Update: 5-19-08 SSPScopeDeploy V1.1 released!
Just in time for Cinco de Mayo...
I have officially released my SSPScopeDeploy Search enhancement plug-in for MOSS!
This plug-in inserts itself into the Search section of every Shared Service Provider's main page in your Farm.
The goal of this tool was to try and decrease the time it takes to utilize newly created Shared Search Scopes from your SSP into your various Site Collections, more in a bit...
What it is:
This product is packaged up into an easily deployable SharePoint solution SSPScopeDeploy.wsp and an associated Install.bat file to insert and activate this into your farm... Just unzip the files onto your SharePoint machine and run the batch file... It's just that simple! You get three tools to ease working with Shared Scopes in the SSP.
How it works:
SSPScopeDeploy is a Farm based solution that adds 3 administration capabilities into every SSP as you can see in this screenshot:
Let's say that you have site collections that do NOT have a Search Center in them... and as a result you cannot utilize Shared Search Scopes in these sites... Using the first of these tools Deploy Search Center Template to Site Collection(s) and create the needed Search Centers. See screen shot:
Now you have all of these Site Collections with Search Centers in them and you are asking yourself; Self, just how long is it going to take to implement each of the shared search scopes from the SSP into each and every one of these site collections... I mean Shared Scope Deployment is a VERY lengthy process... over 10 separate steps involving the actual addition of the Scope, two search web page creations to support this.... configuring 3 different Search pages to have a new tab that points to this scope, not to mention the configuration of multiple Search results and search web parts to utilize this new scope, and then re-configuring the Shared Scope to utilize the search results page...
Well, No more will you have to deal with this monotony... Using the Deploy Shared Search Scope(s) to Site Collection page, simply pick your web application, then the site collection, and next one or more search scopes and click Deploy, and like magic your Shared Search Scope deployment blues will vanish! See Screenshot:
Now how much would you pay for this... But we're not finished yet... now you have all these shared scopes running around on multiple site collections.. and you have to retract one or more of them due to shifts in the search architecture... SSPScopeDeploy to the rescue once again. Removing these Scopes would again require multiple steps (deleting the two Search Pages, removing the shared scope from the site collection, etc., but NOT if you use the Retract Shared Scope Retraction Page... See Screenshot:
How You Can Obtain A Working Copy of This:
But wait there's more... the SSPScopeDeploy is not sold in any store... if you act now you can have it for the low price of a click to the CodePlex project located at: http://www.codeplex.com/SSPScopeDeploy/.
Act now and you will receive at no additional charge (i.e. again completely and utterly free) an install.bat file that will automate the process of installing and deploying the SSPScopeDeploy tool!