About the Author
Scott Jamison is an expert on information worker technologies, collaborative applications, and software + services. He has more than 15 years of experience helping customers solve business problems through technology solutions, currently at Microsoft as Director of Enterprise Architecture. Scott has worked with SharePoint since 2001, recently participating as an architect on Microsoft’s developer advisory council helping design features for SharePoint Server 2007. Scott is a recognized thought leader and published author with several books, including Essential SharePoint 2007. Scott holds degrees in business and computer science.
Mauro Cardarelli is a recognized technology expert in Knowledge
Management and Business Intelligence-based solutions. He has over 18
years of experience in the IT industry, half of which have been spent working
as a Microsoft-focused technology consultant. He has worked with a
number of Fortune 500 companies, and his solutions have been mentioned
in multiple Microsoft case studies. In 2006, he founded Jornata
(www.jornata.com), a business and technology services provider that helps
companies achieve exceptional performance through the effective use of
Microsoft technologies. His primary responsibilities at Jornata include
application architecture and development as well as client-focused
technology evangelism. Mauro is a frequent speaker and author on
Microsoft-related technologies. He received a bachelor of science degree
in electrical engineering from Tufts University.
Susan Hanley is an independent consultant and president of her own
firm, Susan Hanley LLC (www.susanhanley.com), where she specializes
in the design and development of portal solutions and knowledge management
consulting. Sue has more than 25 years of experience as a technology
consultant, holding leadership positions at Dell, Plural, and American
Management Systems, Inc. (AMS). Sue served as a member of
Microsoft’s Partner Advisory Council for Portals and Collaboration for
more than four years. She is a frequent writer and speaker on the topic of
building communities of practice and measuring the value of knowledge
management. In September 1997, she was recognized by Consultants
News as one of the key “knowledge leaders” at major consulting firms. Sue
has given top-rated presentations at many conferences in the United States
and Europe. Her byline articles have appeared in Knowledge
Management Review, Management Consultant International, DM Review,
Information Week, and The Cutter IT Journal. Sue is also a featured
author in several books on knowledge management. Sue has an MBA
from the University of Maryland at College Park and a BA in psychology
from Johns Hopkins University.
Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
PrefacePreface
Collaboration. Portals. Knowledge Management. Search. Document Management. These are terms that are thrown around when talking about Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 (MOSS). But what do they really mean?
Most books are designed to address the "how" behind SharePoint, either from an administrative perspective or a programming perspective. This book complements the typical SharePoint book with some of the "what" and "why" of MOSS, provides insight into targeting needs with portal and collaboration technologies, and helps you understand how those needs might be addressed using MOSS.
What Is This Book About?
The Information Worker is central to Microsoft's strategy to bring productive computing to the enterprise and beyond. Navigating the various client and server products can be confusing and daunting. This book will help you navigate these waters, providing direction and understanding.
Specifically, this is a book about Microsoft's SharePoint platform, with a particular focus on three commonly requested topics: end-user features, proper collaboration strategy, and a business-focused discussion on how to apply SharePoint's key features. This book was written because collaboration, knowledge and content management, and Web accessibility are three of the most sought-after features in a corporate software solution. The key product that is the basis for most Microsoft-based solutions in this area is Office SharePoint Server. Because of this functionality, SharePoint is perhaps one of the most important server products that runs on Windows Server. If you want to deploy SharePoint in your enterprise, upgrade from previous versions, or need a concise introduction regarding collaboration solutions with SharePoint, you're starting in the right place. This book provides a great user-level guide to Microsoft's latest version of SharePoint, along with usage strategies and some insight regarding the technologies involved. This book is intended to be a tutorial as well as a handy reference.
This book does not cover methodology or process, nor does it provide a one-size-fits-all approach to building applications. A central thrust of this book is a handy introduction to the feature set, deployment, and customization approaches that are available for SharePoint. But we also get into the why of using SharePointmdwhat is the business need and does it get addressed? Because SharePoint supports a number of approaches and techniques, you'll want to get familiar with the choices (for example, "Do I go with a teamsite, a blog, or a wiki?") before making a decision on an approach that fits your specific needs. This book helps you do just that.
What You Will Learn From This Book
To implement a collaborative system effectively, you'll likely need to consider a number of key questions:
Do I need a portal or collaboration strategy? If so, how do I create one?
How do users perform the top activities that they'll need to do?
What do I need to consider when I upgrade from previous versions of SharePoint?
Where are documents stored currently? Where should documents live?
How do users collaborate today?
What kind of hardware do I need? How do I deploy the product properly?
How does the Web fit into my collaboration needs? What about Office and smart client applications? How about Groove, InfoPath, and Access?
Will I share information outside of my organization? Should I?
Who Should Read This Book
If you're a developer, you probably already own a SharePoint programming book or MOSS API guide (or are looking for one). This is not a book about SharePoint programming. However, developers will find this book useful when building solutions (in conjunction with an API guide) because there are important business considerations that are critically important to every MOSS-based solution.
If you're a project manager, consultant, or business analyst, you'll find that this book helps with all of the intangibles of a MOSS rollout. For example, "What roles should exist to support MOSS?" or "What should my offline/search/business data strategy be for MOSS?" This book also introduces you to some key technical concepts and provides simple walkthroughs of the key features that many businesses need to leverage.
How This Book Is Organized
This book is organized into four key sections:
The first section, chapters 1 and 2, helps you determine what kinds of business needs are addressed by portals, collaboration solutions, and knowledge management systems and how you should think about SharePoint-based solutions within your organization.
The second section, chapters 3 and 4, are a great introduction to the MOSS feature set and architecture.
The third section, chapters 5–7, helps you evaluate and plan your information architecture, upgrade strategy, and disaster discovery needs.
The forth section, chapters 8–13, provides great information on specific MOSS feature sets along with guidance, recommendations, and examples.
Appendix A provides a list of the top SharePoint user tasks, while Appedix B provides a summary of how SharePoint behaves with various operating system,browser, and Office versions.
Key Points
At each chapter's conclusion is a section called Key Points, which summarizes the key facts, best practices, and other items that were covered within the chapter.
Thank You
Thank you for reading this book. Our goal was to write the most concise yet useful business-centric guide to Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007. Enjoy!
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