11.1. Analyzing the Needs

When building a software solution you need to know two things: What is the current situation, and what is your objective? To answer that you must analyze what you have today and the needs of your users. The more time and energy you put into this analysis, the greater the chance that you will do the right thing and avoid costly mistakes. A golden rule when analyzing this is to ask the right people, check the answers, if possible, and never accept a vague answer, like "I think we have enough free disk for your new SharePoint server." If you are even the slightest bit unsure about some answers, make sure to start a thorough investigation to get the truth. This does not necessarily mean that you have to do everything yourself; it could also mean that you delegate tasks to reliable people.

Another golden rule when you start designing the SharePoint environment is KISS — Keep it simple, stupid! If you can make it with just one SharePoint server, then do so; if the intranet will work with just one SharePoint group, then use one; if one document library will be enough for storing all documents, then use one library. Every time you add more servers, more SharePoint groups and more document libraries, you also add to the complexity of the SharePoint solution. And more complexity means more time spent on administration and management, plus a more complex environment to analyze if something goes wrong. So please, remember KISS. It will make your life easier, both when implementing the solution and when managing it.

11.1.1. Building an Intranet Using WSS or MOSS?

The boss comes to you and tells you that the company needs an intranet, and fast! You need to get something up and running within one week, if possible without spending any money. So, your mission is to build an intranet, and you start wondering what to do next. There are some questions you should get answered before you start, like the ones in the following table.

If the answers to these questions indicate that WSS will be sufficient, then by all means go on and build the intranet using Windows SharePoint Services. It will indeed be a very good platform for sharing information within your organization. With the new search capabilities in WSS 3.0, this intranet will also offer some basic search features.

But if you need more than WSS 3.0 will provide, don't hesitate to go with MS Office SharePoint Server 2007; its list of features is remarkable and will give you the best intranet and collaboration environment that Microsoft can offer today. If you are unsure what to choose, why not use the free MOSS 2007 evaluation copy that will work for 180 days? It will give you a fair chance to see what MOSS can do for your users.

11.1.2. Analyzing an Intranet

The intranet as we know it has been around for more than 10 years now. But let's look at what an intranet really is; here are some common definitions:

• An intranet is a web application for sharing information that only internal users can access.

• An intranet is a secure web-based environment where local users can access information.

• An intranet is a web-based solution for sharing news, links, and documents with internal users.

An elderly definition states that an intranet is a TCP/IP-based local network, but this type of definition is not what is discussed in this book. The general consensus today is that an intranet is a web site where the local users will find the information they need, much like an internal company newspaper. Now stop for a while, and think again. Is this really what your user needs? Both yes and no! Who is asking for this intranet? Everyone, you say. This is true, but when I try to ask my clients this question, I often find out that:

• Management wants to publish information about the company and its activities.

• The users want to find information related to their work.

One of the reasons management wants to publish information is to ease the burden on some internal groups. If the intranet contains all the news and links to all local policy standards, handbooks, and forms, then it is up to the user to find it: "How do I apply for a vacation?" "Look at the intranet!" After a while, the users do indeed learn how to find the information they need. If you have an intranet in your organization today, how many of your users have this site as the start page for their web browser? How many of the users are checking the intranet every day, or at least once per week? I don't know the exact answer in your case, but the traditional intranets I have seen provide depressing answers — maybe 20 percent, if you are lucky. How can this be? Hint: Look at what the users are using as the default start page for their browsers (usually a search site, such as Google, or a news site on the Internet — and by the way, what site are you using?) Why is this? Because it gives the user what they want — interesting information that is updated frequently! This is something you should have in mind when designing your intranet. If you don't, well, why bother to build it at all?

If the intranet contains information that the users are interested in, you don't need to force them to check the intranet. But to be fair, all types of intranets cannot be all that interesting, at least not for all users; in these cases it would be great if the user could be notified whenever there is something new and interesting. Another important piece of intranets is pictures. Compare a typical intranet to some popular news web sites; did you notice how important the pictures are to make the articles more interesting? Your intranet should learn from these news web sites. To summarize it, an intranet should contain the following things to be interesting to your users:

• Company news that relates to the current user, with pictures when possible.

• External news from a web site the current user are interested in.

• Information related to the user's personal tasks and interests, such as:

  • Forms for notifying the reception desk about absences and meetings.

  • Fill-in time cards or vacation forms.

  • Today's menu at the local restaurant.

  • The weather forecast for the users' local area.

• Information related to the users' work, such as documents, contacts, and project information.

• Information about coworkers, such as their e-mail, phone numbers, responsibilities, and pictures.

One could argue whether or not information such as external news and weather forecasts should be listed on the intranet, but in my experience this type of information is important if you want to make this site so interesting that users may even voluntarily use it as the start page on their web browsers. In the next section, you will try to follow these rules when building an intranet using a WSS environment.

11.1.3. Available Web Parts

When you build intranet and Internet web sites, you must know what tools that are available, that is, what Web Parts, and what type of functionality you can use for building your solution. One of the main differences between WSS and MOSS is the Web Parts available; the list below shows these Web Parts.

It is easy to see that MOSS provides a lot more Web Parts than WSS, so building an advanced web solution, such as an intranet portal or a public Internet site, is much easier with MOSS than with WSS.