Datasheet

16
Part I: Microsoft SharePoint Server 2007
the approver based on information you supply to the process. SharePoint provides three workflows out
of the box, and complicated real - world business processes can also be created as workflows using tools
like Visual Studio 2008. Generally, such tools are the domain of professional programmers. However, if
you have access to SharePoint Designer, you can build workflows on a per - site basis that extend those
available by default.
The previous discussion shows that WSS provides almost all the day - to - day features and interaction that
you will use within this environment. In fact in the real world, there are many features that you will not
use. For example, in a corporate environment, blogs and wikis may not be needed. Again, in the real
world of business, you will spend a great deal of time working with the document management and
collaboration features of WSS. As your use of and expertise in SharePoint grows, you will find that you
move into the other areas such as blogs and wikis over time. Initially, it is recommended to concentrate
on the document collaboration features. You will have more than enough to learn!
Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007
If your organization decides to invest heavily in SharePoint technology, then it ’ s possible they will
purchase MOSS 2007 as opposed to using the free WSS version 3. MOSS is WSS with some additional
features geared to the enterprise; that is, support for the large - scale use of SharePoint scaling up to
thousands of users and huge amounts of information. MOSS also includes features that allow you
to personalize your SharePoint experience and provides a sort of business social networking area known
as MySites. The coverage in this section is limited to the more user - focused features available with MOSS
only. Not covered are the more technical areas, such as indexing content, which have little interest for
most day - to - day users. It ’ s sufficient to say that MOSS includes technologies to ensure that information
is searchable in an efficient way.
Enterprise - Level Search
Given that you will, hopefully, be storing large amounts of information in SharePoint, it ’ s important that
this information can be retrieved when required. MOSS provides a very powerful search tool to help you
discover not only documents but also other information, including people within the organization.
You can search for documents by type, document names, or even content.
The search tools are very powerful and can be customized to search for particular categories of
information across the entire installation or restricted to individual sites. Search scopes can also be
created, limiting the search to a particular topic (only search customer invoices or orders, for example).
Search scope creation can be carried out by system administrators working with you to identify the best
way to return content in a business environment.
Of course, it is also possible to ensure that some information is not returned by a search. SharePoint
allows you to do this as well. Searching within certain areas of the server is part of the ability of MOSS,
and it is possible to turn off the searching feature on a site - by - site basis.
Search is not restricted to your SharePoint site, as it is also possible to search outside the web sites across
your organization — for example, into file shares and other areas where your organization stores
information. The search will return this information via a single MOSS interface. Microsoft has also
recently released a set of search plugins (federated search), which enables searching of specific areas
(such as searching MSN or Google).
c01.indd 16c01.indd 16 3/31/09 9:21:02 AM3/31/09 9:21:02 AM