The main focus of this chapter and rest of the book is Windows SharePoint ServicesV3.0 and Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007.
1.1 INTRODUCING THE 2007 MICROSOFT OFFICE SYSTEM
And so to our third book that has the word "SharePoint" in its title. Our first
dealt solely with the product called Microsoft SharePoint Portal Server 2001
(SPS 2001). In the introduction to the second book, we explained how we
were not going to be discussing merely Microsoft Office SharePoint Portal
Server 2003 (SPS 2003) but also the wider focus of Microsoft SharePoint
Products and Technologies—the umbrella name for those offerings from
Microsoft that facilitate collaboration. That book essentially focused on two
products—Windows SharePoint Services (WSS 2.0) and SPS 2003, with
WSS V2.0 being the foundation upon which SPS 2003 was built.
So where are we now? You will still hear the phrase "Microsoft Share-
Point Products and Technologies," and there are still multiple products that
fit under this name, but more and more the industry just refers to the whole
gamut as "SharePoint," clarifying individual products as and when required.
This book, however, will primarily focus on Windows SharePoint Services
V3.0, Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007, and complementary offerings
such as SharePoint Designer 2007. I guess you’d think that this time we
are merely talking about an update to the products we covered in our second
book? But take a closer look at the product names…notice anything missing?
Hopefully you’ve noted that the word "Portal" no longer appears! Why
not? The focus of SharePoint has expanded significantly in the interim years
to meet the many different ways in which people communicate and collaborate,
and much more than a portal is required to meet ever-changing business
requirements. Today, SharePoint targets much more than just collaboration
between groups of people. Rather, SharePoint targets connecting people, process,
and information across organizational boundaries—a theme that not
only permeates the 2007 Microsoft Office System but other Wave 12 products,
such as Exchange Server 2007 and the recently released Office Communications
Server 2007. The term "Wave 12" was used during development of
these products, as their internal development version was 12 and they were
all due to hit the market around the same time.
As mentioned, the main focus of this book is Windows SharePoint Services
V3.0 and Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007. You will hear and
read numerous terms in the industry that describe these products, so to avoid
any ambiguity, we will use the following naming conventions:
- WSS 3.0 will refer to Windows SharePoint Services V3.0. In
those instances when we need to distinguish between this and the
previous version, we will explicitly say WSS 2.0.
- MOSS, SharePoint Server 2007 and SharePoint 2007 will all be
used to explicitly refer to Microsoft Office SharePoint Server
2007. In those instances where we need to refer to the previous
version(s), we will use SPS 2003 and SPS 2001.
- SharePoint will be used in those instances where the product we
are talking about is irrelevant, i.e., the feature will generally be in
both products or not be product specific at all. In other words,
SharePoint will essentially refer to the global term SharePoint
Products and Technologies.
SharePoint Server 2007 is part of the 2007 Microsoft Office System—a
suite of desktop and server products designed to work together and streamline
the way people work. A discussion on SharePoint would not be complete
without considering the complementary products in the suite. For example,
Outlook 2007 can act as a smart client to SharePoint providing both read
and write access to information held in SharePoint lists. Although WSS 3.0 is
not technically part of the 2007 Microsoft Office, since it is engineered
under the Windows product group, it is the platform upon which SharePoint
Server 2007 is built and so is a fundamental part of any SharePoint solution.
The products that are currently available within the 2007 Microsoft Office
System are as follows (more details can be found online at
www.microsoft.com/office):
Desktop Programs
Access
Accounting
Communicator
Excel
FrontPage
Groove
InfoPath
OneNote
Outlook
PowerPoint
Project
Publisher
SharePoint Designer
Visio
Word
Servers
Forms Server
Groove Server
Live Communications Server
PerformancePoint Server
Project Portfolio Server
Project Server
SharePoint Server
SharePoint Server Search
1.1.1 Investing in Solution Areas
One very pleasing aspect of the whole Wave 12 development cycle was the
consistent Microsoft discussion centered around Investment Areas rather
than individual product offerings. The result of this attitude is the ability to
deliver more tightly integrated solutions without having to jump through
hoops to do so. By focusing on overall solution areas, Microsoft has come up
with a platform (in WSS 3.0) that provides relevant and essential services to
allow such solutions to become a reality.
