User manual | SharePoint 2003 User's Guide

SharePoint 2003
User’s Guide
SETH BATES AND TONY SMITH
SharePoint 2003 User’s Guide
Copyright © 2005 by Seth Bates and Tony Smith
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ISBN (pbk): 1-59059-514-9
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Lead Editor: Jim Sumser
Technical Reviewers: Martin Reid, Cherry Tun-Smith
Editorial Board: Steve Anglin, Dan Appleman, Ewan Buckingham, Gary Cornell, Tony Davis,
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Contents at a Glance
Foreword . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xi
About the Authors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xv
About the Technical Reviewers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xvii
Acknowledgments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xix
Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xxi
■CHAPTER 1 Introduction to SharePoint Technologies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
■CHAPTER 2 Using the Portal . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
■CHAPTER 3 Using Windows SharePoint Services Sites . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45
■CHAPTER 4 Custom Lists and Data . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 91
■CHAPTER 5 Template Lists . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 129
■CHAPTER 6 Libraries . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 163
■CHAPTER 7 Pages, Web Parts, and Alerts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 211
■CHAPTER 8 SharePoint Document Collaboration Solutions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 243
■CHAPTER 9 SharePoint Project Collaboration Solutions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 269
■CHAPTER 10 SharePoint Meeting Management Solutions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 287
■CHAPTER 11 SharePoint Information Center Solutions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 307
■INDEX . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 327
iii
Contents
Foreword . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xi
About the Authors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xv
About the Technical Reviewers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xvii
Acknowledgments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xix
Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xxi
■CHAPTER 1
Introduction to SharePoint Technologies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
What Is Microsoft SharePoint? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2
Why Is It Valuable? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2
What Are the Building Blocks? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
■CHAPTER 2
Using the Portal . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
Portal Areas . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
Navigating Through Areas . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
Portal Site Groups . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
Managing Areas . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
Portal Listings. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17
Adding Listings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18
Adding a Person Listing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20
Editing Listings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21
Editing a Person Listing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23
Deleting Listings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24
Managing Grouping and Ordering of Listings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24
Special Areas . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27
Home Area. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27
Topics Area . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28
News Area . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29
Sites Area . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33
Portal Search . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 38
Performing a Simple Search . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 38
Performing an Advanced Search . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 38
Working with Search Results . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 40
My Site . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41
Private View . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 42
Public View . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 44
v
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■CONTENTS
■CHAPTER 3
Using Windows SharePoint Services Sites . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45
Sites . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 46
Site Layouts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 48
Navigating Through WSS Sites . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 60
Creating Sites . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 63
Managing Site Security . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 69
Changing General Site Details . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 78
Site Templates . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 80
Creating Site Templates . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 80
Editing Site Templates . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 82
Deleting Site Templates . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 82
WSS Site Search . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 83
Site Statistics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 83
Site Usage Statistics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 84
Site Collection Usage Statistics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 86
Site Hierarchy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 87
Storage Space Allocation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 88
■CHAPTER 4
Custom Lists and Data. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 91
Creating Custom Lists . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 91
Working with Custom Lists . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 92
Adding, Editing, and Deleting Items . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 92
Filtering and Sorting the List . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 94
Using Views . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 96
Faster Data Manipulation Using the Datasheet . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 96
Managing Custom Lists . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 97
Settings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 98
Content Approval . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 98
Security . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 100
Managing Columns . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 102
Managing Views . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 113
Creating a List Template . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 119
Deleting the List . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 120
Adding a Listing to the Portal . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 121
Differences Between Portal Lists and Site Lists . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 122
Advanced Office 2003 Integration . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 123
Exporting SharePoint Lists to Excel . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 123
Creating Custom Lists Using Excel . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 125
Advanced Datasheet Features . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 127
■CONTENTS
■CHAPTER 5
Template Lists . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 129
Standard Lists . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 129
Links. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 130
Announcements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 131
Contacts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 132
Events . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 136
Tasks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 143
Issues . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 145
Meeting Workspace Lists . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 148
Agenda. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 149
Decisions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 150
Objectives . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 151
Text Box . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 151
Things to Bring . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 152
Attendees . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 153
Special Lists . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 155
Discussion Boards . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 155
Surveys . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 157
Advanced Office 2003 Integration . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 159
Exporting SharePoint Lists to Excel . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 160
Advanced Datasheet Features . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 161
■CHAPTER 6
Libraries . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 163
Document Library . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 163
Creating Document Libraries . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 164
Working with Document Libraries . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 165
Managing Document Libraries . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 175
Form Library . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 182
Creating Form Libraries . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 182
Working with Form Libraries . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 183
Managing Form Libraries . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 186
Picture Library . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 189
Creating Picture Libraries . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 189
Working with Picture Libraries. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 190
Managing Picture Libraries . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 200
Advanced Office 2003 Integration . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 202
Open and Save As Integration . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 202
Shared Workspace Task Pane . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 204
Creating Form Libraries Through InfoPath Form Publishing . . . . . . 207
Exporting Library Metadata to Excel . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 208
