The goal of this book is to provide you with the knowledge you need to become the master of your organization’s SharePoint... more

The goal of this book is to provide you with the knowledge you need to become the master of your organization’s SharePoint environment. Along those lines, this chapter introduces you to the new and exciting features and capabilities of Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007. With it, you learn how to put the platform to work for your organization to create scalable team solutions. In this chapter, you learn about the following topics and concepts:

• The differences between Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 and Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007

• Common usage scenarios for Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 and Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007

• Differences between SharePoint Portal Server 2003 and Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007

• An overview of important SharePoint concepts and features such as:

• Sites and workspaces

• Lists

• Document libraries

• Web Parts

• Content types

• Workflow

• Enterprise features such as search, business data reporting, and Forms Services

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This chapter reviews a very important concept in SharePoint known as lists, which you use throughout SharePoint to store... more

This chapter reviews a very important concept in SharePoint known as lists, which you use throughout SharePoint to store and display information. By gaining a solid understanding of how they work early in this book, you can construct highly effective business applications and solutions in later chapters of the book by combining multiple lists with other important SharePoint components.

This chapter focuses mainly on lists basics, describing the various functionalities and features. In Chapter 4, you learn how to customize and manage lists to create working environments that suit your specific business requirements and needs.

This chapter covers the following:

• A description of what a SharePoint list is

• A discussion on how you can use lists

• A detailed description of the type of information that you can store in lists

• A breakdown of the various default list templates that SharePoint offers

• A hands-on discussion on how you can work with lists to create and view information

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In this chapter, you discover the magic behind document collaboration: the document library. Document libraries... more

In this chapter, you discover the magic behind document collaboration: the document library. Document libraries allow you to create, store, manage, and collaborate on documents. SharePoint has a variety of them, each designed to allow maximum efficiency when you work with particular types of documents. This chapter discusses the major elements of a document library and walks you through some of the different types of libraries and how you can use them to manage the documents crucial to business operations. The important aspects of document libraries include:

• Creating and uploading documents

• Checking documents in and out

• Managing version history

• Restoring documents

• Working with your documents offline

• Using the different types of document libraries

In Chapter 4, you learn how to customize a template to fit your business needs. You also learn how to customize the properties and features of a document library. This chapter focuses on interacting with document libraries that have been previously created or configured.

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The previous two chapters discussed how to use lists and libraries in their most basic format, and SharePoint has some great... more

The previous two chapters discussed how to use lists and libraries in their most basic format, and SharePoint has some great templates you can use. However, your information and sharing needs may require something different, in which case, you can customize specific components so that they better address those needs. When you customize SharePoint elements to more closely reflect business practices and processes, users can focus on their jobs instead of working harder or around an ill-fitting tool. This chapter shows you how to customize both lists and libraries. Many of the examples use the term list to describe both lists and libraries because anything that you can do to a list, you can also apply to a document library.

This chapter reviews the following:

• Specific reasons for customizing a SharePoint list or library

• Best practices for creating business elements

• Examples of working with list-centric columns and site columns

• The various types of views available in SharePoint and best practices related to creating them

• Working with list and document templates

After reading this chapter, you should feel comfortable taking a specific list or library template and customizing it to suit your specific needs. You should also understand the steps and value associated with adding your custom list to the central list of templates so that teams and users can benefit from your customization efforts.

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Most businesses have processes related to specific activities and, typically, the steps of these processes are documented... more

Most businesses have processes related to specific activities and, typically, the steps of these processes are documented in procedures in a predictable manner. Workflow involves the various tasks that employees must complete on a business activity, and these tasks often occur in a specific order. A workflow could be something completely non-technical, such as washing your car; however, it usually involves some level of interaction with technology mixed with human activity. Workflows in SharePoint generally focus on a specific document or list item. However, it is important to remember that the actual document may be representative of a much larger human-based process such as applying for a job or requesting vacation time.

In the 2003 release, SharePoint did not include an automated workflow engine. For many organizations, this meant purchasing third-party software solutions to get automated business process management. However, in 2007, SharePoint comes with support for automated workflow solutions built upon the Windows Workflow Foundation, which is Microsoft’s platform for workflow development and tools. Because it is a development platform, it can be extended and customized to meet the needs of most organizations if the available solutions do not.

Because it parallels business processes and natural human activity, workflow is an important part of document management. When used correctly, it can meld automation and tasks that rely heavily on people, allowing your team to track a project's progress and keeping team members informed of their duties. In this chapter, you learn about the various levels of workflow in SharePoint 2007 including:

• A discussion of what workflow is

• The various types of workflow solutions in SharePoint 2007

• A hands-on review of the different workflow templates available in SharePoint Server

• Examples of how to create a custom workflow solution using SharePoint Designer

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Thus far, this book has discussed components that can help you organize information in a SharePoint site. You should now... more

Thus far, this book has discussed components that can help you organize information in a SharePoint site. You should now know how to create lists and libraries, and assign metadata values to content items. You should also know how to associate business processes with lists and libraries so that you can track, review, and approve items in a consistent and automatic manner. Using this functionality in your work environment means that you spend more time doing actual work, rather than searching in disorganized filing systems.

