Verifying the Web Application Settings for SharePoint Designer 2010 Use

Organizations often find that the standard out-of-the-box workflows simply do not provide enough flexibility to meet their requirements and want to be able to access additional tools to create these workflows, and the logic that drives them. SharePoint Designer 2010 can be used to create a wide variety of workflows, to include list workflows, reusable workflows, and site workflows. SharePoint Designer 2010 also allows interactivity with Visio 2010 as well as InfoPath 2010 and a host of other tools to facilitate the overall design and implementation process.

Power users and developers who will be using SharePoint Designer 2010 should verify that it is supported by IT, even though the software can be downloaded for free, to ensure that it will function properly. Often, due to configurations in SharePoint or on the desktop, SharePoint Designer 2010 will not function properly if IT is not prepared to “officially” support it.

In addition, the farm administrator may have chosen to not allow the use of SharePoint Designer from the Central Administration site. This should be verified to avoid possible confusion or issues during the development process.

To configure SharePoint Designer settings for a web application, follow these steps:

1. Open SharePoint 2010 Central Administration and click Manage Web Applications from the Application Management Section.
2. Select the web application to manage (such as SharePoint – 80), and then click the General Settings button on the Ribbon bar and choose SharePoint Designer from the drop-down menu that appears. The Configure SharePoint Designer Settings are typically all checked. If one or more are not enabled, that will limit the level of SharePoint Designer 2010 customizations possible.
3. Click OK when finished.

The options are as follows:

• Allow SharePoint Designer to be used in this Web Application— If this option is not checked (enabled), SharePoint Designer can’t be used in the web application.

• Allow Site Collection Administrators to Detach Pages from the Site Template— “Old timers” in the SharePoint world will remember this as the “unghosting” process.

• Allow Site Collection Administrators to Customize Master Pages and Layout Pages.

• Allow Site Collection Administrators to see the URL Structure of their Web Site.