How to use SharePoint? What is Microsoft Sharepoint? What is sharepoint server.

Flexible management tool

Microsoft's browser-based content management system allows you to centralize a secure space for sharing documents and teamwork. Serving more than 200 thousand organizations around the world. These companies use SharePoint to create intranets, store, organize and share information with the entire company in one central location.

SharePoint is a flexible tool and can be used in many different ways:

• storage location for documents;
• collaboration tool for handling daily workflows and reading company communications.

What is a SharePoint site?

When we talk about websites, we mean places where people can work together and find and save information. They also make collaboration easier. You can invite your team members to work on the site with you.

They offer a common platform for joint activities. In other words, when many people save content on a site, that content can be accessed and shared by members of the site, and everyone knows where specific documents (and their latest versions) are stored. Updated task lists, the latest version of your calendar - they are all stored on your team resource. Therefore, you do not need to constantly request these documents. You (or the site administrator) can decide who has access to each section. Rights can be based on things like geography, departments, general tasks.

Search value

Think about the amount of content that is created throughout your organization, from documents and reports to image files. Depending on the size of your company, finding the right document can be difficult, whether it's a PowerPoint presentation, Excel sheet, .doc format, or other piece of content. This is why search is such an important aspect of Microsoft SharePoint.

List and libraries

Sites are made up of SharePoint lists and libraries. What is this? Lists are the basic building blocks of SharePoint Designer. Almost everything we create in SharePoint is stored there. This element consists mainly of headers and rows of data, just like an Excel spreadsheet. An example would be a list of clients. A SharePoint list is much more dynamic compared to storing data in Excel.

Such elements can be accessed and updated by all members of the team site - without the need to create new version. What does it mean?View of the project list, including task due dates, can be accessed, added and edited by anyone with access from anywhere at any time.

Advantages of the resource

SharePoint 2013 file sharing became popular because it was an easy way to share documents online. After all, it has so many advantages. Many organizations that have adopted SharePoint have taken advantage of the ability to upload documents and share that data with others.

One great example of sharing on a website is a company extranet where users are not in the same location or authentication domain. Using forms-based authentication, accounts can be created for people located across different physical and corporate boundaries. Providing one place for general documents around a task rather than an enterprise entity, SharePoint goes beyond public access to files.

Microsoft SharePoint Issues

A functional resource with great data management capabilities has its own vulnerabilities. SharePoint - what is it? The challenge lies in supporting certain industry standards. SharePoint's records management capabilities allow you to preserve documents for legal or historical reasons. This can be a problem in some industries (medical and financial) where there are complex regulatory requirements for record keeping. In such cases, you should consult a professional regarding your specific industry solution.

12 answers

What is SharePoint?

The latest version of Microsoft SharePoint software is really two different products:

• Windows SharePoint Services- this is a free download for Windows Server. IN latest version, known as WSS v3, colocal website templates include basic blog and wiki services, as well as list templates for image libraries, document libraries, contact lists, calendars, tasks, and more.
• Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 or MOSS for short is built on Windows SharePoint Services. As a member of the Office Server product platform, it uses client software Microsoft Office for delivering content on the Internet. Integration with Word, PowerPoint, Excel, Access and InfoPath delivers rich web content from your favorite content creation tools.

Why is it so popular

File sharing SharePoint initially became popular because it was an easy way to share documents online. Many organizations that adopted SharePoint in the 2003 versions took advantage of the ability to submit documents to Document Leaders and share those documents with others.
Company extranets One great example of this online sharing is a company extranet where users are not all in the same location or authentication domain. Using forms-based authentication, accounts can be created for people across physical and corporate boundaries. By providing one place for shared documents around a task rather than a corporate entity, SharePoint goes beyond generic file sharing.
Content Management There are many other content management systems, but MOSS uses the functionality of the previously named Microsoft content management system, which itself often costs more than MOSS. Check out this great list of public websites and blogs hosted on SharePoint. And that's not all of them. Search Search is significantly improved in SharePoint 2007 technologies. Unlike the previous version 2003, search results are crisp, relevant and effective. Poor search in SharePoint 2003 products leads to a lot of dissatisfaction with the product.

what is sharepoint

Sharepoint is really two different technologies: Windows Sharepoint Services (WSS) and Microsoft Office Sharepoint Server (MOSS). WSS is free and comes with Windows Server 2003. MOSS is not free.

WSS provides many functionality for managing documents and projects on the Internet. It manages documents in "document libraries". These are folders with permissions and different types of your documents. Projects, tasks, issues or any tabular data are managed in lists. Lists are similar to document libraries. They have permissions and opinions. It also provides easy search.