This chapter takes the concepts discussed thus far and brings them together to create an information management package that ties to your content. It covers topics including:

• What a content type is and why it is such an important part of SharePoint 2007

• The various content types you can create

• Hands-on examples of creating the major content types

• *Best practices for creating and managing content types for your organization

After reading this chapter, you should feel comfortable creating content types suitable for efficiently managing the information that is vital to your organization.

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You can think of Web Parts as the blocks you use to build a team or portal site. Essentially, they are modules or applications... more

You can think of Web Parts as the blocks you use to build a team or portal site. Essentially, they are modules or applications that you retrieve from a site’s gallery and add to a web page. Every time you create a list or document library, SharePoint creates a corresponding Web Part, which you can drag onto a Web Part page to view the contents of that list or library. Web Parts can be as simple as something that tracks the statistics of your favorite local sports team or as complex as a multitier support system that monitors life-saving medical equipment.

While SharePoint 2007 has Web Parts ready for your use, you can also create your own Web Parts using ASP.NET. For example, if you need a special module on your site that allows users to submit, update, and review support incidents from a central tracking application, you may develop a Web Part for that purpose.

In this chapter, you learn the following:

• What a Web Part is and what it consists of

• How to add, move, connect and customize Web Parts

• What Web Parts are available to you, and how you can use them in your business tasks

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So far in this book, there's been discussion about all the components and modules that make up the various sites and workspaces... more

So far in this book, there's been discussion about all the components and modules that make up the various sites and workspaces in SharePoint. Now, it's time to look more specifically at the sites themselves. In SharePoint, the site is the primary container or location for content on which a team collaborates. A SharePoint environment may only contain a few sites or thousands. This chapter discusses some of the different templates as well as the common usage scenarios of each.

In this chapter you learn the following:

• What the difference is between a site, workspace, and site collection

• How you can customize a SharePoint to achieve a particular look and feel

• The SharePoint site templates server and common uses for each

• The options you have for users to navigate across various sites within a site collection

After finishing this chapter, you should feel comfortable selecting the most appropriate template for creating a site. While the chapter discusses each site template in moderate detail, you may want to take the time to create a test environment with each of the primary site templates for reference and practice.

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So far in this book, you've read a lot about how to work with SharePoint content and the various components you can create... more

So far in this book, you've read a lot about how to work with SharePoint content and the various components you can create and customize. Unfortunately, none of your work with these topics means anything unless your users can quickly access that content--and configuring access to that information has a lot to do with how much of it there is and where it's located. Just because users have access to content does not mean that they have a requirement to see the content. It's important to evaluate the content that will be stored in your information system and determine how users will need to access and view it. You may need to do this by asking some important questions: Do you have too little information? Do you have so much information that a user can't wade through it? Where is your information located? Do you have one location or do you have information in a hierarchy? Can users easily access the information they need to perform their jobs? Is the content they view relevant to them?

In this chapter, you learn about the following:

• The difference between user access and personalization

• The different permission levels in a SharePoint site

• SharePoint site groups and the built-in ones you can use

• How to update user profile information manually and automatically

• How to create audiences based on specific memberships or profile properties

• How to target information and Web Parts to specific audiences

After reading this chapter, you should feel comfortable planning and implementing changes to your SharePoint environment to ensure that users can access content relevant to them.

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An important aspect of working in a business environment and collaborating with others is the collection of information.... more

An important aspect of working in a business environment and collaborating with others is the collection of information. A common challenge is to identify ways to make this process more efficient and effective. One solution is to collect information in a form that contains pre-configured fields for the data you want to receive. This ensures that all the required information is collected, and it also helps consolidate information that can be used for comparison or calculations. For example, by collecting feedback from your customers on their satisfaction level with your services, you can identify trends or averages in their responses. If the average of all customer satisfaction ratings is 4.5 out of 5, and a customer submits a rating of 3 out of 5, it is easy to see that the response is below average. If all customer feedback were submitted verbally or via a less structured format such as email, it would be more difficult to compare results in a calculated manner.

Forms simplify the task of gathering important information. In Microsoft Office, you can use InfoPath to create electronic forms that you can then publish to team members and others. InfoPath is straightforward enough that nonprogrammers can use it for a simple forms creation system, yet flexible enough for programmers to create sophisticated forms-based applications.

When InfoPath was released in 2003, in order for someone to view or complete a form, the user had to install the InfoPath application on his computer. In 2007, a new server product, InfoPath Forms Services, was released that allows you to publish form templates to a web server for users to complete and view directly through the browser. SharePoint has built-in support for InfoPath Forms Services in the Enterprise version of the product.

