Microsoft’s SharePoint technologies provide the foundation for collaboration and communication for information workers.... more

Microsoft’s SharePoint technologies provide the foundation for collaboration and communication for information workers. The first releases of SharePoint technologies in 2001 have undergone several substantial revisions, and the technology has moved from a productivity tool supporting a limited set of scenarios to a full-fledged platform for developers to build enterprise-class applications.

The core components of the SharePoint technology stack are Microsoft Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 and Microsoft Office SharePoint Server (MOSS) 2007. In this first chapter we cover what’s new for developers in SharePoint and Office and focus on some key scenarios that developers are going to need to know about. This chapter will help to provide a roadmap for the rest of the book and help you envision some of the possible uses for the Office and SharePoint platforms as a developer. Because the integration between Microsoft Office 2007 and SharePoint is such a critical component of the technology, we discuss feature sets in Office that enable developers to build solutions on the platform. Most of these areas are new to the Office 2007 release.

To understand the SharePoint technology platform and the benefits to developers, this chapter covers the following key areas:

• Portal services in SharePoint

• Search

• Document and content management

• Workflow integration

In each of these areas we’ll expand the topic to focus on integration with Office applications in some scenarios and cover other key aspects, including Visual Studio developer support, building Web parts for SharePoint, and leveraging the forms and business intelligence capabilities in SharePoint. Throughout the book we’ll continue to examine each of these areas in greater depth and focus on scenarios to build out these applications and leverage the platform services along with custom code to create new solutions.

This chapter assumes that you have basic familiarity with Windows SharePoint Services 2.0 and SharePoint Portal Server 2003. We’ll point out some of the differences between new and prior versions of the SharePoint technologies.

At the end of this chapter, developers should have a good understanding of the various technologies that comprise the Microsoft Office SharePoint Server and have a sense of how these can be applied to build solutions.

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Microsoft’s SharePoint technology architecture provides a foundation for developers to create web sites,... more

Microsoft’s SharePoint technology architecture provides a foundation for developers to create web sites, collaboration tools and enterprise services for web content management, search, records management, and other document management and collaboration functions. One significant improvement in the SharePoint 2007 architecture is the improved integration of the Windows SharePoint Services components with the SharePoint Server technology, which helps developers to leverage their code for small-scale applications that don’t require the SharePoint server functions along with larger SharePoint Server application deployments that include the additional services available in Microsoft Office SharePoint Server. Additional improvements include the areas of search services, including search support for data residing in business applications or third-party databases, and mobile services to enable greater reach for accessing SharePoint applications on mobile devices.

The core components of the SharePoint technology stack are Microsoft Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 and Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007. In this chapter we’ll cover architectural elements of the SharePoint Server and Windows SharePoint Services products that are relevant to developers, and highlight the key technologies that developers need to understand to build SharePoint applications or to integrate SharePoint features into their existing code.

To understand SharePoint technologies and the overall architecture of the system, we’ll look at the following components in the SharePoint product stack:

• Content services, including ASP.NET integration, business data services, and web content management features

• Search services, including content-based search and business data search

• SharePoint APIs, including web services and SharePoint’s object model

• Mobile services features

In each of these areas we’ll look at the architectural components of the SharePoint products and technologies that enable developers to build out these services and leverage them in their applications. In addition, we’ll take a deeper look at the extensibility of these components and classify the various developer feature areas in both the Windows SharePoint Services and SharePoint Server products.

At the end of this chapter, you should have a good understanding of the architectural components of the Microsoft Office SharePoint Server and should have a good idea of which developer feature areas and technologies in the product should be deployed in various scenarios and how they can be utilized. This chapter also serves as the technical foundation for Chapter 3 and Chapter 5, which demonstrate Windows SharePoint Services and Microsoft Office SharePoint Server custom applications.

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SharePoint technologies are designed for users, applications, and systems to create, store, and track data related to... more

SharePoint technologies are designed for users, applications, and systems to create, store, and track data related to various teams, projects, and other business processes or activities. Similarly, there are libraries in SharePoint that are a specialized type of list that enable users or applications to manage files. These are the foundational features of a SharePoint site.

