Microsoft SharePoint 2003 Unleashed [Paperback]

Lynn Langfeld (Author), Colin Spence (Author), Mike Noel (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0672326167 | ISBN-13: 978-0672326165 | Publication Date: May 21, 2004 | Edition: 1

As businesses attempt to maximize every employee hour, knowledge management and collaboration tools have become more popular. SharePoint Portal Server 2003 offers businesses a secure enterprise portal solution for knowledge management, document sharing, and user collaboration. Built as a hub for the Office 2003 desktop, SharePoint makes it easy for users to get information, work together, and make smarter, faster business decisions. Because the adoption of the 2001 version of the server was slow, Microsoft built the need for SharePoint into the new Office 2003 applications. For instance, using FrontPage 2003 without SharePoint Portal Server 2003 allows only 60-70% of FrontPage functionality. The power of SPS 2003 allows users to create and manage robust, easy-to-build Web sites for collaboration on documents, projects and tasks, and allows these sites to be leveraged throughout the organization. Features such as document versioning, approval workflow, document profiling, and publishing help improve information flow. Microsoft SharePoint Portal Server 2003 Unleashed fills the void readers have been looking for in previous books on the topic with a complete reference written by experts with valuable experience with enterprise-level solution design and implementation.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Lynn Langfeld has been in the computer industry for more than 20 years with a background in application programming, business analysis, and end-user systems. Lynn is currently a senior business and technology consultant focusing on knowledge management, collaboration, and business processes.

Colin Spence has been in the computer industry for more than 14 years and is a senior business and technology consultant and project manager focusing on the design, preparation, and execution of business processes in enterprise projects and technology solutions, including numerous SharePoint technology implementations. He is a partner at Convergent Computing, an Oakland, California, consulting company, and has been a contributing author to Sams Publishing books on Exchange 2000, Windows Server 2003, and Exchange Server 2003.

Michael Noel, MCSE+I, MCSA Michael Noel has been in the computer industry for more than 10 years and has been working with the latest in SharePoint, Windows, and Exchange technologies since the early versions of the software. Michael is the coauthor of Windows Server 2003 Unleashed and Exchange Server 2003 Unleashed by Sams Publishing and has also been a contributing writer of books on Windows 2000, Exchange 2000, and Microsoft Operations Manager. Currently a Senior Consultant at Convergent Computing in the San Francisco Bay Area, Michael brings a wealth of hands-on knowledge and experience to his writing and public speaking engagements.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

Introduction

While organizations have been talking about knowledge management and team collaboration for years, Microsoft's SharePoint Portal Server 2003 and Windows SharePoint Services finally provided a feature rich, affordable and scalable solution to these needs. As we wrote in the introduction for the first edition of the book, "every organization can benefit from these technologies," and we have seen this proven as organizations from 5 users to 10,000 users adopt the technologies.

Another factor which has been driving the adoption of the SharePoint 2003 products is the tight integration between the SharePoint 2003 products and the Office 2003 family of products. Since most organizations have standardized on the Office applications, this integration allows users to quickly master the enhancements offered by SharePoint 2003 (such as the Shared Workspace task pane) and evolve to a more collaborative knowledge management environment.

While many other IT improvements and updates can't be seen or touched by the general user community, the SharePoint 2003 products will change (often dramatically) how users manage, access, and interact with their documents and data, and how they collaborate with others in the organization. It is therefore critical that the organization understand how these changes will impact the end users, and be able to define the benefits to end users. Without a clear vision from the decisions makers and managers in the organization, the end user community may be hostile to the changes and the work that will be involved on their parts to learn to effectively use the new tools and processes.

This book is designed to provide an overview of the vast feature set offered by the SharePoint 2003 products and to discuss strategies and processes for best levering these features. Time is devoted to walking through the discovery and design process to make sure that the goals for SharePoint 2003 are clearly defined, and to build a prototype testing environment as well as a production environment. The standard portal and site level features are covered for both the end user and administrators.

This book is not intended to be a developer's or programmer's guide except from the perspective of providing insight into the use of SharePoint technologies for satisfying business needs.

