Site Collections & Sites

Sundial doesn't attempt to divide the world into geographic or political regions. Sundial doesn't attempt to impose a hierarchical categorization of geographies and locations upon its users.

Instead, Sundial leaves the categorization of the world and its locations as an exercise to its users & administrators . This is done through the definition of locations and their hierarchy using site collections and then relating site collections with one another.

A site in Sundial is a named place or setting of any sort that is useful in categorizing where an event takes place. A site can be:

• a geographical region (e.g. the continent of north america)
• a political region (e.g. The United States of America)
• a building (e.g. The Empire State Building)
• a neighborhood (e.g. Greenwich Village)
• regions separated by dialects in use (e.g. linguistic regions of China)
• whatever makes sense to a group of users

A site collection is a named collection of sites that groups related sites in a logical manner for the following purposes:

• to assist event authors in locating appropriate sites to categorize the location of their events as they navigate site collections in Sundial's event editor
• to assist calendar viewers in searching for events across multiple related locations

What is logical is left as an exercise to users and administrators of Sundial.

Site collections may be linked to one another by Sundial administrators to form hierarchical relationships with one another. A relationship is formed when a site (site A) of one site collection (site collection B) is made the parent of another entire site collection (C). Site A of site collection B is then said to contain site collection C.

When a relationship is formed that says site collection C is contained by site A of site collection B, event authors can categorize their event as taking place within fewer event sites but have their event be presented in searches requesting site collections or sites that contain the event sites they have selected.

Using site collections and their sites, event authors are able to categorize the location of their event in such a way that calendars and event searches can efficiently retrieve events occurring within a given location.

An Example

In the image to the right, there are four site collections. The site collections contain the following sites: countries, U.S. states, U.S. regions, and U.S. cities. Four relationships have been established between the site collections:

1. All of Connecticut's cities are contained within the U.S. State, Connecticut.
2. All of Connecticut's cities are contained within the U.S. Region, Northeast.
3. All U.S. States are contained within the country, United States of America
4. All U.S. Regions are contained within the country, United States of America

An event author creates an event and categorizes the event solely as taking place in Stamford. Without categorizing the event as taking place within any other sites defined within Sundial, the event will be published to calendars and event searches requesting:

• events taking place within any country
• events taking place within the United States of America
• events taking place within any U.S. State
• events taking place within any the U.S. State of Connecticut
• events taking place within any U.S. Region
• events taking place within any the U.S. Region defined as the Northeast
• events taking place within Connecticut cities
• events taking place within Stamford, CT

Behold the power of sites & site collections.

Site Collection Manager

Sundial administrators manage sites, site collections, and their inter-relationships within the Site Collection Manager of the Administrative Module.

The Site Collection Manager

When one opens the Site Collection Manager, one is presented with all site collections one may administrate within an action list. Using the action list, one may do the following:

• Create a new site collection: By electing "Create new sites" from the top of the action list, one may define a new site collection and its sites within the site collection editor.
• Edit a site collection: By clicking on the name of an existing site collection, the site collection editor opens and one may modify the site collection.
• Activate a site collection: An active site collection is one whose sites are offered to event authors for the categorization of an event's location. By selecting disabled site collections within the action list, one may re-activate selected site collections.
• Disable a site collection: By selecting active site collections within the action list, one may disable these site collections. Disabling a site collection has the following effects:
  
  • The site collection and its sites are removed as an option for event authors to use in categorizing the location of their events
  • Events presently categorized with a site of a disabled collection are unaffected. The event site categorization remains.
  • Searches which incorporate a request for a disabled site collection or one of its sites are also unaffected. However, given that no further events will be categorized using this site collection's sites, searches reliant upon this site collection or one of its sites will eventually yield no results.
  • If the site collection was intermediate in relationships with other site collections, these relationships are disabled.

  It is a best practice to disable a site collection to retire it from use.

• Delete a site collection: By selecting site collections from the action list, one may permanently delete site collections. The deletion of a site collection immediately has the following effects for both events and calendars/searches reliant upon this site collection or its sites:
  
  • Events categorized by the deleted site collection or one of its sites will have this categorization removed.
  • Calendars & event searches explicitly reliant upon this site collection or its sites will fail.
  • If the site collection was intermediate in relationships with other site collections, these relationships are now dissolved.