The core functionality in Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 (WSS) and Microsoft Office SharePoint Server (MOSS) are based on these list and library functions and most out-of-the-box user features are based on or rely upon the use of lists and libraries. As you might expect, the programmability of lists and libraries in SharePoint is a key part of the functionality that developers need to learn in order to build applications that integrate effectively with SharePoint.

This chapter covers the programmability features of lists and libraries within SharePoint so that as a developer you better understand these features and what is supported for programmatic interaction with SharePoint data. In addition, we’ll review some practical examples regarding how to build end-to-end solutions based on list and library data in SharePoint.

To understand SharePoint lists and libraries from a developer’s perspective, we’ll dive into the following topics:

• Understanding SharePoint lists and libraries

• Programming SharePoint lists

• Programming SharePoint libraries

• Examining web services for list and libraries

• Using list events

• Using RSS for list data retrieval

At the end of this chapter, developers should have a good understanding of both how lists and libraries work in SharePoint technologies and what developer feature areas and technology components related to lists and libraries can be leveraged in your applications. This chapter also serves as a technical foundation for later examples related to SharePoint UI development, including the creation of new Web Parts and methods to customize list rendering in various SharePoint sites.

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Modern information workers need the ability to work across systems seamlessly with tools that are familiar in order to... more

Modern information workers need the ability to work across systems seamlessly with tools that are familiar in order to make them more productive. Using Office as a front end to custom and line-of-business applications enables users to work with tools they already know, and it gives users the ability to customize and reuse information to suit their needs.

Office is also the client for most document management activities that take place in Windows SharePoint Services (WSS) and Microsoft Office SharePoint Server (MOSS). Since the time of the first version of SharePoint, Office has been extended to seamlessly support working with online repositories; and with the Office 2007 release, the Office client applications even expose workflow capabilities to provide a seamless experience.

In this chapter, we’ll look at how Office 2007 can be used as part of a custom solution:

• First we’ll look at Content Controls and Custom XML Parts, new features of Word 2007 that make it easier to separate document design from data.

• Then we’ll look at the new OpenXML file formats, first by examining their structure and then by generating a Word document in an ASP.NET application and populating it from data in a SQL Server database.

Note

Most of the examples in this chapter focus on Word and Excel because they are the most popular applications in the Office suite. In addition, they are the most common targets for developers building custom solutions. We will also translate several concepts to PowerPoint along the way. Because Word, Excel, and PowerPoint all share the same rules regarding file structure, the concepts used to manipulate Word and Excel files will help when you are doing the same things with PowerPoint files.

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While there is extensive support for programming data sources, lists, and the file formats of Microsoft Office SharePoint... more

While there is extensive support for programming data sources, lists, and the file formats of Microsoft Office SharePoint Server (MOSS) 2007, Windows SharePoint Services (WSS) v3, and Office 2007, the user interface (UI) programming features are significant as well. It is important for developers to understand some of the key UI programming elements in Office and SharePoint, because this is how users will ultimately interact with the software and perform or initiate the functions supported by the backend services such as SharePoint or other business systems.

In SharePoint, the underlying technology is based on ASP.NET. This enables a developer to build Web Parts and to publish ASP.NET pages into the SharePoint environment to perform new functions. From a SharePoint perspective, the Web Part provides a small unit of user interface and functionality that can be published to a Web Part gallery and managed to some degree by the end user. With the ASP.NET page model being integrated into SharePoint, master pages can be customized in a site to provide some new functionality, to provide a consistent look and feel, or to ensure that specific content elements are provided in a consistent manner as required on a site.

To gain an understanding of the key user interface development features, we’ll examine the following scenarios in Office and SharePoint 2007:

• Developing Web Parts in SharePoint 2007 to display content

• Using master pages in SharePoint for presentation, navigation, and content elements

• Creating new elements in the Office Ribbon

• Using the Document Information Panel to extend metadata to Office documents and SharePoint libraries and lists

For each of these areas we’ll look at the functionality for developing and configuring the user interface to support application development. We’ll also examine the underlying object models and APIs that enable this functionality.

At the end of this chapter, you will have an understanding of how to build custom solutions that expose new functionality to end users in Office and SharePoint 2007. In addition, the concepts related to content types and the document information panel in Office 2007 will apply in later chapters related to Forms Services and workflow (Chapters 6 and 10).

