After installing Windows SharePoint Services, a top-level site is initially created and set as the main site to host on port 80 on the server.

A top-level site is the base site for an organization and can contain multiple child sites for different departments or projects. Top-level sites and child sites are functionally the same; however, top-level sites offer administrative capabilities unavailable to child sites.

To help you understand the capabilities and the procedures involved in creating and managing a SharePoint site, I will be using an IT department as an example.

I will walk you through the creation of a SharePoint site designed for a fictitious IT department's knowledge base, inventory and collaboration. This walk-through is broken down into three objectives:

• Creating a new child site

• Creating a new list for computer inventory

• Creating a new wiki to use for a knowledge base

Today's article will cover the first objective: Creating a new child site. Over the next few days, I will show you how to create a new list and a new wiki. So stay tooned and check back for the other two articles, or grab our RSS feed for an automatic update!

Creating a New Child Site

The child site I am creating for the IT department will be designed for the organization's administrators. Therefore, when creating the site, the site members and administrators will be configured accordingly. Following the steps below simultaneously creates the site and configures its permissions.

1. Navigate to the SharePoint top-level site by entering its URL in a web browser. If your site is designed for your organization's local intranet, the URL to the site will be simply telling the browser to navigate to the appropriate computer using http.




2. Next, enter the Administrator username and password in the login dialogue.




3. From the SharePoint site's home page, click the Create link from the Site Actions menu.






4. From the Create page, click the Sites and Workspaces link under the Web Pages category.






5. On the New SharePoint Site page, there are several things to fill out:

   1. First, fill in the Title and Description for the site

   
   

   2. Next, enter the Web Site Address or the URL for the site, which should be intuitive -- and avoid using spaces!

   
   

   3. In the Template Selection select Team Site

   
   

   

   
   

   4. Then change the Permissions to Use unique permissions

   
   

   5. Next, set the Navigation and Navigation Inheritance options

   
   

   6. Finally, you can click the Create button on the bottom

   
   

   

   
   

6. From the Set Up Groups for this Site page, select or create the groups for visitors, members and owners of the site. When creating a new group you need to give the group a name and select the users and groups from the server or active directory that will be included in the new group.

   
   

   

   You can check that the users and groups selected for a group are valid or browse for users and groups by clicking the images below the group's user list. Click the OK button to finish creating the site.

That's it! Six easy steps and you've successfully created a new child site in SharePoint!

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