Advanced Datasheet Features . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 209
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■CONTENTS
■CHAPTER 7
Pages, Web Parts, and Alerts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 211
Pages . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 211
Basic Pages . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 212
Web Part Pages . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 214
Web Parts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 218
Adding Web Parts to Pages . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 219
Managing the Web Part Page. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 220
Exporting and Importing Web Parts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 225
Standard Galleries and Web Parts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 227
Further Customization . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 230
Alerts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 232
Alerts in the Portal . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 232
Alerts in Sites . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 237
■CHAPTER 8
SharePoint Document Collaboration Solutions
. . . . . . . . . . 243
Document Collaboration Overview . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 243
Collaboration Teams . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 244
Collaboration Resources . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 244
Challenges of Document Collaboration . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 245
Needs for Document Collaboration. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 246
SharePoint Document Collaboration Solutions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 247
RFP Response Requirements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 248
SharePoint Solution Components . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 248
RFP Response Process Definition . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 249
SharePoint Environment Layout . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 250
RFP Response Process Walk-Through . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 260
Benefits of SharePoint Document Collaboration Solutions . . . . . . . . . . . . 266
Tips for Creating Effective Document Collaboration Solutions . . . . . . . . 267
■CHAPTER 9
SharePoint Project Collaboration Solutions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 269
Project Collaboration Overview . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 269
Challenges of Project Collaboration . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 270
Needs for Project Collaboration. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 271
SharePoint Project Collaboration Solutions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 272
Service Plan Project Requirements. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 272
Service Plan Project Process Definition . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 273
SharePoint Environment Layout . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 274
Service Plan Project Process Walk-Through . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 280
Benefits of SharePoint Project Collaboration Solutions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 284
Tips for Creating Effective Project Collaboration Solutions . . . . . . . . . . . 286
■CONTENTS
■CHAPTER 10 SharePoint Meeting Management Solutions . . . . . . . . . . . . . 287
Meeting Management Overview . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 287
Challenges of Meeting Management . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 288
Needs for Meeting Management . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 290
SharePoint Meeting Management Solutions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 290
Quarterly Business Review Meeting Requirements . . . . . . . . . . . . . 291
Quarterly Business Review Meeting Process Definition . . . . . . . . . 291
SharePoint Environment Layout . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 292
Quarterly Business Review Meeting Walk-Through . . . . . . . . . . . . . 299
Benefits of SharePoint Meeting Management Solutions. . . . . . . . . . . . . . 305
Tips for Creating Effective Meeting Management Solutions . . . . . . . . . . 305
■CHAPTER 11 SharePoint Information Center Solutions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 307
Information Center Overview . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 307
Challenges of Information Centers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 308
Needs for Information Centers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 309
SharePoint Information Center Solutions. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 310
HR Information Center Requirements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 310
HR Information Center Environment Layout . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 310
HR Information Center Walk-Through. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 323
Benefits of SharePoint Information Centers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 325
Tips for Creating Information Centers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 325
■INDEX . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 327
ix
Foreword
A
t DataLan Corporation, we spend a significant amount of time discussing a select group
of people that we refer to as Professional Information Workers. We define this group as people
who spend most of their working day creating documents and sending e-mail. Personally,
I use a simple litmus test to identify Professional Information Workers; if you start your day
checking mail in Microsoft Outlook, then you are probably a Professional Information Worker.
I certainly fall squarely into this category.
As Professional Information Workers, we are unique because we deal with data in many
different forms such as documents, e-mails, transactional information, schedules, contacts,
and task lists. We are often expected to retrieve information from these various sources and
synthesize it together so that decisions can be made in a business process. What’s more, this
usually involves coordinating the efforts of other Professional Information Workers. The challenges of coordinating information, people, and processes within an organization are
significant and frustrating.
In the vast majority of organizations, information is stored and retrieved by type as
opposed to business context. In other words, documents are stored on a file server simply
because they are in document form. Similarly, e-mail is stored on Exchange regardless of the
business information the messages contain. The same is true for transactional information,
which is all stored in databases. The situation resulting from this seemingly logical decision
to store information by type is chaos for the Professional Information Worker.
Imagine for a moment that you are a Professional Information Worker asked to assemble
all available information pertaining to your top ten customers. How many different data
stores would you have to visit in order to complete a profile for these customers? You might
start by searching the file system for all known documents concerning these important customers. Then, you might search your e-mail inbox for related messages. You’d also ask other
people to search their inboxes for messages and forward them to you. While everyone is
searching for messages, you might ask them to make a list of pertinent contacts they have in
Microsoft Outlook and forward them to you as well. Finally, you might request the IT department run a series of reports to assemble financial information about the customers. Profiling
your top ten customers turns out to be a significant project that can take days or weeks to
complete.
Now imagine that you are a Professional Information Worker responsible for publishing
the quarterly financial report internally to executive management. This report is a Microsoft
Word document that pulls together information from several different lines of business and
includes analysis by key sales and operations managers. Clearly, you have many of the same
information issues as I discussed previously, but you now have the additional burden of coordinating several contributors to the same document. In most organizations, this coordination
is accomplished by sending countless e-mails with attachments as you attempt to get content
reviewed and approved. In all likelihood, you will also need several meetings to coordinate
efforts and manage the process. Once again, this turns out to be a significant project that will
require days or weeks to complete.
xi
xii
■FOREWORD
The scenarios I describe are significant because they reveal a wide gap between the needs
of Professional Information Workers and the information systems that support them. Consequently, most Professional Information Workers spend the bulk of their day compensating for
the weaknesses of these systems. In fact, many Professional Information Workers have simply
become part of the overall information system and spend their entire day augmenting, organizing, and managing information. This strikes me as an incredibly poor use of highly talented
people.
How did we arrive at this place where people are spending their day bridging data stores
together through spreadsheets and e-mail? Well, I suppose it was inevitable. After all, software
vendors—including Microsoft—have historically been more concerned with selling discreet
applications as opposed to creating an environment that supports Professional Information
Workers. All of these discreet applications have found their way onto our desktops, laptops,
and servers to create the current mess. This is where SharePoint technology comes into the
picture.
SharePoint invites Professional Information Workers to organize and retrieve information
differently. Instead of storing data by type, SharePoint provides an infrastructure that allows
information to be stored by business context. This means that you can have a single destination, which contains all relevant information for a business topic. Instead of assembling a
customer profile manually, for example, you could navigate to a single SharePoint site dedicated to providing a complete customer profile. Similarly, you can have a single SharePoint
site dedicated to the creation of a document like the quarterly report in my scenario. While
not without some flaws, SharePoint does have the power to transform the way Professional
Information Workers access and use information.
