Microsoft SharePoint Portal Server

As the volume of intranet content grows, managers and users are increasingly looking for ways to manage the volume of information. Netscape and then added to the growth of Internet content in a manageable framework (called a portal), application vendors have created several packages that allow customers to add their content to corporate intranet portals.
This series of articles that discuss the portal product from Microsoft - SharePoint Portal Server. I hope to provide some value for Intranet Journal readers regarding the capabilities (and limitations) of SharePoint. Your comments are encouraged, and I will help cover the issues they find relevant.

Like most portal products, SharePoint allows visitors to create custom views of the website. This customization can be very simple or very complex depending on the type and product version is installed. In addition, SharePoint is a collaborative model powerful is tightly integrated with Office 2003 suite.
The current version of SharePoint is its third (despite its name). Like most Microsoft software (Windows, in particular), version 3 is gaining rapid adoption. A recent article in The Register indicates that SharePoint Portal Server is the Microsoft product's fastest growing, with 30 million licenses.

SharePoint Portal Server History

Simultaneously, Microsoft's Office group was working toward a collaboration solution. The need for plenty of people to contribute to a single document or worksheet was growing. &, these people were not necessarily working at the same location. The result was SharePoint Team Services (STS), a Web-based solution that allowed shared access to information & documents. STS also allowed end-users to make changes to the site by a Web browser instead of requiring a development-oriented application.

Microsoft's first portal application was called Digital Dashboard. This product introduced the concept of Web parts — boxes of information on a page that represented a summary or overview of information. (Other vendors referred to these items as "portlets.") By assembling multiple parts on a page, each user could customize his view of the portal to contain the information that pertained to them. In theory, every visitor of the site could have different content at the same URL. However, the technology behind the Digital Dashboard was not up to the task, & it never made it out of the beta stage.

The merging of the collaboration & aggregation functions lead to SharePoint Portal Server 2001. Portal Server has been upgraded to run on the .Net framework & is now referred to as SharePoint Products & Technologies. The "Product" is SharePoint Portal Server 2003 (SPS) & the "Technologies" are Windows SharePoint Services (WSS). A significant point about these six is that WSS is included with the Windows Server 2003 license. Any organization that is licensed for Windows Server 2003 can also host Websites that are based on WSS.

Features of SharePoint Portal Server

• Browser-based customization of page
• Browser-based content administration
• Aggregation capabilities
• Document Repository
• Message board
• Ad-hoc data storage
• E-mail notifications
• Announcements, event calendar and contact list.

Uses for SharePoint Portal Server

The Document Workspace template will permit a group to work on a document. The template combines a document repository with a task list and a links list. While using Word 2003, a user can have the document open and simultaneously view the task or links list. Changes made to the task list are immediately visible to site visitors. And the document library allows versioning, so edits are not lost.

In addition to being the default intranet portal, there's lots of additional uses for SharePoint. Microsoft has included pre-defined templates for Websites to facilitate meetings, manage projects and generate documents. Combined with the "self-service" site generating feature, teams can generate and use a Website with minimal assistance from the Information Technology department.

The Meeting Workspace template combines the agenda, attendee list and Outlook's calendar function. When sending a meeting request in Outlook 2003, a user can generate a workspace on the server. The URL of the workspace is automatically included in the message and the attendees are added to the site. The materials required for the meeting can be centrally located, which is preferable for attendees who travel frequently.

The browser-based customization feature, combined with the ability to generate ad-hoc lists allows an advanced user to generate a site for any purpose. A user group could host its meeting schedule, complete handouts. A youth sport organization can post its schedule and roster. An individual can host a blog. The possibilities are limitless.