If you are the sole Administrator of a SharePoint Farm, you will know your farm like the back of your hand but once it grows and becomes mission critical, it will be necessary for Team Administration resulting in an exponential growth of communication channels leading to errors. The Farm Administrator needs to know every detail including every configuration setting that could affect the Farm and when the Admin team grows, how do you continue to maintain control so you can collectively Administer and support the Farm? Communication and documentation how to win this battle.
Documenting a moving target is difficult, things are changing every day, features are added, content databases grow, quotas change etc. The first step is to baseline your configuration so you can compare settings to the previous months or years so when something goes wrong, you can compare and find out exactly what and when it changed. It is imperative to set up a process for documenting your Farm and will especially come in handy when troubleshooting problems. Implementing a manual process is doomed to failure. PowerShell and SharePoint lists to the rescue.
Why not create a SharePoint Site and store all your settings in various lists. You can use all of SharePoint goodness to filter, sort, search and compare. You have one place to go to check your settings and to find what you are looking for efficiently because this is what SharePoint is good at. But you do not have time to create lists and populate them with current data. The PowerShell script below is the first in a series of scripts I made that automates the entire process. I start with capturing the main Farm level objects and properties and will later capture Web Apps, Service Apps, Features, site collections until every property of every object is in a list for quick access to the Administrator or the Troubleshooter.
PowerShell Script – Create SharePoint List and dump farm level properties into the list
# First Create a list for storing Property values, For testing purposes, if the list exists we will delete it.
$spWeb = Get-SPWeb http://sp.sp.local/Admin -AssignmentCollection $SPAssignment #Get SPWeb Instance
if($SPweb.Lists["FarmLevelProperties"]) {$SPweb.Lists["FarmLevelProperties"].Delete();}
$spTemplate = $spWeb.ListTemplates["Custom List"] #Create SPTemplate instance of Type Custom List
$spWeb.Lists.Add("FarmLevelProperties", "Store Farm Level properties from PS Script", $spTemplate) #Add list to site
$SPlist = $SPweb.Lists["FarmLevelProperties"]
#Lets add our fields to the new list, one field per property
$SPlist.Fields.Add("BuildVersion", "Text", 0)
$SPlist.Fields.Add("Status", "Text", 0)
$SPlist.Fields.Add("DaysBeforePasswordExpirationToSendEmail", "Text", 0)
$SPlist.Fields.Add("DefaultServiceAccount", "Text", 0)
$SPlist.Fields.Add("Servers", "Text", 0)
$SPlist.Fields.Add("NeedsUpgrade", "Text", 0)
$SPlist.Fields.Add("NeedsUpgradeIncludeChildren", "Text", 0)
$SPlist.Fields.Add("TimerService", "Text", 0)
$SPlist.Fields.Add("TypeName", "Text", 0)
$SPlist.Fields.Add("Parent", "Text", 0)
$SPlist.Fields.Add("ErrorReportingEnabled", "Text", 0)
$SPlist.Fields.Add("ErrorReportingAutomaticUpload", "Text", 0)
$SPlist.Fields.Add("DownloadErrorReportingUpdates", "Text", 0)
$SPlist.Fields.Add("PasswordChangeEmailAddress", "Text", 0)
$SPlist.Fields.Add("PasswordChangeGuardTime", "Text", 0)
$SPlist.Fields.Add("PasswordChangeMaximumTries", "Text", 0)
