Microsoft SharePoint Vendor Demo Learnings

On Friday, I attended a Microsoft SharePoint Vendor demo.   The sessions I attended focused on PerformancePoint and Business Intelligence.  Here are a few bits of information I gleaned from this experience…

• featured a presentation by the CIO of IDOT explaining their use of SharePoint, including screenshots (see also the Microsoft Case Study)
• demos used included one hosted at Microsoft Public Sector Demo Solutions
• included database driven map integration in the demo (like a Google mashup, but with MS Virtual Earth / Bing)
  • Note: You can achieve this with the Google Maps API as well (and there are products that do it for you)
• used PerformancePoint’s Dashboard Designer
• PerformancePoint is part of MOSS 2007 Enterprise, and also includes Proclarity Analytics
• demo of Nintex Workflow (thoroughly impressive! – create advanced, graphical workflows inside of MOSS) – ~ $8750 per front end web server
• demo of EPMLive (project and work management solutions)

Sessions I was unable to attend covered other SharePoint third party products, specifically KnowledgeLake (integrated document imaging and capture), and the CorasWorks Toolset (for data integration and building composite applications using XML SQL Web Services).

Additionally, I ran across some tech I’d never been exposed to, being a small-time server jockey – the concept of OLAP Cubes, multidimensional databases, and the MDX query language.  Neat.  Must learn more.

Top 10 MOSS 2007 Features that WSS doesn’t have

1.  Audience Targeting

Content owners can display content (like libraries, links, web parts or lists) only to people who are members of a particular group or audience.  For example, members of the Accounting department would see content that only the Accounting department would care about, or members of different geographical sites would only get site-specific information, like upcoming events.  Here’s how to set up audience targeting.

2.  Social Networking Web Parts

It’s no Facebook, but MOSS includes Social Networking functionality. The idea of it is cool, but whether or not it would be adopted in your organization would have a lot to do with the business culture.  More about social networking features here.

3.  My Site Personal Sites

A part of the social networking features, My Sites are personal sites that provide a central location to manage and store documents, content, links, and contacts for individual users.  Again, whether or not this feature should be used depends on the business culture.  Do you really want your users to be able to customize a My Site?

4.  Portals (site templates, use of RSS feeds)

In Microsoft’s own words:  “Portal sites connect your people to business-critical information, expertise, and applications. Microsoft Office SharePoint Server is a world-class enterprise portal platform that makes it easy to build and maintain portal sites for every aspect of your business.”   More on portal site features here.

5.  Enterprise Search

Search for SharePoint content, Web content, File share content, Exchange folder content, and Business data content.  Great article on SharePoint search capabilities here.

6. Advanced Workflows

Windows SharePoint Services includes workflow capability, but does not include templates.   MOSS includes templates for approval, collect feedback, collect signatures, disposition approval, translation management, and issue tracking.  Custom workflows can also be built using Visual Studio or SharePoint Designer.

7.  Information Rights Management (IRM)

MOSS document management includes Information Rights Management (IRM), which lets you set up rules around how long a document exists and when it should expire.  Additional features of IRM include labels, auditing, and barcodes.  Auditing is pretty handy for keeping track of who opens, edits, checks in/out, moves/copies, or deletes/restores documents.

8.  Records Repository

The Records Repository template for document management provides archiving support, keeping documents as official records.

9.  Business Intelligence (BI) Tools

Connect to your business application and data repositories and monitor key performance indicators. The Enterprise version includes Excel Services and Excel Web Services API’s.

10.  More Templates

MOSS has additional templates including more meeting workspaces, social networking templates, document management templates,  and collaboration and portal templates.

Implementing Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007

Next week I’ll be taking a three day course titled “Implementing Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007.”   I’ll share my discoveries here.

1: Overview of Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007
• Introduction to Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007
• Integrating Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 in the Enterprise
• Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 Architecture

2: Planning and Designing for Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007
• Preparing for a Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 Implementation
• Planning and Designing for Non-Functional Requirements
• Defining Non-Functional Requirements for Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007

3: Deploying Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007
• Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 Deployment Architecture
• Installing Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007
• Managing Shared Service Providers
• Creating Deployment Plans for Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007
• Installing Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007

4: Administering Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007
• Creating Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 Sites
• Managing Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 Features
• Creating and Managing Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 Sites
• Activating and Deactivating Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 Features

5: Implementing Portal Solutions
• Creating Portal Sites
• Implementing Collaborative Features
• Implementing Users Profiles and Audiences
• Creating and Managing Portal Sites
• Managing Personal Sites
• Managing User Profiles and Targeting

6: Implementing Content Management Solutions
• Overview of Content Management
• Managing Documents and Content with Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007
• Implementing Content Management Processes
• Implementing Content Management Policies
• Creating Content Management Sites
• Managing Authoring Workflows and Processes
• Implementing Auditing
• Creating Policies
• Creating Records Management Solutions

7: Implementing Business Intelligence Solutions
• Configuring and Incorporating Business Data Catalog Applications into Portal Solutions
• Implementing Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 Excel Services
• Implementing Business Intelligence Dashboards
• Creating Report Center Web Sites
• Implementing Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 Forms Server
• Creating Business Data Catalog Applications
• Implementing Excel Services
• Creating Business Intelligence Dashboards
• Deploying Server-Side InfoPath Forms

8: Implementing Search and Indexing
• Overview of Implementing Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 Search and Indexing
• Implementing Search
• Defining Content Sources and Scopes
• Building Indexes
• Performing Searches

9: Maintaining and Optimizing Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007
• Implementing Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 Backup and Restore
• Monitoring Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007
• Performance Tuning and Optimization of Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007
• Backing Up and Restoring Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 Configurations and Data
• Performing Backups Operations
• Performing Restore Operations
• Monitoring and Optimizing Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 Solutions
• Monitoring Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007
• Optimizing Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007

Course Description: This three-day instructor-led course provides students with the knowledge and skills required to implement Microsoft Office SharePoint Server (MOSS) 2007 successfully in their organization

The audience for this course is Business Application Administrators (BAAs), Web Administrators and Server Administrators who are engaged in the planning, design, and selection of line-of-business (LOB) applications (including Office SharePoint Server) in conjunction with internal business customers. Their primary responsibility is the deployment, customization, management, and support of LOB applications. They routinely monitor application status and troubleshoot application problems.