While I believe that SharePoint can have significant positive benefits for an organization,
it is impossible to overstate the level of change required to bring it to fruition. I have witnessed
many organizations install a SharePoint “pilot” project only to see it fail because the end users
did not understand how to use the system or embrace the required changes. Ultimately, the
success of any SharePoint implementation is in the hands of the Professional Information
Workers who use it. Users like you must commit to mastering the SharePoint system, and
the SharePoint 2003 User’s Guide has been written to help you accomplish that goal.
Seth Bates and Tony Smith have been working with Professional Information Workers
and helping them embrace SharePoint solutions since the product was released. They are in
a unique position to understand the difficulties faced by individuals and organizations when
transitioning from a traditional work environment to a SharePoint solution. They have used
this knowledge to construct a logical learning path for Professional Information Workers and
encapsulate it in a book.
Because a SharePoint solution is a dynamic system driven by the needs of its users, Professional Information Workers must become familiar with the basic building blocks of the
system. Seth and Tony have provided this information in the first part of the book, which is
essential reading for everyone. The second part of the book focuses on specific business scenarios where SharePoint can be helpful. These scenarios are excellent starting points and will
undoubtedly help you visualize new ways to use SharePoint technology. I’d recommend that
you review all of the scenarios even if they do not apply directly to your daily work.
In all my years of architecting and building solutions, I have found that projects rarely
fail because of the underlying technology. The primary threat to any business solution is that
the end users will not accept the system and refuse to change their work habits. This is why
the SharePoint 2003 User’s Guide is so important to the industry. SharePoint is one of the
■FOREWORD
fastest-growing products in Microsoft history and promises to be as widespread as Microsoft
Office itself. Without a strong effort to educate Professional Information Workers, many of
these systems will not be successful. I wish you all the best in leading the transformation
of your organization.
Scot Hillier
Author of Microsoft SharePoint: Building Office 2003
Solutions and Advanced SharePoint Services Solutions
xiii
About the Authors
■SETH BATES is a software architect and practice manager for DataLan
Corporation, the 2004 NY/NJ Microsoft Platform Partner of the Year
located in White Plains, New York. Seth performed the technical editing
for Microsoft SharePoint: Building Office 2003 Solutions and Advanced
SharePoint Services Solutions. He has also been published in Dr. Dobb’s
Journal (his article, titled “SharePoint Web Part Development,” appears
in the April 2005 edition). Seth has over 7 years of experience engineering
business solutions, primarily using Microsoft technologies. With experience in all phases of
the software engineering life cycle, he brings a broad mix of analysis, design, and implementation expertise to his work.
■TONY SMITH is a product manager for DataLan Corporation, the 2004
NY/NJ Microsoft Platform Partner of the Year located in White Plains,
New York. With a background that includes business analysis, network
engineering, and application development, Tony has over 10 years of
experience engineering business solutions, and regularly presents to engineers, analysts, and business decision makers. Tony has been working
with a wide range of organizations, including Fortune 500 and Fortune 50
companies, to design and deploy Microsoft SharePoint 2003 and Office System solutions since
these products were made available. You can find additional information about Tony and
topics discussed in this book at http://www.sharepointextras.com.
xv
About the Technical Reviewers
■MARTIN REID is an analyst at Queen’s University Belfast. He has coauthored two books,
SQL: Access to SQL Server, published by Apress, and Beginning Access 2002 VBA, published
by Wrox, and has been a technical editor for many others. Martin has written several articles
including some published by Microsoft on MSDN. Martin’s primary interest is in database
technology, .NET, and SharePoint Services to provide easy access to individual and corporate
data to end users. He is married to Patricia, and together they have six children (Aine, Liam,
Maeve, Emer, Roisin, and Eoin).
■CHERRY TUN-SMITH is a project manager for DataLan Corporation, a consulting company based
in White Plains, NY. Cherry has over 7 years of experience in managing commercial software
development projects for organizations ranging from nonprofits to Fortune 100 firms. Implementing portal solutions and custom enterprise applications over the years has given her
valuable insight into creating successful solutions for team collaboration and information
sharing. During leisure time, Cherry enjoys spending time with her family and friends, scuba
diving, snowboarding, and exploring new cultures.
xvii
Acknowledgments
O
ur experience writing this book has been a very positive one. The people at Apress have
been great to work with, and we would like to specifically thank several of them. We would
like to thank Jim Sumser for managing the partnership between authors and publisher, being
the initial sounding board for our ideas, and handling any questions we had along the way.
We would also like to thank Beth Christmas, the project manager, for coordinating the many
efforts that went into creating this book on an increasingly tight schedule. Also, thanks to Ami
Knox for copy editing and Katie Stence for production editing. Both of them were instrumental in the quality of this book. We are also appreciative to everyone else at Apress whom we
were not fortunate enough to work with directly.
Along with the coordination and help provided by Apress, we would also like to thank the
technical editors, Cherry Tun-Smith and Martin Reid, who did a great job reviewing this book.
Their constant vigilance and content ideas helped to ensure that this book would be accurate
and beneficial for the readers. We also would like to thank our colleagues at DataLan who
work to successfully market, sell, and deliver Information Worker Solutions. Our real-world
experiences there have contributed to our ability to organize and create this book.
I would like to thank Tony. It seems like an eternity has passed since we first began having
grand ideas about publishing a SharePoint book, and finally we have succeeded.
Lastly, I would like to convey my love and appreciation for my wife Jennifer and son Dylan.