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Microsoft’s SharePoint technology architecture delivers a foundation of APIs and functionality that makes it easier... more

Microsoft’s SharePoint technology architecture delivers a foundation of APIs and functionality that makes it easier for developers to build and deploy applications for a variety of scenarios. Workflow-enabled forms solutions, business intelligence and reporting aggregation tools, Excel-based publishing tools for Web reports, and records management tools are a few of the many functions that SharePoint supports out of the box, with hooks for customization and extensibility built in. These products have been packaged into Microsoft Office SharePoint Server and are primarily delivered through SharePoint’s Enterprise edition product.

In order to leverage these existing application services to build new solutions, we’ll look at the following components in the SharePoint application services stack:

• Forms services publishing, management, and administration

• Dashboard and reporting applications development in the Reports Center

• Document management solutions with the Records Center

In each of these areas, we’ll look at the architectural components of the SharePoint products and technologies that enable developers to build out these services and leverage them in their applications. In addition, we’ll look at some scenarios on how each of these feature areas can be leveraged and identify integration and extensibility points for custom applications. With an understanding of these features and services, you should be able to build InfoPath-designed forms that can be delivered through a browser to support rapid application development and simple integration with existing Web services and databases, to build dashboards and reporting solutions off existing Excel-based reports, and to implement records retention through SharePoint that can be integrated with external applications.

At the end of this chapter, you should have a good understanding of the out-of-the-box application services provided by Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007. This chapter will also serve as a preview for the business intelligence and workflow chapters, Chapters 7 and 8, which demonstrate custom business intelligence applications, Excel services, and SharePoint Designer and Visual Studio developed workflow applications.

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As businesses collect data at a constantly increasing rate, the problem that most face isn’t not getting enough... more

As businesses collect data at a constantly increasing rate, the problem that most face isn’t not getting enough data, but making the best use of what is available. In the past, business intelligence tools have been targeted at a narrow range of analyst users, but in a modern business, people in almost every role need these kinds of tools to analyze data and make good decisions.

Extract Transform Load (ETL) systems take data from source Line-of-Business systems to standardize and consolidate that data into a BI data store, which can be any combination of a data warehouse, departmental data mart, or OLAP (Online Analytical Processing) cube. In these reporting-focused data stores, the data is restructured to make reporting easier and more consistent. Key business calculations are performed and related data from disparate line-of-business systems are combined to enable business users to answer questions that span more than one application:

• A single enterprise data warehouse store can be an elusive goal due to the complexity and cost involved in taking on every perspective on the data.

• Therefore, it is common to take a more focused approach with departmental data marts targeted at specific types of questions and often a smaller subset of source systems.

• OLAP cubes are complementary storage technology designed to simplify and accelerate queries across large data sets.

The data sources and data stores of a BI system are invisible to end users. For them, the Presentation Services are the face of the BI system and provide the real value to its use:

• Reports are the traditional vehicle, either printed or through electronic distribution. Electronic reports can be generated in various formats, including Excel spreadsheets that can then be further manipulated.

• Scorecards are an increasingly common way to present performance data with trends, especially when aligned with goals.

• Analysis can be done through several clients, including Microsoft Excel’s built-in ability to consume OLAP data. This chapter shows this enhanced capability in Excel 2007.

• Finally, data mining is a computer-driven analysis of data. It is designed to find trends and correlations in the data that may be impossible for users to find manually.

This chapter covers the business intelligence features of Microsoft Office SharePoint Server and Microsoft Office Excel, focusing specifically on the following:

• Data visualization in Excel that make it easier to make sense of large amounts of data

• Relational and dimensional data access improvements in Excel that make it easier to create and maintain data-connected spreadsheets

• Online spreadsheet publishing with Excel Services and Excel Web Access

• Automating and controlling server-hosted spreadsheets in custom applications to reuse business logic and automate processes

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Businesses are placing greater demands on their employees to make better decisions faster in order to remain competitive... more

Businesses are placing greater demands on their employees to make better decisions faster in order to remain competitive in the marketplace. When attempting to come to a decision, we typically follow a series of steps. The steps can be formal in terms of a standard operating procedure or informal in the sense of an implicitly understood way of operating, but collectively they represent a business process. Because these business processes fundamentally require human interaction, making better decisions faster may be limited by human interactions. Therefore, by increasing the effectiveness of human interactions, we can improve the overall efficiency and quality of the outcome. Business processes can be modeled using flow charts and represented using workflow terminology. Software that facilitates and manages this “human workflow” can provide a way of automating the interaction among the people participating in the process and thereby deliver improved effectiveness.

