SAF

http://saf.codeplex.com

By Mark Jones

01 March 2010

Collaboris

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What is SAF?

SAF is the “SharePoint Action Framework”

It’s Open Source, hosted on Codeplex

Automates and repeats configuration changes in

SharePoint via “Macros”

Easy to run from Msbuild, Stsadm, Feature

receiver (and very soon WIX/MSI)

It’s an engine written in entirely C#

It is allows 3rd party actions to be written

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What Problems does SAF Solve ?

Replaces manual effort and non-standard scripts

This can saves months of dev effort!

Allows you create Macros once, and re-use in the

technology that fits best

e.g Msbuild, Feature, Stsadm, WIX

Allows a common approach to scripting SharePoint

.net Actions, stsadm, powershell

Makes SharePoint Deployments standardised

“Environment-aware” scripts through dynamic

property placeholders.

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SAF Architecture Diagram

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What is a Macro ?

Is the top-level container in Framework

A Macro contains one or more Actions

Examples :

Deploy Solution (Add Solution, Deploy Solution)

Create Farm (Create a SharePoint Farm)

Configure Search

A Macro is authored as XML using Spring.Net

Macro’s can be templates, or instances

Macro can substitute Properties at run time

Macros can easily be reused by sharing XML

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What is an Action

An Action is a unit of work to execute in SharePoint

Examples :

Add Lookup Column to List

Create Publishing Page

Add Web Parts to Page

An action is written in managed .Net code

3rd Party Custom Actions can easily be added to SAF

An action implements 3 methods

DoAction()

UndoAction()

IsValid()

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Properties and Expressions

A Property passes information to the Action e.g.

Site Name, Urls, Titles, and so on.

A Property (for an Action) can be set

literally:

<property name=“SiteTitle” value=“Accounts”/>

via a runtime Placeholder

<property name=“SiteTitle” value=“${SiteName}”/>

via an expression

<property name=“Date” expression=“date('1974-08-24') + 5” />

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What is a SAF Context?

A property bag that is passed into every Action

Contains resolved Properties

Created by the SAF Engine at start-up

Contains references to the current SharePoint Context

e.g Farm, Web Application, SPSite, SPWeb

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Getting Started ?

Download the latest version from here:

http://saf.codeplex.com

Download working samples:

http://collaboris.co.uk/saf/doc

Read the WIKI

http://www.collaboris.co.uk/Projects/SafWiki/SAF_WIKI/Contents_Pa

ge.aspx

Read the blog

http://www.collaboris.co.uk/blogs.aspx?CntCatID=dc5a1df9-790f-

43ee-b3e8-c0124927b7af

Follow me on Twitter

http://twitter.com/MarkQJones

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SAF Road Map 2010

Version 2.1 (mid March)

Tight WIX Integration (MSI’s)

More Actions

WCF Service beta

Version 2.5 (end June)

SAF working in SharePoint 2010

XML-less configuration

GUI to create Macros visually

WCF Service releases