SharePoint Sever 2007 Standard Edition adds much functionality to Windows SharePoint Services 3.0. Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 is installed automatically when you install SharePoint Server 2007, but you can also easily upgrade an existing Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 implementation. The following sections provide an overview of what SharePoint Server 2007 adds to the Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 functionality stack.
The first noticeable difference between the two products is the use of a common search engine along with dramatically extended search and indexing functionalities in SharePoint Server 2007. SharePoint Server 2007 search capabilities allow content aggregation for almost any content source and the ability to create almost unlimited search scopes. Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 is limited to searching "this site and below," while SharePoint Server 2007 gives you the ability to search for anything in the index.
In addition, SharePoint Server 2007 search provides you with the capability of scaling out multiple servers to service a single index, something Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 cannot do. SharePoint Server 2007 search also allows you to manage crawled properties, allowing you to create a robust scope and advanced search solution. For example, all documents written in a company division can be queried using common metadata assigned to them, along with scopes that focus your query that are built on a combination of Site Columns and Managed Properties. This helps provide a more relevant result set for your users.
Shared Services Providers supply the services that all Web applications need to run properly. For example, it is assumed in SharePoint Server 2007 that all sites need search capabilities. For sites built on the SharePoint Server 2007 code base, search is provided via a Shared Services Provider, which means that one index can be exposed to multiple sites in multiple Web applications to provide a common search experience.
By analogy, a Shared Services Provider can be compared to a public utility provider for high cost services, whether that cost is human, financial, or technology capital. A good example would be your local water company. While you might be able to dig a well for your own water supply, it is usually easier simply to purchase clean water from a central utility company. Table 1-1 describes the shared services provided.
Table 1-1. Standard Version Shared Services Provider
Service | Description |
|---|---|
User Profiles | User profiles and properties provide a method for synchronizing properties from Active Directory, or from a third-party profile source. These properties can then be used to target content, expose properties, create search scopes, and collect information directly from end users. |
My Sites | My Sites, in their simplest form, provide a one-to-many collaboration space in a single server farm. For small to medium SharePoint Server 2007 implementations, you will have a single My Site provider. In larger or specialized instances, you can have multiple My Site providers across multiple server farms to localize geographically dispersed installations, role-based My Sites, and different service levels. |
Published Links to Office Applications | With SharePoint Server 2007, you can specify ‘Save As’ locations to Office 2007 applications. These locations can be targeted to Audiences or Active Directory groups. This targeting ability assists governance by suggesting relevant file locations to your users. |
Personalization | There are many personalization features in SharePoint Server 2007, such as My Links, regional settings, alerts, and personalization sites. |
Audiences | Global audiences are a very powerful enhancement in SharePoint Server 2007. Audiences can be used to target content to users in Web parts, list items, global navigation links, and more. Global audiences are pre-compiled and thus faster than directly targeting via Active Directory groups. |
Excel Calculation Services (Enterprise Edition) | Excel Calculation Services include an Excel Web Service, custom Web parts, and Office Excel 2007 publishing capabilities. |
Business Data Catalog (Enterprise Edition) | The Business Data Catalog provides an interface to back-end systems, such as third-party databases and Line-of-Business systems. Content from these sources can then be used for dashboards, search, and custom applications. |
Portals are exposed via the publishing features in SharePoint Server 2007. The publishing features, in conjunction with specialized site templates, offer a rich foundation on which to build your intranet, extranet, or WWW site. Because portals are much like snowflakes in that no two are identical, Microsoft has provided a customizable and extensible platform upon which you can build any portal structure required.
SharePoint Server 2007 provides two native portal templates: Collaboration Portal and Publishing Portal. The Collaboration Portal was envisioned for small to medium intranets and provides a starting point to connect people, content, and third-party systems. The Collaboration Portal functionality includes the Site Directory, customizable Search Center, Document Center, Report Center, and all Publishing features. The Publishing Portal has fewer active features turned on than the Collaboration Portal, and was envisioned for large intranets and public-facing Web sites.
SharePoint Server 2007 Standard Edition also provides an often-overlooked added capability of site collection auditing. While this can be added to Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 using custom code, the functionality is provided natively in SharePoint Server 2007. Auditing capabilities include the item type, userID, event date, and action taken on the item. For example, you can audit every time any item is deleted or restored. Site collection auditing must be turned on manually at the root of each site collection, as shown in Figure 1-8, or programmatically.
With many aspects of SharePoint management the design is decentralized control with more focus on site collection administration. Auditing follows this design with the scope of both management and reporting being the site collection. There is no centralized tool that you can use to manage auditing across all the site collections hosted within a Web application or at the farm level. Also, reporting is not amalgamated across site collections to offer you a composite report. While this can be done manually, it is not commonly done because of the human expense involved in bringing together different reports into one common report.
Enterprise Content Management is a welcome addition to SharePoint Products and Technologies. SharePoint Server 2007 provides many tools to manage content, including the following:
Content types. Now an essential part to any SharePoint Products and Technologies deployment. Content types provide a way to manage documents on an enterprise scale, including custom metadata, default templates, policies, workflows, and auditing.
Auditing policies. Created at the site collection or content type level. While the best practice to scoping policies will be detailed in Chapter 9, policies are usually created at the site collection level and used by individual content types. Auditing policies are sometimes confused with site collection auditing, but they are very different in application. Auditing policies are scoped to an individual content type, while site collection auditing applies to the entire site collection. An example of site collection policies is auditing a sensitive content type when a user opens or downloads documents, views items in lists, or views item properties.
Retention policies. Aid in meeting regulatory compliance and reducing the amount of outdated content. A solid file retention plan can narrow the gap between the cost of SharePoint Server 2007 versus legacy file system storage.
Custom document information panels (DIP). Allow you to leverage InfoPath forms to collect many types of metadata as part of the Office 2007 experience.
Records Repository. Provides a specialized site collection where official files are accepted and managed including the creation of holds for legal events. It is a necessity for organizations that must comply with regulations such as HIPPA and SOX. Additionally, the Records Repository can accept incoming content from third-party systems, reducing the need for multiple solutions.
Document Center. Provides a centralized place for approved organizational documents. Using permissions in conjunction with content approval and versioning, organizational documents can be authored in place, with only the last approved version available for user consumption. Alternatively, these documents can be authored and revised in collaborative sites or workspaces with only the approved version being sent to the Document Center.
Page layouts. Provided by the publishing infrastructure and provide a method for organizations to define the look and feel of their sites. This allows the content creators to focus on the content and not the design. These page layouts can also contain Web parts, making them very flexible.