You have provided support and guidance when I needed it, and I am now looking forward to
being able to spend more time with you both.
— Seth Bates
I would like to thank Seth. Working with you on this book has been a positive and enjoyable
experience.
Finally, I would like to thank my wife Lynn. I could not have done this without your love
and support. You have encouraged and supported me through this entire process.
— Tony Smith
xix
Introduction
S
harePoint 2003 is quickly becoming more prevalent in the workplace, and all types of business professionals are becoming involved in using and managing SharePoint-based resources.
We have seen many situations where, after SharePoint is introduced, individuals struggle to
leverage these resources without a good enough understanding of the capabilities to gain the
most value possible. SharePoint 2003 User’s Guide was an outcome of this need, and our book
can serve as a reference for people working within a SharePoint environment.
The goal of this book is to deliver a tool to all levels of SharePoint users. Beginners will be
supplied with the information they need to most effectively use SharePoint’s capabilities. Intermediate users will be given the information they need to manage their SharePoint resources.
Advanced users will be provided the foundation needed for building business solutions using
SharePoint’s capabilities. We have spent a great deal of effort putting our experiences working
with a variety of organizations and knowledge of the product into an easily understood format for
learning about SharePoint 2003, which we hope will enable you to gain the in-depth knowledge
you need to effectively use and manage these tools.
Further reading about the topics provided in this book can be found at http://
www.sharepointextras.com where we provide additional information about SharePoint
including references to other resources.
Who This Book Is For
The goal of this book is to provide the knowledge necessary for people to effectively use
SharePoint. Whether you have not yet used SharePoint, just started using the basic features,
or have been using it for a long of time, this book provides the skills you need to work efficiently with the capabilities SharePoint gives you.
If you want to learn about these capabilities in a detailed yet understandable approach,
this book is for you. Being a user guide, this book does not require you to have any programming knowledge. It does assume you have a basic understanding of navigating web sites.
Some of the more advanced topics require prior working knowledge of Microsoft Office
products like Word and Excel.
How This Book Is Organized
The chapters in this book are organized into two groups. Chapters 1 to 7 provide the fundamental knowledge of SharePoint that users need in order to successfully utilize the capabilities
supplied by the technology. This group can be used as a reference guide, allowing you to easily
look up specific SharePoint topics, and includes step-by-step instructions, figures, tables, and
examples. The capabilities described in these chapters are important and act as the building
blocks for the second group of chapters.
xxi
xxii
■INTRODUCTION
The second group consists of Chapters 8 to 11. These four chapters present business
solutions commonly deployed through SharePoint. Each of these chapters contains an example scenario that will help you understand the challenges faced along with the benefits that
SharePoint provides to the situation. The scenarios also include the necessary steps for creating these solutions within a SharePoint environment.
Chapter 1: Introduction to SharePoint Technologies
This chapter introduces you to the world of Microsoft SharePoint. It contains an explanation
of the technology, its uses, and related terminology.
Chapter 2: Using the Portal
This chapter provides an understanding of portals and areas making up Microsoft SharePoint
Portal Server 2003. We cover security, content, structure, personalization, and search capabilities using detailed examples.
Chapter 3: Using Windows SharePoint Services Sites
This chapter focuses on the use of sites and workspaces created from Windows SharePoint
Services. It contains the details you need to understand how to customize and use sites
including the available templates, security features, and usage analysis.
Chapter 4: Custom Lists and Data
This chapter provides the knowledge needed to work with lists within SharePoint. We describe
the use and management of custom lists in detail. You also learn about the advanced integration with Office that SharePoint’s custom lists provide.
Chapter 5: Template Lists
This chapter contains a detailed look at the lists that are provided by SharePoint for you to use
as templates when creating your own lists. We discuss the use and management of each list in
detail along with any advanced integration with Office that they provide.
Chapter 6: Libraries
This chapter teaches the use and management of libraries within SharePoint. Used to manage
a variety of files from Office documents to images, these SharePoint libraries encompass
many collaborative features, which we cover in this chapter. Advanced integration between
these libraries and Office products, which can enhance your experience with SharePoint, is
also covered.
■INTRODUCTION
Chapter 7: Pages, Web Parts, and Alerts
Pages and web parts allow for the customization of portals and sites. This chapter uses
detailed steps to show you how to customize SharePoint using the various types of pages and
the functional components known as web parts. Additionally, we discuss the concept of alerts,
which give you a powerful way to notify SharePoint users of changes to information within
SharePoint.
Chapter 8: SharePoint Document Collaboration Solutions
One of the most common ways SharePoint is used is to create document collaboration solutions.
This chapter describes the challenges SharePoint document collaboration solutions can address,
the benefits you can receive by creating these solutions, and tips to be mindful of when creating
these solutions. We construct a sample document collaboration solution and describe how the
solution would be used.
Chapter 9: SharePoint Project Collaboration Solutions
Project collaboration is another common use for SharePoint. In this chapter, we describe how
to create project collaboration solutions through SharePoint. We construct a sample solution
and describe the benefits that can be received by creating these solutions.
Chapter 10: SharePoint Meeting Management Solutions
SharePoint provides strong meeting management capabilities. We discuss meeting management and how a SharePoint environment can be configured to support meeting management
processes. We also build a sample meeting management solution and describe the benefits
that can be received by creating these solutions.
Chapter 11: SharePoint Information Center Solutions
SharePoint is commonly used to create intranet or extranet solutions. We refer to these solutions
as information centers. We describe the value of creating SharePoint-based information centers
and discuss the capabilities to include and create a sample information center solution.
xxiii
CHAPTER
1
■■■
Introduction to
SharePoint Technologies
M
icrosoft SharePoint technologies are the foundation of the Microsoft Office System. The
Office System is a new term Microsoft has coined to describe a collection of applications,
servers, and services that work together to improve user and team productivity. These products are tightly integrated and can be combined to address a wide range of business needs.
