How to Create a Site Collection in 10 Steps

In this demonstration, we will guide you step by step how to create a Site Collection using SharePoint 2010 Central Administration. Specifically, we will create a Business Intelligence Center site collection.
Step 1 Click start; click the folder Microsoft SharePoint 2010 Products; Click SharePoint 2010 Central Administration:



Step 2 On the SharePoint Central Administration site, under Application Management, click Create a Site Collection:














Here’s an overview of the top section of the Create Site Collection page:


Step 3 Click on the Web Application field and click Change Web Application if you do not want to use the default Web Application:

After you click Change Web Application, the following page will pop up; Click on the Web Application in which you would like to create the Site Collection:


Step 4 Enter values for the Title and Description fields for your new site collection:


Step 5 You can specify the Web Site Address by choosing the default address or selecting /sites/ under the dropdown list and enter an address name in the blank field:

Step 6 In the Template Selection section, there are various existing templates. You can also choose Custom templates:

In our demo, we will choose Business Intelligence Center under the Enterprise tab as our Site Collection Template:


Step 7 In this section, you can set up Primary and Secondary Site Collection Administrator. You can type user name and click Check Names button on the right hand side or click Browse and look up users. Note that only one user can be selected for each role:

The following webpage is for browsing users; enter a user name, click the search icon, select the user and then click ok:


Step 8 In the Quota Template section, you can select a Quota Template for the new Site Collection:

From the dropdown list, you can choose any predefined quota templates. Be very cautious with the no quota selection, as it doesn’t set an upper limit for the resources to be used for this site collection.
After selecting a Quota Template, the storage limit and number of invited users of the template will be displayed.

For instructions on how to set up a Quota Template, please refer to my other blog entry: Manage SharePoint 2010 Quota Templates.

Step 9 Review all the new Site Collection settings and then click OK:



Step 10 Click the URL of the new Site Collection to browse or edit the site collection:

Here’s the default page of the new Site Collection created. From the Site Action dropdown list, you can edit the web page, create a document library, create new sites in the site collection and etc.:

Congratulations! You’ve just created a new SharePoint 2010 Site Collection for a Business Intelligence Center site in Central Administration.