R – Moving SharePoint (MOSS 2007) Sites

The trick is to only add columns using an xml schema instead of using the front end. Usually I would do this using a solution/feature, containing all of the field definitions and content types.

As you already have the content types added, you may need to use a tool like SharePoint manager to look at the schema xml and introduce a new one. This gives more control of the exact definition for any fields.

There can never be two fields with the same internal name. We have had issue when fields have been defined on the site using the /_layouts/settings.aspx and also at the list level. As far as I can tell, when a site restores, it tries to add any fields from the list or subsite level into the base site (alert: opinionin formed only by looking at log errors and trial and error rather than actual facts) and this is where it seems to fail. Making sure that all the fields are defined in a consistent way using the Schema xml (easiest to do with a feature defining the content types) may help iron out the issues. I.e. all fields of the same "name" have the same guid name etc in all sites.

Note: We have also had issue with cross site queries after manually adding fields. The query code has some bugs (I believe it is on the MS stack to be fixed) that mean it relies on fields being defined in a certain order on the underlying tables.

In case you have MOSS, you should use Content Query Web Part here is the way to do it.

You can achieve the same by using Data View Web Part.

The third option is to create a custom code to do that, but since you mentioned that you are new to SharePoint I would advise against since that might be a bit complicated and it cannot be compared to the strength of built-in web parts.

The thing you should consider here is security. If a UserA from DeptA does not have permission to read Announcements from SiteB then the thing you are building does not make much sense because information from SiteB will not be visible to this user.