As the sheer size of intranet based content grows, website administrators and users are increasingly searching for ways to manage all the information they must store and serve up.

Introduction to SharePoint

As most portal products do, SharePoint allows visitors to create custom views of theire website. This customisation can be very simple or very complex, depending on the type and version of the product that is installed. In addition, SharePoint has a powerful collaboration model that is tightly integrated with the Office 2003 suite.

It’s interesting to note that Microsoft SharePoint Portal Server is Microsoft’s fastest growing product.

The History of SharePoint

Microsoft’s first portal application was called Digital Dashboard. This product introduced the concept of Web parts — boxes of information on a page that represented a summary or overview of information. By assembling multiple parts on a page, each user could customise their view of the portal to contain the information that was relevant to them. In theory, every visitor of the site could have different content at the same URL. However, the technology behind the Digital Dashboard was not up to the task, and as a result the product never survived beyond beta.

At the same time, Microsoft’s Office group was working toward a collaboration solution. The need for many people to contribute to a single document or worksheet was growing. And, these people were not necessarily working at the same location. The result was SharePoint Team Services (STS), a Web-based solution that allowed shared access to information and documents. STS also allowed end-users to make changes to the site via a Web browser instead of requiring a development-oriented application.

The merging of the collaboration and aggregation functions lead to SharePoint Portal Server 2001. Portal Server has been upgraded to run on the .NET framework and is now referred to as SharePoint Products and Technologies. The “Product” is SharePoint Portal Server 2003 (SPS) and the “Technologies” are Windows SharePoint Services (WSS). A significant point about these two is that WSS is included with the Windows Server 2003 license.

Features of SharePoint

In general, SharePoint contains all of the features you would expect from a portal or collaboration tool, such as:

• Browser-based customistion of pages
• Browser-based content administration
• Aggregation capabilities
• Document Repository
• Message board
• Ad-hoc data storage
• E-mail notifications
• Announcements, event calendar and contact list.

Uses for SharePoint

In addition to being intranet portal, there are many additional uses for SharePoint. Microsoft has included pre-defined templates for Web sites to facilitate meetings, manage projects and create documents. Combined with the “self-service” site creating feature, teams can create and use a Web site.

The Document Workspace template will allow a group to work on a document. The template combines a document repository with a task list and a links list. While using Word 2003, a user can have the document open and at the same time view the task or links list. Changes made to the task list are immediately visible to site visitors. And the document library allows versioning, so edits are not lost.

The Meeting Workspace template combines the agenda, attendee list and Outlook’s calendar function. When sending a meeting request in Outlook 2003, a user can create a workspace on the server. The URL of the workspace is automatically included in the message and the attendees are added to the site. The materials required for the meeting can be centrally located, which is preferable for attendees who travel frequently.

The browser-based customisation feature, combined with the ability to create ad-hoc lists allows an advanced user to create a site for almost any purpose. A user group could host its meeting schedule, complete handouts. A youth sport organisation can post its schedule and roster. An individual can host a blog.

The possibilities are endless. SharePoint certainly is a powerful and growing platform, and one to be considered.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, June 3rd, 2009 at 11:44 am and is filed under Development. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.