Consider SPS 2003 in terms of the solution areas that it addresses: collaboration,
portal and search, as depicted in Figure 1.1. WSS 2.0 provided
the collaboration foundation upon which SPS 2003 added enterprise search
and portal capabilities. Although SPS 2003 relied on WSS 2.0, the integration
between them was lacking in several areas and there was a sense that they
were not quite together. This sense is removed with WSS 3.0 and SharePoint
Server 2007.
With SharePoint Server 2007, we see a much more complete picture
with the introduction of other solution areas and a rich set of platform services,
as depicted in Figure 1.2. MOSS offers an integrated suite of server
capabilities for enterprise search, content management, business process
facilitation, simplified information sharing, and enhanced business insight.
Along with the core platform services provided by WSS 3.0 and some
operating system services provided by Windows 2003, such as ASP.NET and
Windows Workflow Foundation, these solution areas complement the existing
ones and together provide a compelling platform for connecting people,
process and information across boundaries. This diagram shapes the rest of
Part I of this book, in that we will cover each of the core platform services
provided in WSS 3.0, followed by a discussion on each solution area. Before
we do that, though, let’s introduce each solution area here to give a flavor of
the types of functionality you can expect to see.
1.1.2 Collaboration
Collaboration focuses on enabling us to work smarter with others and to
ensure that the important collateral we need to work with is at our fingertips
while taking into account the different working environments we find ourselves
in—for example, being able to seamlessly work on team documents
while disconnected from the network or being able to contribute to team calendars
as easily as you can to your own personal calendar.
Sharing information easily is key to successful collaboration, and users
are able to publish information using modern techniques such as Web logs
(blogs) and wikis (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wiki for information
on what a wiki is) as well as to contribute information to discussions/lists,
etc. via e-mail. Similarly, consuming such information is possible using
RSS readers and aggregators (Outlook 2007 provides an inbuilt RSS aggregator).
When collaborating in small teams, there is often the need to allocate
and monitor a set of tasks and have simple visibility into the current progress
of these tasks. A full-blown project management system is usually overkill for
such small teams, so features that enable "lite" project management are also
available, with the ability to have common project management type views
such as Gaant charts.
Of course e-mail is probably the most popular way of communicating
with others, and we see the introduction of capabilities in this area such as
being able to keep in touch with team members through e-mail, contributing
to lists and libraries through e-mail, and using team sites as archives for discussion
lists.
1.1.3 Portal
Portal is an area that is primarily concerned with making sure the right information
gets to the right people. Actually, it’s a little more than that, as it also
focuses on ensuring that you can find the people that are instrumental to the
information.
Being able to quickly provision Intranet portal sites and place relevant
information on them for consumers is therefore a key solution area. Features
that we are used to, such as My Sites and the Site Directory, are significantly
enhanced, as is the delivery of personalized information through
audience targeting and the ability to have roll-up views of important business
details.
Social networking—the ability to find out who knows who and who
knows what—was supposed to be shipped as an add-on to SharePoint 2007,
but unfortunately it missed the cut. This is an important area for organizations
to fully exploit their intellectual capital so hopefully we will see it out
soon (perhaps even before this book gets published!).
1.1.4 Search
Almost everyone can recall growing up at home, "Where are my shoes?"
would be quickly answered, "Where you left them!" Of course in this day
and age of information ubiquity, it is nearly impossible to remember where
you "left" information. Some people claim that if you can organize information,
then you can find it by merely browsing to it, but anyone who has spent
a small amount of time trying to decide on a taxonomy that can suit the
needs of an unknown user base (e.g., Internet users) would quickly agree that
a search engine is a necessity.
As an example of why it is difficult to build a browsing taxonomy to suit
everyone, consider going into a music store to buy a CD. Some stores
arrange their stock alphabetically, whereas others arrange it by genre. Whatever
you are looking for, you, the end user, must adapt your method of finding
something to match the method those who came up with the taxonomy
in the first place. Shouldn’t it be the other way around?
A robust, reliable, and efficient search engine is therefore a requirement
for users to be able to find relevant information quickly and easily. And the
engine should be capable of finding information regardless of its source, be it
in a local portal site, an Internet site, or a line of business application. The
SharePoint 2007 Business Data Catalog (BDC) is a key enabler that can help
unlock data held in backend enterprise/business applications. Once
unlocked, that data can contribute to many of the solution areas that Share-
Point 2007 addresses.