The Office System contains Office 2003 (including new applications like InfoPath and
OneNote), Windows SharePoint Services, SharePoint Portal Server 2003, Project Server, and
Live Communications Server. The goals behind the Office System are to
• Provide business users better access to information. This includes not only making
more information available, but also providing capabilities to locate the information
most relevant to a business user’s needs.
• Enable groups of individuals within a company and between different companies to
work together effectively and more easily share information.
• Improve individual and team productivity by making it easier to create information and
provide this information to the appropriate people, allowing them to make informed
business decisions.
The Office System products and services are brought together to create Information
Worker solutions. An information worker is anyone who contributes knowledge to a business
process or uses that knowledge to make decisions. This includes anyone who enters data into
systems, discusses that information with others, or takes action based on the information.
Information Worker solutions are business solutions, which include applications and
processes, that allow information workers to improve their productivity, enhance collaboration with others, make information available to others, and reduce the time it takes to make
accurate, informed business decisions.
Microsoft SharePoint technologies are an integral part of the Office System framework.
SharePoint is the next generation of Microsoft’s information management and collaboration
platform and provides the foundation on which Information Worker solutions are built.
1
2
CHAPTER 1 ■ INTRODUCTION TO SHAREPOINT TECHNOLOGIES
What Is Microsoft SharePoint?
Microsoft SharePoint is made up of two main products, Windows SharePoint Services and
SharePoint Portal Server 2003. Windows SharePoint Services (WSS) is an add-on service for
Windows Server 2003. Through WSS Microsoft provides the platform and services necessary to
build information sharing and collaboration solutions. WSS is an individual and team productivity platform and a key component in the development of Information Worker solutions.
WSS provides web-based team collaboration services needed to enable information workers
to effectively create, manage, and share documents and other information. In addition to the
creation of collaborative web sites, WSS can be used as the foundation for the development of
business applications and to provide the information management capabilities needed by
these applications.
Microsoft SharePoint Portal Server 2003 (SPS) is a set of technologies designed to unify
systems and information from different sources into enterprise solutions to effectively bring
together people, information, and processes. SPS includes navigational capabilities that help
guide business users through enterprise resources including WSS sites, documents, applications, processes, and data. SPS contains powerful searching and indexing capabilities, which
allow for relevant, high-quality information to be easily located and accessed regardless of
where this information is located in the enterprise and in what system this information
resides. Targeting particular information to groups of users and allowing users to create their
own customized spaces within the portal are also features of SharePoint Portal Server. SPS
expands on the development capabilities of WSS, allowing application developers to use
virtually all of the capabilities of SPS and WSS within their custom applications.
Why Is It Valuable?
Together Windows SharePoint Services and SharePoint Portal Server provide the next step in
the evolution of the Microsoft information management and collaboration platform. They
provide an application solutions foundation, a document management and collaboration
platform, and the building blocks necessary to create Information Worker solutions. Through
the use of these products intelligent portal-based solutions can be created to connect teams
of business users with the applications, processes, and information they need to perform
their jobs.
In the current work environment individuals often find it difficult to identify and locate
information they need in a timely manner. When they do find needed information, it is often
outdated and no longer relevant. As multiple workers collaborate on content, multiple versions are created, and confusion occurs when workers become unaware which version is
current. Also, when more than one worker is responsible for editing information, there is a
high risk of this information being lost in the transition. These different versions of the information get copied to numerous locations and are often e-mailed to large groups of people
unnecessarily, wasting disk space and resulting in confusion about which version is the latest
copy. Conversely, managers and other workers needing these materials are not notified that
the information is available or when the information is updated after it has been distributed.
All of these issues result in time being lost to searching for information and verifying the accuracy of the information.
CHAPTER 1 ■ INTRODUCTION TO SHAREPOINT TECHNOLOGIES
In the first part of this book, Chapters 2 through 7, we will discuss the components that
make up a SharePoint environment and give you the information you need to effectively work
with these components. Then in the second part of this book, Chapters 8 through 11, we will
discuss some of the most common situations in which SharePoint solutions are used to solve a
variety of business challenges. The solutions that we will focus our discussions around include
the following:
• Document collaboration: Often the goal of a group of information workers is to create
materials based on enterprise information. Often these individuals are geographically
dispersed, with each individual needing the same level of access to the materials being
created and the enterprise information the materials are based on. The group must
know where the most recent copies of documents are located and be able to gain the
appropriate level of access to these items. In addition, the ability to effectively communicate between team members is crucial to the efficiency of the collaboration process.
The management of responsibilities and deadlines around the creation of the materials
is also important to the document collaboration process.
• Project collaboration: When teams of people are brought together to work on a project,
how well the project is managed will significantly impact its success. All aspects of the
project, including the process, communications, deliverables, timelines, and tasks,
need to be properly managed to ensure the success of the project. All interested parties,
including team members, stakeholders, and managers, need visibility into the progress
of the project and all associated resources. These individuals need to be kept aware of
project status, timelines, issues, and any other pertinent information.
• Meeting management: Individuals spend a significant amount of time preparing for and
participating in meetings. Organizations often try to find ways to reduce the quantity and
duration of meetings in order to reduce the impact meetings have on people’s time. To
increase the effectiveness of a meeting, all aspects of the meeting must be properly managed. This includes preparation tasks, meeting facilitation, and post-meeting follow-up.