Colin and Michael have worked with SharePoint technologies in pre-beta and beta form prior to the product release and have worked with clients on implementing the products in test and production environments. The authors have been authors or contributing writers for several books over the past decade and are considered industry experts with SharePoint technologies.

Book Highlights

• Part I, "SharePoint 2003 Overview," provides an introduction to SharePoint 2003 technologies and highlights the differences between the current and previous version of SharePoint. In addition, a chapter is devoted to how organizations are leveraging the SharePoint 2003 features and capabilities.

• Part II, "Planning and Implementing a SharePoint 2003 Environment," guides the reader through the transforming of business goals and processes into a SharePoint 2003 ecosystem. Windows SharePoint Services and SharePoint Portal Server 2003 installation are covered, as is the configuration and tuning for optimized client access. The process of migrating from SharePoint 2001 is also covered.

• Part III, "Using SharePoint 2003 Technologies," explores the use of the Office 2003 product line with a SharePoint 2003 environment. Chapters are devoted to SharePoint libraries and lists.

• Part IV, "Managing a SharePoint 2003 Environment," covers SharePoint security, implementing ISA Server 2004 to enhance the security of the SharePoint environment. The processes required to administer and maintain the SharePoint 2003 environment including different strategies and processes for backing up data and sites are examined.

• Part V, "Extending the SharePoint 2003 Environment," provides insight into customizing the SharePoint environment, delves more deeply into the power and flexibility of Web Parts, and scaling SharePoint for larger implementations.

The focus of this book is for both IT professionals who need to plan, implement, and support a Windows SharePoint Services/SharePoint Portal Server 2003 infrastructure, as well as for non-IT personnel (such as business consultants, business managers, project managers, and knowledge workers) who want to enhance business communications and information flow processes using a collaboration/knowledge management tool.

© Copyright Pearson Education. All rights reserved.

--This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.

Product Details

• Paperback: 888 pages
• Publisher: Sams; 1 edition (May 21, 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0672326167
• ISBN-13: 978-0672326165
• Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 7.3 x 1.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 3.3 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 2.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (16 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,870,799 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

30 of 34 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Print out the Administration help file instead of buying, August 4, 2004

By 

Michael Cizmar (Chicago, IL USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Microsoft SharePoint 2003 Unleashed (Paperback)

This book is a long winded explanation of the features of SharePoint 2003. It provides redundent how tos with little explanation of how to do anything that is not vanilla out of the box. I suggest simply becoming familar with the Administrative Guide that Microsoft produced. You'll be you degree closer to the source and 33 dollars richer in the pocket.

20 of 22 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Not a development book, very uncomprehensive, June 7, 2004

By 

Joel Magoun (Bridgeville, PA United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Microsoft SharePoint 2003 Unleashed (Paperback)

It would be easy to mistake this book as a developer reference, having the book come from SAMS. This is not the case however. As a developer, i was extremley disappointed in the content this book contained. There are no code samples whatsoever, and no discussion of building custom web parts. Moreover, very important information has been completley omissed from the text. Things like customizing the look and feel of the portal by integration with frontpage 2003, and utilizing the complex nature of the single sign on service are not discussed for more than a paragraph, and these are very important points for anyone designing any sharepoint solution. This book can be described as a power user manual and implementation guide at best. If you're looking for a book with a lot of fluff, no examples on how to do things you are going to need to know how to do, some examples on things that are already self-explanatory, then this is a perfect book for you. Basically the information in this book is a poor rewrite of the SPS administrator manual that is on the cd. There is some helpful information in this book on certain topics, but it is not nearly as comprehensive as you would think it should be for its size.

16 of 17 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Not a developer book, July 20, 2004

By 

Erwin Raets (Herselt, Belgium) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Microsoft SharePoint 2003 Unleashed (Paperback)

I will have to put myself in the same corner as a few of my fellow reviewers, this is not a developer book, by far. It also has a lot of repetition in it. You can explain the different security groups twice, but 5 times seems like a little too much... The fact that web parts and customisations are not covered is like the biggest dissapointment to me, because that is what I am looking for in a book. How to use Sharepoint is something you can learn in the online help.