Sharepoint

Introduction

What is SharePoint?

Microsoft SharePoint 2007 makes it easier for people to work together. Using SharePoint 2007, your people can set up Web sites to share information with others, manage documents from start to finish, and publish reports to help everyone make better decisions.

Why Use SharePoint?

The capabilities of SharePoint 2007 work together to help your company quickly respond to changing business needs. Using SharePoint 2007, your people can share ideas and expertise, create custom solutions for specific needs, and find the right business information to make better decisions. For IT, SharePoint 2007 helps you cut training and maintenance costs, save time and effort, and focus on higher business priorities Discover how to expand your reach, increase customer retention, and drive revenue. Use solutions powered by Microsoft SharePoint Server for Internet Sites and Microsoft FAST Search Server for Internet Sites.

Client Challenges

• Enabling Office integration: SharePoint 2007 is designed to interoperate with Office 2007 to a high degree. If you have users in your organization who are still using older versions of Office, you may find that those legacy versions become a barrier to productivity. So you may want to consider deploying the latest version of Office to all SharePoint users.
• Preventing site sprawl: One of your primary goals must be to prevent site sprawl. You can use several techniques for this. One of the most effective is to limit the number of people who are allowed to create SharePoint sites. Experience has shown that if you allow users to create new SharePoint sites, some users will create sites they dont even need, just because they can or because theyre curious. Its better if site creation is handled by a dedicated group of people within the IT department.
• Site lifecycle management: Unlike typical Web sites, many SharePoint sites have a limited useful shelf life. For example, it is common for users to create SharePoint sites that are dedicated to a specific project. When the project is complete, the site is no longer needed. So its important to have a procedure in place for determining which sites are still in use. When a user requests that a new site be created, you should document the name and contact information of the person making the request, as well as the URL of the web site. This allows you to contact site owners on a periodic basis to find out whether the site is still needed.
• Web part management: SharePoint sites are built around the use of Web parts. This approach make site creation easier, but it also means that any changes to Web parts result in changes to every site that uses them. Youll want to take measures to prevent Web part customizations from being made in a haphazard manner. A modification that enhances a web parts functionality on one site may wreck havoc on other sites that are using that Web part.
• Disk space management: Disk space management is something of an art form. Most network administrators are used to dealing with file servers that store data on dedicated volumes. SharePoint, on the other hand, stores its data within a SQL database. While you can use quota management to ensure that users dont consume an excessive amount of disk space, it is important to realize that multiple lists or libraries can be linked to a common database. Therefore, you must design your quota structure to take into account possible growth of other lists or libraries that may exist.

MOSS 2007 Features and Benefits

• Platform Services: The base Platform of which all these capabilities surround has been extended significantly from SharePoint 2003. The core of which surrounds itself around the SharePoint Object Model of Site Collections, Sites and Webs and the security around these objects. The base concepts of the Platform Services area are where most people will find themselves configuring and creating instances of objects for their solutions.
• Collaboration: Microsoft SharePoint is an intelligent, enterprise portal that provides a central place to access, manage, share, and interact with relevant information, documents, applications, and people. It enables faster, more informed decision making, more effective sharing across teams, and more streamlined business processes. Microsoft SharePoint is an out of the box, easily customizable, flexible way for end-users to share information, and design and manage business tasks.
• Search: Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 adds several new features and enhancements to Enterprise Search. The new features provide a consistent and familiar search experience, increased relevance of search results, new functions to search for people and expertise, ability to index and search data in line-of-business (LOB) applications, and improved manageability and extensibility.
• Content Management: Web content management (WCM) encompasses a range of activities having to do with publishing information for consumption through a web interface. Its primary goal is to enable content contributors to collaborate and publish information from a variety of sources in a controlled and consistent manner.
• Business Forms: Rich and Web forms based front-ends, LOB actions, pluggable SSO. Reach more customers, partners and suppliers with user friendly forms. Accelerate form-driven business processes through data integration. Rapidly develop and deploy sustainable form solutions.
• Business Intelligence: Office SharePoint Server 2007 can link to business applications, such as SAP, Siebel, and Microsoft SQL Server 2005, allowing you to easily publish reports, lists, and key performance indicators (KPIs). When we publish reports from the data in one of these systems, we provide strategic or operational data for decision-makers. Examples of reports include Microsoft Office Excel workbooks, a SQL Server Reporting Services report, or a Microsoft Office Access report. Executives and line managers rely on timely and accurate reports to make informed decisions.