Site Collection Editor

When one creates a new site collection or modifies an existing site collection, one does so within the site collection editor. This editor is composed of three screens:

• The Details screen allows one to modify properties of the site collection including the site it contains.
• The Groups screen allows one to grant security groups the ability to use or administer the site collection.
• The Relationships screen allows one to form a relationship between a site collection and the containing site of a site collection.

Details

The details screen presents a site collection's properties and sites.

A site collection's properties include the following:

• Code: A site collection's code is used by developers to create calendars or calendar searches for events categorized by a site collection or one of its sites.
• Name: A site collection's name is presented to event authors belonging to a security group with the Use privilege. The name should be descriptive of the sites the site collection contains so event authors can identify whether the collection contains a desired site.

A site collections's sites are presented within an action list. Using the action list, one may do the following:

• Create a new site: By electing "Create new site" from the top of the action list, one may define a new site for the site collection within the site editor.
• Edit an existing site: By clicking the name of an existing site, the site editor opens and one may modify an existing site.
• Activate a site: An active site is one which is available to event authors for the categorization of an event's location. By selecting disabled sites within the action list, one may re-activate selected sites.
• Disable a site: By selecting active sites within the action list, one may disable these sites. Disabling a site has the following effects:
  
  • The site is removed as an option for event authors to use in categorizing the location of their events
  • Events presently categorized with the site are unaffected. The event's site categorization remains.
  • Searches which incorporate a request for a disabled site are also unaffected. However, given that no further events will be categorized using the disabled site, searches reliant upon this will eventually yield no results.
  • If the site contained site collections, these relationships are disabled.

  It is a best practice to disable a site to retire it from use.

• Delete a site: By selecting sites from the action list, one may permanently delete these sites. The deletion of a site immediately has the following effects for both events and calendars/searches reliant upon this site:
  
  • Events categorized by the deleted site will have this categorization removed.
  • Calendars & event searches explicitly reliant upon this site will fail.
  • If the site contained site collections, these relationships are now dissolved.

Groups

The groups screen presents an action list which allows one to affiliate security groups with the site collection and assign them privileges.

For a group to be affiliated with a site collection means it has been granted a privilege for the site collection. Two privileges are associated with site collections:

• The use privilege allows a designated security group's event author to see and use the sites of a site collection in categorizing the location of their event.
• The administer privilege grants a designated security group object administration privileges over the site collection.

To affiliate a security group with the site collection being modified and assign them privileges, do as follows:

1. Select the All or Non-Affiliated view.
2. From amongst the groups presented within the selected view, place checkmarks within their associated privilege columns.
3. Click Save Privileges.

To remove a security group's affiliation and privileges with the site collection being modified, do as follows:

1. Select the All or Affiliated view.
2. From amongst the groups presented, place a checkmark by the security group's name.
3. Click Remove Affiliation.

Relationships

NOTE: To form a relationship between a site collection and the site of another site collection, one must have administer privileges for both site collections.

The relationships screen presents an action list composed of three views:

• Containing: displays the sites of site collections that contain the site collection you are modifying within the site collection editor.
• Non-Containing: displays the sites of site collections that do not contain the site collection you are modifying within the site collection editor.
• All: displays all sites from all site collection.

The sites presented in these views are grouped by their site collection. If a site collection grouping has the following icon associated with it ( ), this denotes that one of its sites contains the site collection you are modifying.

Using the list's actions, one may do the following:

• Specify that the site collection being modified is contained by the site of another site collection.
• Remove such a relationship.

To specify that the site collection being modified is contained by the site of another site collection, do as follows:

1. Select the All or Non-Containing view to display sites that currently are not said to contain the site collection being modified.
2. Find the site you wish to specify is a container for the your site collection.
3. Place a checkmark in this site's Contained Within column.
4. Click the Save Selected action button.

To remove the site collection from a relationship, do as follows:

1. Select the All or Containing view to display sites that currently are said to contain the site collection being modified.
2. Find the site you wish to remove as a container of your site collection.
3. Remove the checkmark in this site's Contained Within column.
4. Click the Save Selected action button.

Site Editor

The site editor allows one to define a site by specifying two required properties:

• Code: A site's code is used by developers to create calendars or calendar searches for events categorized by a site. (e.g. A calendar of all events happening in New York City, NY)
• Name: A site's name is presented to event authors and should be descriptive.