Datasheet

control. Although businesses don’t want their employees’ sales presentations
to be boring, stuffy, and staid, they do want the environment in which these
documents are created to be manageable. By creating a manageable environ-
ment for less structured information, SharePoint confers the following benefits
to less structured assets:
 Structure: SharePoint stores everything in a database. As a result, users
can create properties that describe their documents. These properties
can be used to better organize documents. Some of the information
found in documents is better suited for storage in a database table.
Rather than storing the document in SharePoint, users can store the
document’s data in the database.
 Standardization: SharePoint allows you to define the kinds of docu-
ments and other information (or content types) stored in the database.
When someone attempts to add documents, SharePoint prompts the
user for the set of properties associated with that content type. Using
content types ensures that the same properties are captured.
 Share: SharePoint makes the information available in documents acces-
sible to larger numbers of people. Oftentimes, the only way to distribute
documents now is with an e-mail attachment.
 Archive: SharePoint allows you to define policies that determine for
how long a document must be archived.
 Backup and restore: By keeping less structured assets in a common
repository, SharePoint makes it possible to back up and restore these
assets.
 Secure: Creating a secure environment means more than just restricting
unauthorized access. SharePoint makes it possible to extend those
restrictions beyond the managed information environment by preventing
unauthorized distribution of assets.
 Audit: Part and parcel of securing assets is the ability to audit their access.
SharePoint makes it possible to monitor the information environment for
less structured assets in ways previously not possible.
 Summarize, analyze, and mine data: By applying properties to less
structured assets, SharePoint makes it possible to query and search
these assets like structured assets.
 Legitimize: By bringing in social tools (such as blogging, RSS, Web,
and search) inside the information systems environment, SharePoint
acknowledges the valuable role these tools play. Organizations don’t
operate in a vacuum. SharePoint extends access to the external environ-
ment in a controlled and measured way that encourages productive and
purposeful uses of these resources.
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