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Part I: Implementing SharePoint Collaboration

Using SharePoint to Collaborate

SharePoint 2007 offers a set of sophisticated Web-based software tools

designed to make it easy for you to share essential information with all the

members of your teams. SharePoint also can enable team members to freely

share their ideas and for you to effortlessly garner their feedback.

To help you understand how SharePoint does all these things, the following

sections include a basic introduction to what SharePoint is and how it

functions. Following this is a discussion of how your teams can put

SharePoint’s many features to good use to successfully accomplish a wide

array of projects that benefit from good, old-fashioned teamwork coupled

with high-tech collaboration.

Discovering what SharePoint

is and how it works

Don’t feel bad at all if you’re not really sure what exactly SharePoint is

and what it does. (You are by no means alone in your bewilderment.) The

confusion stems mainly from the fact that SharePoint’s not like the typical

Microsoft software programs you find in the Office suite, such as Word,

Excel, and PowerPoint.

In fact, rather than any sort of unified application program, SharePoint

represents a conglomeration of totally Web-based technologies that have

frequently changed names and identities in a rather short period of time. As

of the writing of this book, Microsoft markets its SharePoint technology in

the following two forms:

✓ Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 (WSS): The core SharePoint

technology available as a free download that runs on Windows Server

2003/2008. WSS provides the basic platform that makes it possible for

you and your teams to build the sites that enable information sharing

and collaboration.

✓ Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 (MOSS): An extension of

Windows SharePoint Services that expands the capabilities of the

basic WSS platform to enable the development of enterprise business

solutions. This product is licensed by Microsoft in several different

versions, the basic two being the Standard Edition and Enterprise

Edition. The Standard Edition gives you enhanced features in the area

of content management, search, portal, and collaboration, and the

Enterprise Edition extends these enhancements to include extra

business forms and intelligence features. (It’s also quite expensive!)