Generating relevant results every time is a strict requirement of a search
engine, and this goal can be achieved assuming end-users supply enough
information about the type of thing they are looking for in the first place.
Relevance is tuned for enterprise content, with the best results across structured
and unstructured data sources determined by a rich and broad range of
factors.
Search extends across most functional areas and is integrated with the
collaboration, portal, content management, business, process and business
intelligence areas within SharePoint Server 2007. It can also be integrated
with other 2007 Office system products (for example, via the Research pane
in Word 2007) to help users easily find, use, and share information and
increase productivity.
1.1.5 Enterprise Content Management
The solution area targeted in SharePoint Server 2007 is Enterprise content
management, meaning much more than just managing documents in a
library. Indeed, content management is a very broad topic that can range
from the simple authoring and publishing of a document, to retaining information
for regulatory compliance, to the creation, management, and deployment
of Web content that makes up internal and Internet-facing (and
typically common branded) Web sites. Many services must be available to
cover the different scenarios, including robust workflow, granular security,
and protecting content usage.
Functionality such as per-item level permissions, recycle bins, full
major/minor versioning, and content types for the creation and revealing
of metadata all combine to deliver a unified approach to managing content
across all Office 2007 client and server products. For example, the user can
manage documents and take them offline using Outlook 2007, be alerted
via tasks and e-mail when content requires your attention and have content
automatically submitted to records management archives. The information
panel in Office 2007 client applications allows you to find out more about
the content you are working with by directly revealing its metadata in an
easy-to-use interface.
As an example of the scope of enterprise content management, consider
that SharePoint 2007 includes integrated records management capabilities
that give organizations the ability to store and protect business records in
their final state. Expiration policies applied to these records help ensure that
the records are retained for the appropriate time period to comply with regulations
or corporate business polices, thereby mitigating legal risk to the organization.
Features such as audit trails can be used to prove to internal and
external auditors that records have been retained appropriately.
All the Web masters out there may be wondering whether the Web
content management piece conflicts with Content Management Server
(CMS) as it exists today. The answer is no, as CMS is no more and its functionality
has been included in SharePoint Server 2007! Indeed, Figure 1.3 is
a good representation of the evolution of SharePoint Products and Technologies
and shows how CMS has been brought into the fold along with
other legacy SharePoint products.
1.1.6 Business Processes
Forms lie at the heart of many business processes—and it is typically an arduous
task to fill in forms correctly so that the information gathered from the
user is actually what is required for the business process at hand. More often
than not, end users are confused as to why they are being asked for certain
types of information or what format the desired response should take, and
the designer of the form is not always on hand to help explain. This whole
area therefore focuses on making it much easier to design robust forms, and
ensure that they are readily available, easy to complete, and manageable
throughout their life cycle. The core component that lies at the heart of this
is the InfoPath Forms Service—basically InfoPath as it exists today, but running
server-side and consumable by a browser, rather than having to be
installed locally.
Forms need to interact with data from many different places if they are
to provide valid information, and users should not have to jump through
hoops to ensure validity. Therefore, seamless integration with back-end line
of business applications is essential so that, for example, customer ids and
product ids can be chosen from drop-down lists to ensure validity. As mentioned
previously, the BDC contributes here by unlocking back-end business
data.
Most business processes involve multiple people; therefore, a robust
workflow engine is a crucial ingredient for success. Harnessing Windows
Workflow Foundation allows built-in or custom templates to be used to
automate approval, review, and archiving processes.
1.1.7 Business Intelligence
Business intelligence is all about making smarter use of your business information.
Analyzing, reporting, managing, and publishing results, as well as
keeping an eye on key performance indicators (KPI), is crucial to determining
how your business is performing. KPIs can be exposed through team and
portal sites and can monitor the performance of manually entered criteria,
data in SharePoint lists, Excel workbooks, or SQL Server Analysis Servers.
Excel Services, part of SharePoint Server 2007, are a key component
when providing solutions in this area. They basically extend the capabilities
of the desktop Excel 2007 by allowing the broad sharing of spreadsheets,
improved manageability and security, and the ability to reuse spreadsheet
models using a scalable server-based calculation service and interactive Webbased
user interface.
It is also easy to build dashboards and report centers that assemble and display
business information from disparate sources via the many built-in Web
Parts. Again, the BDC comes into play here to unlock that back-end data.
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