that do not match between the page being used as a template and the pages being migrated. For a complete discussion, please see Web Part Zone IDs.
NOTE 2: The Design Migrator works across multiple environments, as long as they are all on the same configuration database.
As is stated above, the Design Migrator can be used for several different types of migrations. To start with, we’ll discuss the migration of SharePoint 2003 pages to SharePoint 2007 pages after an upgrade. There are four main aspects in this type of migration:
1. SharePoint 2003 Page: You start with a SharePoint 2003 page that has been upgraded to run on SharePoint 2007 during an in-place upgrade. For all intents and purposes, this is still a 2003 page running in 2007.
2. SharePoint 2007 Page Before Migration (the “Template”): You create a SharePoint 2007 page that contains the new 2007 features you want to utilize and apply to your upgraded 2003 page, such as master pages and any new web parts. This page will be used as the migration “template.”
• The web part zone IDs in the template page should match the zone IDs in the pages being migrated. Any web parts in zones with non-matching IDs will be either excluded from the migrated page or left in the Bottom zone, depending on the page migration rules you define. For more information, see Web Part Zone IDs.
3. Page Migration Definition: You use the Design Migrator to define the appropriate migration mapping rules. During this process, the template page is identified to apply to each original (upgraded) page, rules are set regarding how to handle web parts in non-matching zones, whether and how web parts are to be copied from the template, whether certain pages should be excluded from the migration, and several other settings.
4. SharePoint 2007 Page (after migration): The migration process copies the SharePoint 2003 page to the same location with a new name, creates a new SharePoint 2007 page from the template on top of the original 2003 page, and then “copies” the web parts from the 2003 page to the 2007 page based on the migration definition. The end result is a new SharePoint 2007 page with the same URL that contains new 2007 features, the migrated web parts from the 2003 page, and any web parts copied from the template page.
You can create mapping rules on the fly for one time use, or you can save them as a migration definition file for later use.
The Design Migrator can also be used to apply a different design to an existing SharePoint 2007 page. It works in a similar manner as the example above, except the source page is the 2007 page with the design you want to replace. The end result is that the design on the source page is updated to the design defined on the “template” page.
Another convenient use of the Design Migrator is to quickly add pre-configured web parts to one or more existing pages.
For example, you could configure an active display that enables users to manage their help desk requests and add new requests. The active display could be configured so that it is grouped by status, so the currently logged in user could easily keep track of their outstanding requests. It could also include an action to add a new request. Then, the URL of the page on which the web part is located could be referenced as a template page by the Design Migrator, and the configured active display could be quickly and easily deployed for use in any number of other solutions.
The Design Migrator does not manage data migration; it only manages design migration. It is not meant to work on or touch any aspect of SharePoint 2003, including lists and libraries. Microsoft provides the necessary utilities and strategies to upgrade your sites and data from SharePoint 2003 to SharePoint 2007. Once that has been done, the Design Migrator can be used on either WSS or MOSS to automate the process to migrate sites to a new design and allow you to take advantage of new SharePoint 2007 features and capabilities.
In addition, if you customized any New, Edit, or Display forms in a list or modified them via FrontPage, the Design Migrator will not automatically reghost those pages. The forms will still work correctly, but they will not look like SharePoint 2007 pages. There is no way for the Design Migrator to know why you customized the page, so it does not attempt to modify it. However, if you are comfortable with resetting the pages, you can do so using SharePoint Designer as described in the following steps.
1. Open the site in SharePoint Designer.
2. Open the list or library where the affected page(s) is located.
3. Highlight the affected New, Edit, or Display form and right-click on it.
4. Select Reset to Site Definition. This re-ghosts or “uncustomizes” the page and converts it to the SharePoint 2007 look and feel.
It is not necessary to perform these steps; if you do not, the forms will still work correctly, they simply will not look like SharePoint 2007 pages. If you do perform these steps on any pages that contain third party web parts or custom code, the web parts and/or code will be lost.
Last Modified: October 07