MOSS provides best search(it should be at least). It also has more publishing options (WSS doesn't work). And you have more control over page layouts. This meant more for internet style sites, and WSS meant more for intranet style sites.

and why is it popular?

WSS is popular partly because it's free and partly because it just does so much out of the box. You can solve many common office queries using WSS. In WSS, things like issue tracking, project management, and document management are trivial. However, this is a blacksmith of all trades - good for many, master of none.

MOSS is probably less popular because it's not free and, having used it for a year, I don't see the same value in it as WSS. The search isn't that good. It really helps to create a company directory.

I've been working with SharePoint since v.1 and I can say that SharePoint is:

• Document Management Server
• Web Content Management Server
• Portal solution
• Search engine
• List-based repository
• Collaboration site
• Replacement for shared files
• etc...

But if I have to sum it up in one sentence what I can tell SharePoint is:

Sharepoint is Microsoft Web OS.

This is the real secret of his success. Many people thought that web OS was something like these. A web OS is not something that is meant to look like a desktop OS. Web OS must be WEB PLATFORM, in which all kinds of applications can be created and users can collaborate.

Think of SharePoint as a version Windows versions 2.0: -)

Previous answers describe what sharepoint is, but don't good job, describing why it is popular. Yes, it gives you all that neat doc-managed stuff out of the box. Yes, it integrates tightly with Office.

OOB functions make up 1/10 of the story. Sharepoint provides an extensive .Net object model that allows you to customize an object at its heart. People are coding amazing things with MOSS 2007. With the object model, you can build and customize sites using code in response to external events. You can write custom "web parts" (controls placed on special pages) that consume both internal (sharepoint) and external data.

Very good points, but I'll try to add something. :)

SharePoint is not only 2 technologies. It is a collection of products and technologies combined by Microsoft into one huge product that comes in two flavors. Two options: Windows SharePoint Services (WSS) and Microsoft Office SharePoint Server (MOSS). MOSS does come in Standard and Enterprise.

[Some of the technologies used in SharePoint: Windows Workflow Foundation, ASP.NET, Web Parts, XML (including XPath, XSLT, etc.), SQL, Web Services - to name a few that I can think of my head]

Regardless of the version you choose, SharePoint provides web capabilities to enable users to create, organize, distribute, and maintain information. Because of this, the most common uses for SharePoint sites are intranets and project/team sites.

SharePoint also has incredible capabilities as an application platform. By looking at the web part and the work parts, you can start to understand the potential. For example, automating authorization processes within an organization can be quickly developed without any code using SharePoint Designer. (FYI: more complex workflows will require Visual Studio, but many simple workflows can be developed using SharePoint Designer's point-and-click functionality)

Although MOSS only extends over WSS, it adds a large number of features that can be very important and useful to a business. Some of the most important features available in MOSS rather than WSS are records management, document retention and audit policies, browser-based forms (InfoPath forms without InfoPath installed on the client machine), and some business intelligence capabilities. Surprisingly, we see interest in features social networks MOSS. (easy to read list of non-WSS features that MOSS has)

Why use SharePoint? I've been doing research on this subject for a while now and I found a study that mentioned 5 main benefits:

• Ease of access to information.
• Optimized intercom
• Improved end user productivity
• Optimized document management methods
• Save IT time

Sorry if this turned into a battle.

SharePoint is the reason I'm considering using suicide booth.

In all seriousness, the rest of the answers are spot on. The differences between WSS 3.0 and MOSS 2007 are usually passed over by people ("why pay for MOSS when WSS is free?" for example). SharePoint is a very complex and rich product, integrated into other Microsoft applications, such as Project Server 2007 and Team Foundation Server.

« SharePoint", or " Microsoft SharePoint Products and Technologies" is a collection software products and components, including:

• a set of web applications for organizing collaboration;
• functionality for creating web portals;
• module for searching information in documents and information systems;
• workflow management functionality and enterprise-scale content management system;
• module for creating forms for entering information;
• functionality for business analysis.

SharePoint can be used to create sites that allow users to collaborate. Sites created on the SharePoint platform can be used as a repository of information, knowledge and documents, and can also be used to run web applications that facilitate interaction, such as wikis and blogs. Users can manage and interact with information in lists and document libraries using controls called web parts(SharePoint WebParts).

SharePoint family of products

SharePoint comes in two main products - the client (formerly called Windows SharePoint Services, WSS) and Microsoft SharePoint Server (formerly called MOSS; see below). In addition, MS Office tool is offered S hare P oint D esigner (SPD; see below).