Prior to a meeting, objectives and agendas must be defined and meeting materials must
be created. These items must then be communicated to attendees so that they can adequately prepare for the meeting. During a meeting, facilitators need to keep the meeting
on topic, decisions must be recorded, and action items must be tracked. Finally, after the
meeting, follow-up materials must be distributed and the progress of the identified action
items must be managed. Managing these aspects must also take into account remote
meeting attendance so that remote attendees can effectively participate in the meeting.
• Information centers: Organizations often need to provide groups of individuals the ability to distribute items for use throughout the organization. Information owners will
create and then need to publish materials for use by others. The information owners
need to be able to effectively manage these materials, keeping them current and verifying that they are accurate. These materials also must to be organized in such a way that
they are easy to find when they are needed.
3
4
CHAPTER 1 ■ INTRODUCTION TO SHAREPOINT TECHNOLOGIES
What Are the Building Blocks?
Windows SharePoint Services and SharePoint Portal Server 2003 include many tools that can
be combined to create a wide range of business solutions. Sites and workspaces provide a central place to consolidate a wide variety of information in a secure manner. Lists and libraries
allow users to create and edit documents and other information. Alerts give users the ability to
receive notifications when content has been added or changed. Pages and web parts allow for
the customization of sites so that data and documents are presented in ways that make it easier for workers to find the information they need. Portal area navigation and searching
capabilities provide the tools necessary to find relevant information when it is needed regardless of its location. My Site allows you to create your own customized site in SharePoint Portal
Server to store your documents, tasks, and other information, and then make any of this information available to others.
In this book we will further define what these tools are, how they are used, and how to
combine them into useful Information Worker solutions.
CHAPTER
2
■■■
Using the Portal
A
SharePoint Portal Server 2003 (SPS) portal is the entry point into a SharePoint environment. A portal acts as the centralized access point for locating, working with, and managing
an organization’s information. The portal allows you to do the following:
• Search for information, such as people, sites, and documents, regardless of the information’s location or format. This enables you to retrieve all relevant information you
have access to on a topic or containing specific references.
• Organize information into meaningful structures using areas so that portal users can
easily browse through this information.
• Maintain personal sites that enable you to create personal views of portal information
for your use and public views of your information to share with others.
• Create alerts that are personal notifications you can configure to be notified when relevant information is added or changed in SharePoint areas or sites.
• Target specific content to groups of individuals for whom the information is particularly relevant.
In this chapter we will familiarize you with the general layout and structure of SPS. We will
describe the elements that make up a SharePoint portal, including areas, listings, portal search,
and My Site. We will review the layout of these elements and discuss how they are used.
5
6
CHAPTER 2 ■ USING THE PORTAL
Portal Areas
Areas are the primary organizational units of a SharePoint portal. They are used to group and
structure content so that information can be easily located through browsing. A defined area
structure acts as a portal blueprint or site map enabling the creation of an information hierarchy that maps to the way people need to work with the information. Figure 2-1 shows the
typical layout of an area.
Figure 2-1. Topics area
Figure 2-1 shows the default layout of the Topics area. The Topics area is one of the default
areas created as part of a new SharePoint portal. An area is organized so that navigation and
management options are grouped within the banner and in the left-hand bar, leaving the
remainder of the area for the presentation of content, applications, listings, or any other type
of information an area manager chooses to make available. We can break an area down into
the following groupings of options:
• Area Listings Bar: Located across the top of the portal page, the Area Listings Bar presents
the list of top-level areas, which includes the home page and any areas directly under the
home page. When a portal is initially created, this list will include Home, Topics, News,
and Sites. However, this list may differ in your environment as it will reflect the top-level
area structure of your SharePoint portal environment.
• Portal Toolbar: Located in the top right of the portal, the Portal Toolbar contains portal
management and help links. The list of links in this area can include the following:
• My Site: My Site is listed for portal users that have been granted the right to have a
personal site. The My Site link gives you access to your personal site. We will discuss My Site in more detail later in this chapter.
CHAPTER 2 ■ USING THE PORTAL
• Site Settings: The Site Settings link is available for users having some level of management capabilities within the portal, which is typically someone who is at least a
Content Manager for the portal. The Site Settings link gives you access to the Site
Settings page containing the portal management tools. From this Site Settings
page you will only have access to the management capabilities that have been
made available to you based on your role in the portal. Other management capabilities beyond those you have access to may be listed; however, you will not be
able to make changes to these other items.
• Help: The Help link is available to all portal users and provides online contextsensitive assistance for SharePoint capabilities.
• Search Tools: Located in the upper right just below the Area Listings Bar, the Search
Tools allow you to perform basic and advanced searches for information available
through SharePoint and crawled by the SharePoint index services. The information
available for searching usually includes all content stored in SharePoint Portal Server
and Windows SharePoint Services and may also include content stored in other
sources, such as Exchange Public Folders, network file shares, or other internal or
external web sites.
• Current Area Navigation: Located in the left-hand section just below the Area Listing
Bar, the Current Area Navigation shows context-centric navigation. This includes the
hierarchy of areas above the current location as well as any subareas within the current
location. For example, if you are currently in the Divisions area, which is located under
the Topics area, and this area has two children called Domestic and International, the
area navigation will show the hierarchy of areas above Divisions, which includes Home
and Topics, and the list of subareas contained within Divisions, which includes Domestic and International.
• Actions: Located in the left-hand section just below the Current Area Navigation, the
Actions section provides the list of area management and area content management
tasks that are available to you for the currently displayed area. This list only contains
those options that are available to you based on your security rights within the area.
Table 2-1 shows the options that are available based on a user’s site group assignment.
Assigning users to site groups defines the rights that those users will have within the
portal. We will discuss site groups in more detail in the “Portal Site Groups” section later
in this chapter. The following are the options that can be made available in the Action
section:
• Add Listings: Allows you to add new portal listings to an area in the portal. Portal
listings are references to materials, web sites, etc. We will discuss listings in more
detail in the “Portal Listings” section later in this chapter.
