Manual Setup of a Snowflake

In most scenarios, a Snowflake will be implemented with a Visual Studio project. This is especially relevant for Snowflakes that have a product character (in terms of providing generic functionality for a specific application or use case). The project will provide at least one SharePoint solution that is used to deploy the required (Snowflake-specific) resources to the system and to enable all required features. The Snowflake Demo Project (as shown in Snowflake Demo Project) shows how such a project is implemented. However, in some scenarios, customer-specific Snowflakes will be implemented.

Such implementations may use the same general mechanism (a VS project that implements one or more Snowflake-specific SharePoint solutions). However, sometimes it might suffice to build a Snowflake on configuration basis, without developing and/or deploying a complete solution. In this scenario, some manual steps are required that would otherwise be done within the SharePoint solution.

The following steps are relevant for a configuration-only Snowflake:

1. Create Snowflake root site collection.
2. Create a SnowflakeConfiguration file A Snowflake is mainly defined by a SnowflakeConfiguration file. Each Snowflake requires one such file, which can be created from the MatchPoint instance administration site. The configuration file determines
3. General settings for the Snowflake (i.e. URL of the Snowflake root site)
4. Specific settings (landing pages, contextual actions, workspace types)
5. Execute tag importer "MPSnow.Tags.System.xml" Each Snowflake has a "Snowflake-Tag" that identifies the Snowflake itself and allows the aggregation and search of content based on a specific Snowflake. This tag is imported by tag importer MPSnow.Tags.System.xml. Note: Each Snowflake-Tag corresponds to one SnowflakeConfiguration file.
6. Enable features on the Snowflake root site In order to use the MatchPoint Snow look and feel on a Snowflake, the following features are to be enabled on the Snowflake root site:
7. Colygon.MatchPoint.Snow.MasterPage (Scope: Web) Id: fd87c5c9-7047-4e98-955b-2f1d364a13ba
8. Colygon.MatchPoint.Snow.Theme (Scope: Site) Id: 0e21bf73-97ed-45de-8df9-9c736ffefb8b
9. Apply the MatchPoint Snow Composed Look Once the two features are enabled (see point 3), the MatchPoint Snow Composed Look can be applied to the Snowflake root site. This can be done using the OOB SharePoint UI (site settings, "change the look").
10. Use MPSnowPage.aspx for landing pages (optional) MatchPoint uses a custom page layout for all landing pages. This page layout includes the general layout, i.e. the Snow navigation settings and the right section. Alternatively, a custom page layout can be used. The page layout is located at 15\TEMPLATE\FEATURES\Colygon.MatchPoint.Snow.MasterPage\MasterModule
11. Use MatchPoint Snow ContextualActions and Search (optional) In order to use the contextual actions (as defined within the SnowflakeConfiguration file, see point 1) and the OOB Snow search page, add a MatchPoint UserControl Web Part to each landing page and link to the following configuration files:
12. MPSnow.ContextualActions.xml (ContextualActions)
13. MPSnow.Workspace.Search.xml (Search Input Field)