Create new version of a page and once approved replace the old one?

Question

[Apols, but n00b to SP, I'm a .Net coder by trade!]

I've recently inherited an SP2007 set of sites (collection?) and I need to make some changes to existing pages.

I'd like to create a new page, based on the existing one (a new version if thats possible) so that I can make the amendments, have someone verify them and then publish/replace the new page over the old one.

There are a lot of changes to make, so whats the best was to go about this? I can't have the new page visible until its complete, but I'd like a few people to be able to see it (if sent the direct link).

We only have the live server, so nowhere test this out.

Many thanks!

Answer 1

This can be accomplished by the Out Of The Box feature within SharePoint 2007.

As @Perplexed has mentioned, you need to have publishing feature enabled in your particular site and site collection to achieve this.

Follow the steps -

1. Site Actions -> Site settings -> Site Collection Features -> Activate SharePoint Publishing feature
2. Go to the particular site where you require this feature enabled again and follow the steps as above. Here, go to Site Features instead of Site Collection Features.

Make sure that you create the pages inside the 'Pages' library that comes by default when the SharePoint Publishing feature is enabled. Here, going to library settings you can tweak to have major or minor versions and much more.

In SharePoint, you don't have to create a new page based on an existing page. Here, you edit the existing page, by using check-in, check-out feature, which comes by default for a library with versioning settings enabled. This page would have previous versions at any time and you would be able to restore or view previous versions of the page by default.

What happens in SharePoint

If publishing feature is enabled,

• Go to Site Actions -> Create Page.
• Select a page layout which would suit your need (Or create a new layout in Designer if needed)
• Creating the page will not make the page available to the public. You will need to Check-in the page from the top toolbar.
• Even Check-in will only give view of the page to people with same rights.
• You can submit for Approval to a content manager to the site and get it approved.
• Finally, Publish the page to reflect the changes to the public. The same flow happens to any page in the same library while editing and publishing.

Please view the office article for details- http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/sharepoint-designer-help/create-and-manage-publishing-pages-HA010174133.aspx

Good Luck .

Answer 2

Could you be more specific when you say "New Page"? Are you talking about a Wiki, a custom ASPX page, or a list/library?

If you are using SharePoint Designer, you can copy/paste things to a Dev area, which would be seperate in that your users wouldn't be browsing there. Have the testers look at the stuff there and then paste the pages back. This works for pages with a data view web part, but I am not sure how well this works with lists and such. If you provide some more detail, I may be able to help further.

Answer 3

What type of templates are the site using? If using Publishing site templates or if you have publishing sites enabled you could edit the pages but not publish the changes. You would have to check the permissions first though. Anyone that has Approver rights or higher would see the changes. If they had used Publishing with Approval, you could make changes and submit them for approval. If publishing features are not in use you could enable content approval on the library containing the pages. This is found through versioning settings for the pages library. Again you would need to set your permissions appropriatley.