• Add Person: Allows you to add a listing to a portal user with an area. We will discuss
people listings in more detail in the “Portal Listings” section later in this chapter.
• Create Subarea: Used to create a new portal area under the area currently being
displayed. We will discuss creating and managing areas in the “Managing Areas”
section later in this chapter.
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• Upload Document: Takes you to the document upload screen for the default document library created within the area. We will discuss managing documents in
Chapter 6.
• Change Settings: Used to change the configuration settings for the currently displayed portal area.
• Manage Security: Used to manage the security settings for the area currently being
displayed.
• Manage Content: Provides access to the area’s Documents and Lists page where all
of the content items available in the area including all listings, libraries, and lists
can be accessed and managed.
• Manage Portal Site: Presents a graphical view of the portal area structure, allowing
for drag-and-drop management of the area hierarchy. It also provides access to
some of the more common area management features including editing area
properties, managing area security, creating listings, and creating subareas.
• Add to My Links: Allows you to create a link to the currently displayed area that will
be available within the My Links list in your My Site. We will discuss My Site in more
detail in the “My Site” section toward the end of this chapter.
• Alert Me: Allows you to create an alert that will notify you of changes made to
materials within the currently displayed area. We will discuss alerts in more detail
in Chapter 7.
• Edit Page: Gives you access to the area editing options including the Modify Page
capabilities and the page content management options. We will discuss page management in more detail in Chapter 7.
Table 2-1. Actions Available by Security Site Group
Reader
Member
Contributor
Content
Manager
Web
Designer
Administrator
Add Listing
Add Person
Create Subarea
Upload Document
Change Settings
Manage Security
Manage Content
Manage Portal Site
Add to My Link
Alert Me
Edit Page
CHAPTER 2 ■ USING THE PORTAL
• Content: Located to the right of the Current Area Navigation and Actions sections and
below the Search Tools, the Content section is the main body of the portal page. This is
the part of the page that contains the elements for display within the area. This may
include documents, lists, portal-based applications, and references to sites or other
content.
■Note Portal areas can be customized by administrators through the use of available third-party add-ins
and tools like Microsoft FrontPage. If changes are made to the overall structure of an area or to an area template, the location or presentation of the preceding groupings of options may vary.
Navigating Through Areas
Navigation through the portal can be a little confusing. Portals can bring together a wide variety
of information located in many sources. Areas can provide access into Windows SharePoint
Services sites, web sites (internal or external), applications, and content stored on network file
shares or in Exchange. It is important for the portal’s area structure to provide a path that is logical and easy for portal users to follow.
To navigate through available portal areas, you click the area to access either from the
Area Listings Bar or the Current Area Navigation section. This will bring you to the selected
area. When you navigate to an area, the content contained within the area is displayed and the
name of the area is listed for easy reference at the top of the Content section. Also, the Current
Area Navigation section will be updated to list the area hierarchy information for the currently
displayed area.
Once you have navigated to the area, any available area management options will be
listed in the Actions list. The options in this list will vary based on your rights within the area.
Table 2-1 presents the complete list of actions and the security levels, or site groups, for which
the options are available. When you select one of these available actions, the options listed
under the action will sometimes be further restricted based on your security rights. In the following sections we will discuss the capabilities provided by the options available under the
Actions section.
■Note There are several third-party navigation solutions that can be added to SharePoint to extend and
enhance the existing portal navigation capabilities. These options can allow you to provide alternative navigation methods as well as ways to extend the default navigation capabilities if they do not completely meet
your organization’s needs.
Portal Site Groups
As we mentioned, many options that are available to users within the portal are dependent on
the user’s security rights. Security rights are assigned through roles called site groups. Users
can be assigned to site groups individually or based on their membership in Active Directory
groups. Role assignments determine who can view areas, manage content in areas, edit areas,
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create areas, etc. A standard set of site groups is available by default with a portal. However, it
is possible to create additional site groups in order to provide customized permission levels.
It is also possible to change the permissions associated with existing site groups. However, this
should be done sparingly and only when creating a new site group will not meet the security
requirements. The following are the standard site groups defined in an SPS portal:
• Readers: Can view SPS areas and area content. Readers cannot add or edit content or
perform any management functions on areas. By default, Readers cannot use personal
features of the portal, such as creating alerts or maintaining a personal My Site.
• Members: Have all the rights of a Reader as well as the ability to view and personalize
areas and area content. Members can use the personal features of the portal, like alerts
and My Site.
• Contributors: Have all rights of a Member as well as the ability to add, edit, and delete
content items within an SPS area. Contributors can also browse directories and create
and manage personal views of areas. Contributors cannot create new libraries and lists
or manage shared views of areas.
• Content Managers: Have all rights of a Contributor as well as the ability to create and
manage areas and listings and create WSS sites.
• Web Designers: Have all rights of a Content Manager as well as the ability to apply style
sheets to areas.
• Administrators: Have full user and administrative rights to all portal areas and content.
Adding Users to Site Groups
To add a user or Active Directory group to a site group:
1. From the portal home page, click the Manage Users link under Actions.
2. On the Manage Users page, click the Add Users option.
3. On the Add Users page:
a. Select users to add in one of two ways. The first way is to enter the Active Directory
user ID (in the form domain\user), user e-mail address, or Active Directory group
name (in the form domain\group) that you wish to add.
The second way is to click the Select Users and Groups option. This option allows
you to search for the desired users or groups. To use this searching capability, you
would select a Find By value, which allows you to choose what attribute to search
for; you then enter the search criteria and click Find. The list of accounts meeting
the entered criteria will be listed. You can then add the desired users and groups to
the Selected Accounts list. Once all needed accounts are in the Selected Accounts
list, click OK to return to the Add Users page.
b. Check the site groups membership that you wish to assign to the user or group.
c. Click the Next button.
