Frequently Asked Questions

Category: SharePoint Basics (Click + or - to Expand or Shrink)

Q: What is Windows SharePoint Services?

A: Windows SharePoint Services is a versatile technology that enables organizations and business units of all sizes to increase the efficiency of business processes and improve team productivity. With tools for collaboration that help people stay connected across organizational and geographic boundaries, Windows SharePoint Services gives people access to documents and information they need. With a familiar, Web-based interface and close integration with everyday tools including the Microsoft Office system of productivity programs, Windows SharePoint Services is easy to use and can be deployed rapidly. Users can create workspaces and then publish, store, share, and keep track of information, workflow, and documents.

Built on Microsoft Windows Server 2003, Windows SharePoint Services also gives organizations a cost-effective foundation platform for building Web-based business applications that can scale easily to meet the changing and growing needs of your business. Robust administrative controls for managing storage and Web infrastructure give IT departments a cost-effective way to implement and manage a high-performance collaboration environment.

Q: Who Should Consider using Windows SharePoint Services?

A: Windows SharePoint Services is a technology that enables people to collaborate in browser-based workspaces while providing a manageable infrastructure and extensible application platform for improving the efficiency of business processes. A variety of audiences benefit from the enhanced collaboration and productivity provided by Windows SharePoint Services:

Organizations, business units, and teams seeking increased productivity and access to the people, documents, and information they need.

Organizations of any size that want to start tactical implementation of collaboration tools, standardize existing infrastructure, or invest in strategic use of collaboration systems that integrate well with existing line-of-business applications.

IT departments seeking better control over and security of company data, while adding value and efficiency to lines of business.

Developers creating rich and scalable Web-based applications.

Q: Why should I consider using Windows SharePoint Services for my organization?

A: Windows SharePoint Services offers you benefits in four primary areas:

Efficient collaboration: Help your employees and teams to stay connected and productive by providing access to the people, documents, and information they need.

Rapid deployment, ease of use: Deploy collaboration applications quickly that are easy to use through integration with familiar productivity tools such as the Microsoft Office system.

Manageable infrastructure: Manage the security of your organization’s information resources by deploying a scalable storage infrastructure with powerful administration services and controls.

Robust foundation platform for Web-based applications: Increase business process efficiency by creating Web applications and workflow scenarios on a cost-effective, extensible platform.

Category: MS Office Integration (Click + or - to Expand or Shrink)

Q: How does Windows SharePoint Services integrate with the Microsoft Office System?

A: Through a set of Web services and documented application interfaces, Windows SharePoint Services can be easily integrated with smart client tools. Users easily adopt these new tools because of their similarity to other familiar environments, such as the Microsoft Office system. For example, Microsoft Office Word, Microsoft Office Excel, Microsoft Office PowerPoint, Microsoft Office InfoPath, Microsoft Office Project, and Microsoft Office OneNote can use information in SharePoint sites natively. Users can create workspaces, post and edit documents, and assign tasks, all while working on documents stored in SharePoint sites. With Microsoft Office Outlook 2007, users can view calendars and contact lists stored on SharePoint sites and can create and manage sites for editing documents and organizing meetings.

Category: Benefits (Click + or - to Expand or Shrink)

Top Ten Benefits of Windows Sharepoint Services

1. Improve team productivity with easy-to-use collaborative tools

Connect people with the information and resources they need. Users can create team workspaces, coordinate calendars, organize documents, and receive important notifications and updates through communication features including announcements and alerts, as well as the new templates for creating blogs and wikis. While mobile, users can take advantage of convenient offline synchronization capabilities.

2. Easily manage documents and help ensure integrity of content

With enhanced document management capabilities including the option to activate required document checkout before editing, the ability to view revisions to documents and restore to previous versions, and the control to set document- and item-level security, Windows SharePoint Services can help ensure the integrity of documents stored on team sites.

3. Get users up to speed quickly

User interface improvements in Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 include enhanced views and menus that simplify navigation within and among SharePoint sites. Integration with familiar productivity tools, including programs in the Microsoft Office system, makes it easy for users to get up to speed quickly. For example, users can create workspaces, post and edit documents, and view and update calendars on SharePoint sites, all while working within Microsoft Office system files and programs.

4. Deploy solutions tailored to your business processes

While standard workspaces in Windows SharePoint Services are easy to implement, organizations seeking a more customized deployment can get started quickly with application templates for addressing specific business processes or sets of tasks.

5. Build a collaboration environment quickly and easily

Easy to manage and easy to scale, Windows SharePoint Services enables IT departments to deploy a collaborative environment with minimal administrative time and effort, from simple, single-server configurations to more robust enterprise configurations. Because deployment settings can be flexibly changed, less pre-planning time is required and companies can get started even faster.

6. Reduce the complexity of securing business information

Windows SharePoint Services provides IT with advanced administrative controls for increasing the security of information resources, while decreasing cost and complexity associated with site provisioning, site management, and support. Take advantage of better controls for site life-cycle management, site memberships and permissions, and storage limits.

7. Provide sophisticated controls for securing company resources

IT departments can now set permissions as deep down as the document or item level, and site managers, teams, and other work groups can initiate self-service collaborative workspaces and tasks within these preset parameters. New features enable IT to set top-down policies for better content recovery and users, groups, and team workspace site administration.

8. Take file sharing to a new level with robust storage capabilities

Windows SharePoint Services supplies workspaces with document storage and retrieval features, including check-in/check-out functionality, version history, custom metadata, and customizable views. New features in Windows SharePoint Services include enhanced recycle bin functionality for easier recovery of content and improved backup and restoration.

9. Easily scale your collaboration solution to meet business needs

Quickly and easily manage and configure Windows SharePoint Services using a Web browser or command-line utilities. Manage server farms, servers, and sites using the Microsoft .NET Framework, which enables a variety of custom and third-party administration solution offerings.

10. Provide a cost-effective foundation for building Web-based applications

Windows SharePoint Services exposes a common framework for document management and collaboration from which flexible and scalable Web applications and Internet sites, specific to the needs of the organization, can be built. Integration with Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 expands these capabilities further to offer enterprise-wide functionality for records management, search, workflows, portals, personalized sites, and more.