$SPlist.Fields.Add("IsPaired", "Text", 0)
$SPlist.Fields.Add("PairConnectionString", "Text", 0)
$SPlist.Fields.Add("ServiceApplicationProxyGroups", "Text", 0)
$SPlist.Fields.Add("ServiceProxies", "Text", 0)
$SPlist.Fields.Add("SiteSubscriptions", "Text", 0)
$SPlist.Fields.Add("Properties", "Text", 0)
$SPlist.Fields.Add("CanSelectForBackup", "Text", 0)
$SPlist.Fields.Add("DiskSizeRequired", "Text", 0)
$SPlist.Fields.Add("CanRenameOnRestore", "Text", 0)
$SPlist.Fields.Add("CanBackupRestoreAsConfiguration", "Text", 0)
$SPlist.Fields.Add("TraceSessionGuid", "Text", 0)
$SPlist.Fields.Add("Services", "Text", 0)
#Create View and set some key fields and make it the default view
$spViewQuery = “<OrderBy><FieldRef Name=”"Modified”" Ascending=”"False”" /></OrderBy>”
$spViewFields = New-Object System.Collections.Specialized.StringCollection #Create string collection object
$spViewFields.Add("Title")
$spViewFields.Add("BuildVersion")
$spViewFields.Add("Status")
$spViewFields.Add("NeedsUpgrade")
$spViewFields.Add("DiskSizeRequired")
$spViewFields.Add("Servers")
$spViewFields.Add("TypeName")
$spViewName = "Properties" #Set view name
$spListView = $spList.Views.Add($spViewName, $spViewFields, $spViewQuery, 100, $True, $False, “HTML”, $False) #Add view to list
$spListView.DefaultView = $True #Set view as default
$spListView.Update() #Update view to reflect changes in site
$spFarm = Get-SPFarm
# Update the new list with property values from the SPFarm Object
foreach ($row in $SPFarm)
{
$item = $SPlist.Items.Add();
$item["DiskSizeRequired"] = $Row.DiskSizeRequired
$item["CanRenameOnRestore"] = $Row.CanRenameOnRestore
$item["CanBackupRestoreAsConfiguration"] = $Row.CanBackupRestoreAsConfiguration
$item["TraceSessionGuid"] = $Row.TraceSessionGuid
$item["Services"] = $Row.Services
$item["DownloadErrorReportingUpdates"] = $Row.DownloadErrorReportingUpdates
$item["PasswordChangeEmailAddress"] = $Row.PasswordChangeEmailAddress
$item["PasswordChangeGuardTime"] = $Row.PasswordChangeGuardTime
$item["DaysBeforePasswordExpirationToSendEmail"] = $Row.DaysBeforePasswordExpirationToSendEmail
$item["PasswordChangeMaximumTries"] = $Row.PasswordChangeMaximumTries
$item["IsPaired"] = $Row.IsPaired
$item["PairConnectionString"] = $Row.PairConnectionString
$item["ServiceApplicationProxyGroups"] = $Row.ServiceApplicationProxyGroups
$item["ServiceProxies"] = $Row.ServiceProxies
$item["SiteSubscriptions"] = $Row.SiteSubscriptions
$item["Properties"] = $Row.Properties
$item["CanSelectForBackup"] = $Row.CanSelectForBackup
$item["Title"] = $Row.Name
$item["BuildVersion"] = $Row.BuildVersion
$item["Status"] = $Row.Status
$item["DaysBeforePasswordExpirationToSendEmail"] = $Row.DaysBeforePasswordExpirationToSendEmail
$item["DefaultServiceAccount"] = $Row.DefaultServiceAccount.Name
$item["Servers"] = $Row.Servers
$item["NeedsUpgrade"] = $Row.NeedsUpgrade
$item["NeedsUpgradeIncludeChildren"] = $Row.NeedsUpgradeIncludeChildren
$item["TimerService"] = $Row.TimerService
$item["TypeName"] = $Row.TypeName
$item["Parent"] = $Row.Parent
$item["ErrorReportingEnabled"] = $Row.ErrorReportingEnabled
$item.Update()
$spTemplate.Dispose
$SPlist.Dispose
$item.Dispose
$spWeb.dispose
Write-Host -ForegroundColor red `n `n "Go see your new list at $spWeb"
}
Here is a Reference list of Farm level Properties
AlternateUrlCollections Property Microsoft.SharePoint.Administration.SPAlternateUrlColle…