CHAPTER 2 ■ USING THE PORTAL
4. If the user or group information was not found in the Active Directory, an error screen
will be displayed. If this screen is presented, click the browser Back button to return to
the Add Users page, update the information so that it refers to a valid active directory
user or group, and click the Next button.
5. If the user or group was found in Active Directory, the Add Users page containing step
3 and step 4 is presented. On this page, verify the account information and determine
whether an e-mail should be sent to the user notifying that user of the change in rights
by checking or unchecking the send e-mail option. This option will be disabled if a
group account was selected. If a user was selected and you wish to send a notification
e-mail to the user, you enter the text to be sent in the Subject and Body fields. Once the
send e-mail option information has been appropriately set, click the Finish button.
■Note The Confirm Users information in step 3 of the Add Users page should never need to be updated.
This information is pulled from the Active Directory as part of the user profile. If this information is not accurate, it should be appropriately updated in the Active Directory by a network administrator instead of being
changed in the SharePoint portal.
The user or group is added to the selected site group. The Manage Users page is displayed
and the newly added site group assignment is listed.
Changing Existing Site Group Assignments
To change an existing site group assignment:
1. From the portal home page, click the Manage Users link under Actions.
2. On the Manage Users page, check the boxes in front of the site group assignments that
you will be updating and click the Edit Site Groups of Selected Users option. If you are
updating a single site group assignment, you can simply click the name of the assigned
user or group.
3. On the Edit Site Group Membership page, update the site group assignment by checking and unchecking the site group options and then clicking the OK button to save the
changes.
The updates to site group assignments are saved. The Manage Users page is displayed
and the updates made are reflected in the site group assignment list.
Deleting Existing Site Group Assignments
To remove an existing site group assignment:
1. From the portal home page, click the Manage Users link under Actions.
2. On the Manage Users page, check the boxes in front of the site group assignment(s)
that you will be removing and click the Remove Selected Users option.
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3. Confirm the deletion of the site group assignment by clicking the OK button on the
displayed message box.
The selected site group assignments are deleted. The Manage Users page is refreshed to
reflect the changes made.
Managing Areas
One of the most significant benefits of a SharePoint portal is that the business owners of content can be responsible for the management of the areas and sites in which their content
resides. Content owners do not need to rely on IT departments to manage portal areas, post
content, or organize materials. This allows the content owners to have control over the entire
information management process and allows the IT group to focus on the management of the
overall portal without needing to get involved in the management of business team resources.
When SharePoint is introduced into an organization, a decision must be made concerning
the level of ownership business teams will have around the management of SharePoint sites and
areas. In many cases, the responsibility of maintaining the areas and the information contained
in areas is given to the information owners. That said, it is often also true that the organization
will want to maintain some level of consistency with navigation and layout of the overall SharePoint environment. To meet this goal, the organization will incorporate certain restrictions or
policies involving area management. In this section, we will discuss the structure of areas and
how they are managed. This information can then be applied to your organization in the way
that best meets your desired balance between business owner control and navigation and layout
consistency.
As we discussed earlier in this chapter, SPS areas are the primary tools used to organize
enterprise resources being made available through a SharePoint portal. A portal area structure
is made up of areas created by portal managers as well as some default specialty areas available automatically that are used to manage specific portal services. These specialty areas
include the following:
• Home: Portal home page designed to be the gateway or entry point into the overall
SharePoint environment.
• Topics: Default area that includes a sample area hierarchy. The Topics area is provided
to allow for information to be organized by subject area.
• News: Area designed to contain corporate news postings.
• Sites: Area that organizes portal site listings. The Sites area provides a complete list of
WSS and web sites and allows users to sort, filter, and group these sites based on need.
The management of site listings is also handled through this area.
We will review the capabilities provided by these specialty areas later in this chapter. First
we will discuss the capabilities around creating and working with basic areas.
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Creating an Area
Areas can be organized to provide a navigation structure that makes it easy for workers to
browse through enterprise resources when looking for resources. Areas can be nested within
each other to create any hierarchy necessary. A nested area, or subarea, is created by doing the
following:
1. Navigate to the area under which you wish to create the new subarea.
2. From the Actions list of the area, click the Create Subarea link.
3. On the Create Area page:
a. Enter the name for the subarea. This is the name that will appear in the area listings.
You can also enter an optional description that is displayed at the top of the subarea
when it is accessed.
b. Enter the publication date information that is used to determine when the subarea
should be available for users. By default, the start date is set to today’s date and the
expiration date is blank, which will make the site available immediately and for an
unlimited duration. You can update these two dates to limit the availability of the
subarea to within a specific timeframe.
c. Choose the location where the area will be listed. By default, the subarea will be
placed under the area in which you clicked the Create Subarea link. If you wish to
change this, you can click the Change Location link and select a different area
under which to place the new subarea.
4. Once all of the options have been appropriately set on the Create Area page, click the
OK button.
The subarea is created, and you are returned to the area in which you clicked the Create
Subarea link. The new subarea is listed in the Current Area Navigation.
■Note Areas can also be created through the Portal Site Map. We will discuss this in more detail in the
“Managing Areas Through the Portal Site Map” section later in this chapter.
Editing Properties of an Area
Areas that have been created in SPS can be updated to address changing needs. These needs
may come in the form of restructuring the site, requiring that areas be placed in different locations; or in the form of an adjustment in the purpose of an area, requiring that some attributes
about the area, like title or description, be updated. To make any of these changes to an area:
1. Navigate to the area that needs to be updated.
2. From the Actions list in the area, click the Change Settings link.
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