As you read this chapter, you find out the following:

• When you should consider using InfoPath over the data collection techniques available with SharePoint 2007

• How to create a new form template and publish it to SharePoint for others to complete

• What different types of publishing options are available for form templates

• How to use data connections within an InfoPath form template

• How to create form template parts for reuse

After reading this chapter, you should feel comfortable identifying scenarios where the use of InfoPath forms would be beneficial for your organization for the collection of information from various key stakeholders.

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Microsoft Excel is a familiar application that many companies use for data entry and reporting. However, Excel was originally... more

Microsoft Excel is a familiar application that many companies use for data entry and reporting. However, Excel was originally designed for desktop use, and so it is difficult to share a spreadsheet among several users who are collaborating on a project. Typically, the owner of the spreadsheet places it in a shared folder on a file server so that other team members can retrieve, modify, and update it. While this approach can work, it requires a great deal of diligence to maintain the spreadsheet’s integrity; the owner has no way to prevent a user from intentionally or accidentally changing a formula or a key parameter in the spreadsheet, or protect parameters that are based on confidential or highly sensitive data. A work-around is to hide formulas by saving documents in alternate formats, such as JPEG or HTML, which restricts access to formulas but prevents users from interacting with reports and performing simple what-if type scenarios. SharePoint 2007 addresses this issue by introducing Excel Services, a feature that enables spreadsheet collaboration in ways that are much more secure and robust than simple file sharing.

This chapter reviews the following:

• How to share information within organizations using Excel

• How to access and interact with Excel reports via the browser using Excel Services

• What the process is for publishing Excel workbooks to SharePoint

• How to create a data connection file and upload it to SharePoint

• How to use key performance indicators in SharePoint

• How to create interactive Dashboards using Excel Services

After reading this chapter, you should feel comfortable with what Excel Services is and how it may benefit your organization. You should know the steps for creating your own reporting site for the sharing of business reports in a manner that makes important information available to users while still protecting any confidential details related to formulas or calculations.

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Although SharePoint is an excellent data repository, a typical company keeps much of its operational and historical data... more

Although SharePoint is an excellent data repository, a typical company keeps much of its operational and historical data in other systems such as SAP, PeopleSoft, Oracle, and custom line-of-business (LOB) applications. These are often called back-end systems; they often run on mainframe or midrange computers and have been in place for many years. It would be impractical to re-engineer them to use SharePoint for data storage, but you need to extract their data for reports, KPIs (discussed in Chapter 11), and other aspects of SharePoint collaboration.

The Business Data Catalog (BDC) is a new SharePoint feature that enables users to access data from these other data sources via specialized Web Parts and in lists and libraries. Throughout this chapter, you find out:

• What the BDC is and how you can use it for organizations

• What various roles are associated with the BDC

• How to use the various BDC Web Parts to display business data on pages within a SharePoint site

• How to display and associate business data within a list

• How to manage and control access to business data within a BDC application

This chapter prepares a user who is responsible for displaying business data on the SharePoint site to interact with and expose the information he or she needs.

Note

Note that this chapter does not supply the information that a developer or data specialist requires to define the application for import into the Business Data Catalog or to develop custom applications that interact with the Business Data Catalog. You can find more information on those tasks, including samples, in the Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 SDK located at msdn.microsoft.com.

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With more and more business online, Web Content Management has become increasingly important for businesses. Web Content... more

With more and more business online, Web Content Management has become increasingly important for businesses. Web Content Management (WCM) is the process of creating and managing web content either on the Internet or an intranet. Where possible, a good web content management system should support a variety of information and provide tools to users for updating this content with minimal effort.

Formerly, a major roadblock to managing web content has been the lack of effective tools, which meant relying on expensive, labor-intensive, and time-consuming processes. But you don’t have these roadblocks with SharePoint 2007; in this chapter, you take a look at WCM and how SharePoint 2007 can make business teams and processes more efficient. This chapter covers the following:

• What Web Content Management is and how the tools have evolved from CMS 2002

• How the tools in SharePoint 2007 can help organizations become more efficient in the WCM space

• How to cater to multiple languages using the Variations feature

• How to customize the look and feel of your page layouts to enforce brand consistency

• How to create your own content types and page layouts

• How to enable publishing on your team site

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Thus far, this book has covered the various ways you can store and interact with documents and content via SharePoint 2007... more

Thus far, this book has covered the various ways you can store and interact with documents and content via SharePoint 2007. Once you configure your system to fit your business requirements, you need to configure the system so that users can easily find the information.

In this chapter, you discover various built-in search features. You then learn what configuration alternatives you, the SharePoint administrator, have on both the site and server level to meet the needs of your organization. Some of the topics covered in this chapter include:

• Using the Basic Search interface

• Using the Advanced Search interface

• Promoting properties for use in advanced search

• Using the People Search

• Creating custom keywords and best bets for search results

• Defining custom content sources

• Creating custom search scopes

• Working with the various search Web Parts

After reading this chapter, you should feel comfortable managing the search experience available within your SharePoint environment.

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Answers to the exercises at the end of each chapter.... more

Answers to the exercises at the end of each chapter.

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