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Chapter 1: Microsoft Offi ce SharePoint Services 2007 (MOSS)
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The vast majority of readers of this book will be users of SharePoint who simply need to get a job done in
the least technical way possible, and how it all works in the background is of little concern. Most
people ’ s main concern is being able to turn on their computer each morning simply to get their job done.
The same should be true of SharePoint. Once it ’ s installed and up and running, you should not have to
bother with how it all happens — unless, of course, you find that area interesting.
Each area is responsible for the security of its own information. It owns the information and is in the best
position to decide who has access to it. For information that needs to be shared across business divisions
or rolled up across the whole organization, customized tools can be provided to achieve this. For
example, internal HR documents that should be available to everyone can be made available at the
top - level sites without permitting staff access to the more confidential areas of the HR sites. In the real
world, it ’ s more likely that you will interact with SharePoint by using a team site to collaborate with
other colleagues.
What Is MOSS 2007?
As you may already know, MOSS 2007 is a browser - based collaborative environment into which people
save information, interact with business systems, and work with custom business applications. As this
book explores MOSS, you will discover how it provides a more or less open - ended range of possibilities
to assist you in doing your job. One of the first things that attracted me to this product was the ability to,
with a couple of mouse clicks, make information available to almost anyone who has access to a web
browser and permissions to use that information. No third - party tools required, no major technical skills
needed, just a simple File
Save As directly from Microsoft Word and the job is done. The sting in the
tail — there ’ s always one — is that, once you get into the MOSS software itself, there is such a large
range of features that it can, at times, be like looking for a needle in a haystack. The rest of this chapter
digs into the software and shows you what ’ s there and how you can use it.
For the majority of its users, SharePoint is essentially a document storage and collaboration platform. It
allows you to place documents onto a secure Internet site and share those documents with authorized
colleagues both inside and outside an organization. It can also be much more, as you shall see as this
book progresses, and it can provide a fully integrated Internet - based environment that brings documents
to life using the Internet and a web browser.
MOSS is actually two distinct products, Windows SharePoint Services version 3 (WSS v3) and Microsoft
SharePoint Server 2007 (MOSS). WSS v3 is a free component to the Windows Server 2003 operating
system and can be downloaded from the Microsoft web site (search for Windows SharePoint Services 3.0
with Service Pack 1), while MOSS 2007 will cost you — a lot! This book will refer to MOSS 2007 and WSS
as SharePoint. If a feature is only available with MOSS 2007, this will be explicitly stated. Otherwise, all
features discussed will work with both MOSS and WSS v3.
The essential feature of SharePoint is document management. Regardless of all the hype and marketing
bluster out on the web, the vast majority of end users will use MOSS to save and share documents,
mainly Microsoft Office documents. As you will see, this is only one side of the software, and you can do
a whole lot more with it. In order to take advantage of many of the topics discussed, you will need access
to a MOSS server or at the very least a WSS version 3 installation.
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