Customer Reviews

Essential Sharepoint: Microsoft Office Document Collaboration in Action

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1 star:		(2)

 

 

Before I opened Jeff Webb's, Essential SharePoint, Microsoft's SharePoint Portal product made me feel like Atticus Finch defending the wrongly accused Tom Robinson in To Kill a Mockingbird - something that desperately needs to be done, but always hoping someone else would attempt the task. Implementing SharePoint was a rather painful process that resulted in two long shifts. After reading and using the Webb's book to help implement SharePoint I now know how useful this book was in making this rollout possible in *only* two shifts.

Having to implement technologies which are new to me is an everyday occurrence. The hardest part about doing so is finding a resource that will get you up and running quickly and without reading a thousand pages. Essential SharePoint is a fly weight at only 310 pages. My first impression was that this book must have left out some important topics to be so short, but that fear was unfounded. The short and precise explanation combined with a great index make this book the reference to have when time is short and understanding the product has to happen overnight. The mystery of document libraries and how to set up documents for approval, as well as make those approved-only documents filter through to other websites was explained in only 18 pages. Admittingly, other books spend multiple chapters devoted to the topic and are probably more thorough, but for the IT implementer who just wants the feature up and running I was able to scan the text and pick out keywords and get this feature going on the first attempt. Needless to say I was sold on the book after this chapter.

Even after our initial rollout, I'm finding this book useful. There are about 80 pages dedicated to the development of web parts. On the recommendation of the book I installed and configured VirtualPC and have started our development team on the path of developing in a virtual world. The two pages detailing this process have led to a revamped testing methodology which allows us to test SharePoint web parts in a production like environment without any additional hardware and then save that test environment for future review by auditors in the exact state in which the part was tested. After these paradigm shifting pages, web part productivity kicked in. Rather quickly we started talking about code and not just the easy stuff but some rather tricky items, such as extending existing web parts and explaining the interfaces that some of these parts implement.

The tone of the book mimics my development philosophy- get it done quick and without any fuss. Even though the book is short by peer comparisons, you get the idea that you can get what you need done without too much fluff. Needless bashing of competing products, play list comparisons and your last ski trip experience don't make my job any easier, Jeff Webb's book does.

This book is an applied guide to SharePoint for Microsoft Office. It gives great advice on how to design and use SharePoint sites. For instance, the author recommends broad site structures over deep ones because that approach makes search and views work better. Yes! He also explains what workspaces are for and how they are different from document libraries (it would be nice if Microsoft did that!).

This book also explains how to link local copies of documents to SharePoint so multiple authors can work on the same document even when they are away from the office, then reconcile their changes later. For me, that was a key topic.

Essential SharePoint gets more technical as it goes eventually explaining how to program web parts and how to use the SharePoint web services. It's a different approach from most SharePoint books I've read that either assume you are a dummy or an expert: this book explains the simple stuff without talking down to you, and progresses to really tough topics without being obscure.

Finally, Essential SharePoint includes a bibliography of online sources in a "Resources" section at the end of each chapter. Having those links organized by topic is a big help and an acknowledgement that no one book can cover everything.

Overall, it explains SharePoint clearly, throughly, and efficiently. I think "Essential" is the right title.

If you are looking for indepth explanation of how to exploit different features of Sharepoint then this book is not for you. This book is good if you want and can survive with a high level overview of sharepoint.

If you want to know of things like:
-Branding
-Details of ONet.XML
-How to use FrontPage to edit website.
-Best practices for developing Sharepoint based solutions.
you want a different book.

However this book does have its merits if you are starting with sharepoint and want to get up and running soon. It does have a lot of pointers as to where you can get more detailed information.

I would disagree with most reviews posted on this website which claim that this is a must have book for sharepoint. Use of your discretion is highly recommended.

This book has a really good introduction to SharePoint, then goes quite a bit further. It targets a wide audience: adminstrators, users at various levels, and programmers.

If you're just starting with SharePoint, buy this book. If you've used SharePoint for a while you might want still want this book in your library since it's got tips I haven't seen anywhere else -- and it's a great book to loan out to users (point them at the Outlook, Word, and Excel chapters).

This book focuses on WSS and gets you up and running quickly. There are extensive examples, all of which work as described. The info on integrating with Office (chapters 4, 5, and 6) are the best resources on the subject available in my opinion.

The web part chapters (8 and 9) take you further in 60 pages than the entire Rational Guide (which I returned). The built web part samples are available from the author's site, as is an "Ask Jeff" forum where you can get answers if you get stuck. More authors should do that!

I purchased the book to help with some web parts development. The part on deploying web parts is just patently incorrect. Even following the author's instructions step by step, I still had problem deploying my web part. The worst part of it is that the book's content simply doesn't match up with what happens in Sharepoint. Perhaps the books was written with an earlier, different version of Sharepoint but it doesn't match up with Microsoft Windows Sharepoint Services 2003. In fact, compared to other sources, the instructions given appear to be missing a step or two.

I am a web developer and bought this book to learn about SharePoint, which seems to be gaining in popularity.
The book was perfect for me. The first half or so of the book explains what SharePoint can be used for and then takes you through quite a few exercises actually using the tool.
The second half covers a lot of ground focusing on developing web parts and how to program access to SharePoint from various Office applications like Word and Excel and also .Net.
The text is easy to follow (and not verbose), works very well with the numerous illustrations and everything is explained clearly and straight to the point.
If you are a web developer, this book is for you.

The enabling of collaborative work is the next value added step, beyond being able to provide individual applications like a spreadsheet or text editor. As the open source effort of openoffice.org has risen to challenge Microsoft's Office suite, one response has been to move the bar. By adding SharePoint functionality for work groups.

And of all the parts of SharePoint described in the book, perhaps the most important is version control. To be sure, there is significant subordinate functionality. Like interacting with Outlook so that users can see each others' address books and calendars, for scheduling. Useful of course. But if you want to get the most out of the book, focus on understanding how it handles version control. If you do this, it can simplify wading through the low level details, because it gives you an orientation.

Computer programmers should not be tempted to use SharePoint to version their code. Webb warns that SharePoint is not really optimised for the special needs of source code. Though he suggests that Microsoft may be preparing a variant for its Visual Studio.

Why isn't there a book for SharePoint web admins??? This book was completely useless.

I've never returned a book to Amazon before, but I did return this one. I got more out of 10 minutes just using SharePoint than I did going through this book.

Several of the examples didn't even work - don't waste your time.