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Chapter 1: Microsoft Offi ce SharePoint Services 2007 (MOSS)
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Customization
Customization requires special permission within SharePoint as it is likely that the ability to change the
look and feel of a site is tightly controlled. Many organizations restrict this ability to a select group of
web designers or developers, and system users seldom get the opportunity to change the look and feel.
However, designers and developers can extend the default design of SharePoint sites by using built - in
templates or creating more business - focused ones. Tools like SharePoint Designer and Visual Studio 2008
are commonly used for this. Expression Studio is another web development tool offered by Microsoft,
but it is not as closely integrated with SharePoint as SharePoint Designer 2007. Expression is designed to
build more traditional interactive web sites as opposed to SharePoint sites. Chapter 13 looks at using
SharePoint Designer to change the look and feel of a basic SharePoint Team site.
For higher - level customization, SharePoint also provides you with the ability to create a web site or sites
in the true sense of the web. In this book, you will be working mostly with web sites that only permit
internal company access that is, intranets. SharePoint or to be precise, MOSS 2007 also allows
you to create publishing sites. Another component of MOSS is the capability to create and publish web
pages for internal and external use, using the content management features of MOSS 2007. You can
create web pages directly within the SharePoint interface, which inherits the standard look and feel of
the rest of your web site, and also create pages in site and application tools like SharePoint Designer and
Visual Studio. Once you leave the confines of the SharePoint interface, some skills in HTML, web page
development, and some of the .NET languages will be useful to take full advantage of such tools. For the
majority of staff within an organization, the SharePoint interface will allow some freedom to create
additional pages and page content within their web sites.
Mobile Device Access
In addition to using a standard web browser with SharePoint, each site can also be accessed using a mobile
device (such as a cell phone or PDA). If you access a site via cell phone all graphics are removed, and you
are presented with a simple hyperlinked list of items. Accessing web content from a cell phone (and viewing
the content on the phone s tiny screen) is less than ideal but improving all the time. When working with
a mobile device view of a SharePoint site, you lose all of the graphical interface and are presented with a
simple hyperlink lists of materials, resources, and links to your site. However, with mobile devices
becoming more powerful and with better screens, it is possible to view a SharePoint site on a device such as
an iPhone in all its graphical glory. For example, iSharePhone, a new application for the iPhone, is currently
in development, with the promise of full interaction with SharePoint sites on this device.
Email Updates
When enabled, it is also possible to send documents directly to a SharePoint library simply by using
email. This is a huge improvement for SharePoint and removes the need to use Microsoft Exchange
public folders. You need to work with your system administrators on this one, as it s not something that
you can set up. Once it is set up, it does provide another way to make information available.
Workflow
Workflow is the automated control of a particular business process such as the approval process for
a document. If you are required to draft a document for someone else, the usual process is to email the
document as an attachment to the approver. Using SharePoint, you would simply place the document
into a library and begin an approval workflow. SharePoint will handle the routing of the document to
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