BuildVersion Property System.Version BuildVersion {get;}
CanBackupRestoreAsConfiguration Property System.Boolean CanBackupRestoreAsConfiguration {get;}
CanMigrate Property System.Boolean CanMigrate {get;}
CanRenameOnRestore Property System.Boolean CanRenameOnRestore {get;}
CanSelectForBackup Property System.Boolean CanSelectForBackup {get;set;}
CanSelectForRestore Property System.Boolean CanSelectForRestore {get;set;}
CanUpgrade Property System.Boolean CanUpgrade {get;}
CEIPEnabled Property System.Boolean CEIPEnabled {get;set;}
DaysBeforePasswordExpirationToSendEmail Property System.Int32 DaysBeforePasswordExpirationToSendEmail {g…
DefaultServiceAccount Property Microsoft.SharePoint.Administration.SPProcessAccount De…
DiagnosticsProviders Property Microsoft.SharePoint.Diagnostics.SPDiagnosticsProviderC…
DiskSizeRequired Property System.UInt64 DiskSizeRequired {get;}
DisplayName Property System.String DisplayName {get;}
DownloadErrorReportingUpdates Property System.Boolean DownloadErrorReportingUpdates {get;set;}
ErrorReportingAutomaticUpload Property System.Boolean ErrorReportingAutomaticUpload {get;set;}
ErrorReportingEnabled Property System.Boolean ErrorReportingEnabled {get;set;}
ExternalBinaryStoreClassId Property System.Guid ExternalBinaryStoreClassId {get;set;}
Farm Property Microsoft.SharePoint.Administration.SPFarm Farm {get;}
FeatureDefinitions Property Microsoft.SharePoint.Administration.SPFeatureDefinition…
Id Property System.Guid Id {get;set;}
IsBackwardsCompatible Property Microsoft.SharePoint.TriState IsBackwardsCompatible {ge…
IsPaired Property System.Boolean IsPaired {get;set;}
Name Property System.String Name {get;set;}
NeedsUpgrade Property System.Boolean NeedsUpgrade {get;set;}
NeedsUpgradeIncludeChildren Property System.Boolean NeedsUpgradeIncludeChildren {get;}
PairConnectionString Property System.String PairConnectionString {get;set;}
Parent Property Microsoft.SharePoint.Administration.SPPersistedObject P…
PasswordChangeEmailAddress Property System.String PasswordChangeEmailAddress {get;set;}
PasswordChangeGuardTime Property System.Int32 PasswordChangeGuardTime {get;set;}
PasswordChangeMaximumTries Property System.Int32 PasswordChangeMaximumTries {get;set;}
PersistedFileChunkSize Property System.Int32 PersistedFileChunkSize {get;set;}
Products Property System.Collections.Generic.IEnumerable`1[[System.Guid, …
Properties Property System.Collections.Hashtable Properties {get;}
Servers Property Microsoft.SharePoint.Administration.SPServerCollection …
ServiceApplicationProxyGroups Property Microsoft.SharePoint.Administration.SPServiceApplicatio…
ServiceProxies Property Microsoft.SharePoint.Administration.SPServiceProxyColle…
Services Property Microsoft.SharePoint.Administration.SPServiceCollection…
SiteSubscriptions Property Microsoft.SharePoint.SPSiteSubscriptionCollection SiteS…
Solutions Property Microsoft.SharePoint.Administration.SPSolutionCollectio…
Status Property Microsoft.SharePoint.Administration.SPObjectStatus Stat…
TimerService Property Microsoft.SharePoint.Administration.SPTimerService Time…
TraceSessionGuid Property System.Guid TraceSessionGuid {get;}
TypeName Property System.String TypeName {get;}
UpgradeContext Property Microsoft.SharePoint.Upgrade.SPUpgradeContext UpgradeCo…
UpgradedPersistedProperties Property System.Collections.Hashtable UpgradedPersistedPropertie…
Version Property System.Int64 Version {get;}
Timebars Products 