Introducing Microsoft Windows SharePoint Services

he much-anticipated release of Microsoft Windows SharePoint Services is not far away. This is the successor to SharePoint Team Services, and the changes go beyond small enhancements. In the new release, Microsoft has unified the way the technologies work. This article introduces Windows SharePoint Services and shows how it truly responds to the need for highly productive and collaborative desktop tools. Additionally, you'll explore how Windows SharePoint Services work with Office 2003 applications to bring information to users when they need it, and also making it easier for people to work together around common objectives.

As a consultant for several years, I spent a lot of time behind the firewall in many dozens of companies. I observed how organizations do things, from maintaining security, to database management, to document management, and even end-user training. After spending thousands of hours this way, it is not surprising that intriguing patterns began to emerge about how things are generally done and not done.

One of the most consistent and compelling observations I have made is this: documents are one of the most overlooked assets in nearly every organization. Here, the word "documents" is used as a general term for spreadsheets, presentations, letters, memos, maps, images, and so forth. Although it is daunting to think of how to empirically measure the value of these assets within an organization, basic common sense suggests that a great deal of organizational knowledge, power, insight, learning potential, and innovation is contained within them. Yet all too often, they are treated rather casually.

A product such as Windows SharePoint Services is precisely what is needed by many companies and individuals to extract more value out of documents and the way people work with them. Simply put, Windows SharePoint Services let you create Web sites for information sharing and document collaboration, sites that are fully integrated with Microsoft Office 2003 Editions. In this article, you will explore the basic features of SharePoint Portal Services 2003 and discover ways that it can increase personal and team productivity.

Windows SharePoint Services' Main Features

The truth of the matter is that most people have a tendency to store documents in too many places. And storing them in a central location does not equal collaboration.

First, let's get a general sense of what Windows SharePoint Services do. You already know that the product's focus is on information sharing and document collaboration. One of the key things Windows SharePoint Services does is to provide Web sites where users can share documents. But few documents are meaningful all on their own. They are usually part of a process, a workflow, a project, or some other purposeful context. Windows SharePoint Services sites are ASP.NET-based sites that, while providing file storage, also provide a way for team collaboration on documents, tasks, contacts, events, surveys, and other sorts of information.

In Figure 1, you can see what a team site might look like. This page is the main entry point for those who work for an entirely fictitious and thoroughly narcissistic magazine called JRDMag.

Figure 1: Here you can see what a default SharePoint site looks like. These sites are pages served up as ASP.NET in IIS.6.0

The magazine publishes monthly, and there are many people who must work together to get each issue completed on time. The Managing Editor of the magazine must be aware of how things are going at each stage of the publishing process and for each of the groups. There is a team of artists who work with images and other assets for the publication. There are editors who improve the quality of the textual content and assure its compliance with basic editorial standards. There are sales people who solicit advertisement for the magazine. Salespeople must be in close contact with editors and production staff so that the right amount of space is allocated in the magazine for the advertisements. They must also communicate with the people in finance so that the advertisers pay on time. There is also a marketing team whose primary duty is to promote the magazine and provide tools to the salespeople. Additionally, there are staff members responsible for soliciting and managing subscriptions. Nearly all of the content comes from external sources, so no writers are staffed at the magazine. There are other people in the organization, but the parties described thus far give a somewhat realistic business scenario in which to place the use of Windows SharePoint Services.

Easy Access for All Team Members
In one sense, Windows SharePoint Services is an easily accessed file server. People can store their documents in a document library by going to the site. The truth of the matter is that most people (including me) have a tendency to store documents in too many places. And storing them in a central location does not equal collaboration.

It is a common practice for companies to create file shares that are centrally managed, fault-tolerant, and regularly backed up. The idea is to have people store any important documents relating to their job on one of the shares. Usually, people are also given a folder on a share where they can store more personal documents. Few people fully embrace this practice. One of the main reasons is the loss of personal control. Another is the inability to effectively search, sort, and browse the content. Too often, people end up clicking through the tree-nodes in a file explorer, searching up and down directory structures looking for the files they need. Compare the relatively primitive behavior that a file share provides with the more sophisticated view shown in Figure 2.

Figure 2: Viewing document libraries in SharePoint sites means that more details about files in those libraries are available. The properties of documents can be changed, and they can be the basis of searches.

Notice the information beyond file names, including a field for the status of the document in the context of how the business works. This view is only one way of looking at a library full of various items. The items could include spreadsheets, letters, presentations, and other types of content. In this example, the view shows all the items in the document library. But, as you will see in a moment, Windows SharePoint Services views let you look at the same items differently, to view different properties for the items, to group them by some context, and to filter out ones that are not relevant. The properties attributed to an item in Windows SharePoint Services are their metadata, and are external to the item's internal data content.

As a collaboration platform, Windows SharePoint Services let users store documents on the file server. In addition to just storing the item and its internal content, Windows SharePoint Services also allows each item to have these metadata properties; the metadata properties are the source of much of Windows SharePoint Services' power.