In previous chapters, you have seen how Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 (WSS) and Office SharePoint Server 2007 (MOSS) provide a robust, customizable, and extensible collaboration environment that enables team members to share business information contained in SharePoint data repositories (for example, documents and lists).

Business processes such as document approval can be automated by associating a workflow with the SharePoint data, notifying the approver of work to be done and the submitter of the outcome of the approval process. Other workflow examples include coordinating the interaction of a group of individuals (such as preparing a PowerPoint presentation for a conference or a new project proposal) or tracking a set of issues, including the tasks, the responsibilities, and the status, on an ongoing basis.

WSS can execute workflow applications through the use of technology called Windows Workflow Foundation (WF). People interact with these workflows through the web browser and Office 2007 applications such as Word 2007. WSS provides the framework for utilizing WF, and MOSS extends the capability by delivering several workflows that automate common business processes. Custom workflows can be created using tools such as SharePoint Designer and Visual Studio 2005, and then associated with SharePoint data.

Therefore, workflow is not only part of the collaboration process, but also represents and automates the collaboration process. Workflows expedite the decision-making process by helping to ensure that the right information is made available to the right people at the right time. Workflows also help ensure that individual workflow tasks are completed by the right people and in the appropriate sequence (or in parallel).

This chapter focuses on an introduction to WF and the tools for creating custom workflows: SharePoint Designer and Visual Studio Designer for Windows Workflow Foundation.

The main objectives for this chapter are as follows:

• Understanding the architecture, concepts, and capability of Windows Workflow Foundation

• Understanding the concept of a workflow and the role that Windows SharePoint Services and Office SharePoint Server play in workflow creation, deployment, and utilization

• Creating custom workflows using SharePoint Designer and Visual Studio Designer for Windows Workflow Foundation

• Comparing the capabilities of SharePoint Designer and Visual Studio Designer for Windows Workflow Foundation for creating custom workflows

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Web Content Management (WCM) in Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 (MOSS) is a set of technologies built on top... more

Web Content Management (WCM) in Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 (MOSS) is a set of technologies built on top of the Windows SharePoint Services v3.0 platform. Previously, Microsoft Content Management Server 2002 was the product that delivered WCM capability for the Microsoft platform. This was a separate product from SharePoint Portal Server 2003. Each of these products had features that were desired by most users. WCM combines the functionality of Content Management Server 2002 and SharePoint Portal Server 2003, along with a host of new features. Typically, WCM systems allow non-technical users to author and manage content on the web with minimal involvement from IT.

This chapter explores WCM, and the main objectives for this chapter are:

• Understand the architecture, concepts, and capability of MOSS WCM

• Create WCM Web intranet and Internet portals using different security configurations

• Understand and utilize the WCM authoring and publishing process

• Provide an understanding and demonstration of site variations and content deployment

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In this chapter, we’ll pull together several topics from this book by building a content management solution using... more

In this chapter, we’ll pull together several topics from this book by building a content management solution using MOSS’s core web content management framework. We’ll also include a front-end process for managing Word documents that feed into the web site. This will show how different aspects of the MOSS platform can be used together to build a solution that extends from the desktop through to the web farm. The following topics will be covered in this scenario:

• Creating content types and document workflows

• Defining the structure of documents for enterprise content management

• Building document metadata input functions into SharePoint documents

• Creating a feature to deploy the solution to a SharePoint site or farm

• Developing document conversion processes for web content management

• Using workflow to extend content management and publishing processes

Our project will streamline the process for creating and publishing press releases at Contoso Enterprises. Press releases are important documents and are used in differently depending on the medium. In our scenario, they’ll be published internally to Contoso Enterprises on the PR department’s MOSS site, but they’ll also be published externally on their web site.

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