Microsoft SharePoint Foundation - free application to Windows Server; provides the basic infrastructure for collaboration: editing, document storage, version control, etc. It also includes functionality such as document flow “routes” (document flow platform), task lists, reminders, online discussions.

Microsoft SharePoint Server 2010- a paid component for integrating SharePoint functionality into MS Office applications. It is an add-on to MS SharePoint Foundation and expands its capabilities. Microsoft Project Server is now an add-on that installs on MS SharePoint Server 2010.

Microsoft Office SharePoint Server(MOSS) is a paid component for integrating SharePoint functionality into MS Office applications. It was an add-on to WSS and expanded its capabilities. Included tools for business analytics - Excel Services,Business Data Catalog. MOSS allowed access to MS Project Server and Microsoft Office InfoPath forms through a browser, centrally, in accordance with the concept of a multi-module portal. Supported special libraries such as PowerPoint Template Libraries. MOSS was formerly known as SharePoint Server and SharePoint Portal Server.

Microsoft SharePoint Workspace(SPW, formerly Microsoft Office Groove) - an application that allows you to synchronize data (folders, files, etc.)

Microsoft SharePoint Designer(SPD) is a WYSIWYG (formerly FrontPage) style HTML editor optimized for creating SharePoint pages and managing documents for WSS sites. SPD makes it possible to access the functionality of its render engine through Microsoft Expression Web and through the Microsoft Visual Studio development environment. In the spring of 2009 it became a free product.

Microsoft SharePoint Server 2013 is an integrated package of enterprise applications that is designed to increase productivity, organize employee collaboration, solve such important business problems as control information flows, make informed decisions and manage work processes. The product focuses on the social component, clouds and mobility. MS SharePoint 2013 offers new tools for easy administration, effective protection of communications and information, and flexible collaboration. Social Features make it easy to share ideas, track the actions of colleagues, find experts and information, etc.

The more discussions I read about SharePoint, the more I become convinced that the very concept of “SharePoint” carries with it a bunch of myths and misconceptions. Some of them live in the heads of those who are thinking about using this platform, some (and this is the most dangerous) - in those who have only recently started creating sites on SharePoint. Since the second part is more difficult to describe (and today is also Friday), I, being terribly lazy, would rather talk about the first.

So, myths. Or delusions? Doesn't matter. I describe in the order that came to mind, and not because some myth is “more terrible” than another.

Myth 1: SharePoint was actually developed on another planet and given to Microsoft by humanoids from a UFO to break people's brains.

Myth 2: SharePoint is expensive.

It is absolutely logical that as the project grows (and its monetization, as they say), the need for use and adequate configuration arises. Here, software costs of course increase, like all other expenses: servers, channel rental and, finally, staff. It is the last item of expenditure that is the most tangible, but it is often considered separately. This is forgivable for small start-up teams, but when serious experienced companies do not include in the project budget the costs of salaries of people called upon to develop the solution and then support it, this is surprising.

I am convinced that the benefits provided by the platform and the development tools that support it, including the now free SharePoint Designer (for the purpose of quickly fixing something), justify the price of such software. The same goes for SharePoint Server (MOSS). The latter is far from free and in the version for Internet sites it costs significantly, but I will repeat once again: stop maximalism in choosing a configuration and evaluate the entire project from the point of view of real needs and income. It’s funny to hear about the high cost of a MOSS Internet license from a person who earns several thousand dollars a day on the site. Again, if you plan to create a community site with income that barely covers costs and hosting, you first need to think about what SharePoint can provide in its minimal configuration.

As a summary of the “myth,” I’ll voice a seemingly obvious idea. For projects of any size, start by thinking about what the most basic SharePoint capabilities will do for you. The opportunity to save on developing a storage system, authorization, managing website infrastructure and layout templates, integration with Office applications and built-in content deployment tools is already a lot.

Myth 3. SharePoint is slow and requires hardware.

Load balancing

Output Cache

Object cache

For those interested, links: technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc298466.aspx and “Accelerating Sharepoint to the speed of a Highload Internet site.” ASP.NET “bisons”, pay attention to the last section in the MissUFO post (IHttpModule and hard optimization). With a careful approach and a responsible attitude, using this technique you can turn pages into truly racing cars.

To finish this topic, I’ll tell you about my first impressions after buying a car. As soon as I got behind the wheel, I realized that the car terribly limits my freedom of movement. Now I have to plan and learn where turns are allowed, where traffic jams are most common, how to get around and how to avoid getting on a one-way street while driving in the opposite direction. And also gasoline, worries about washer, tire pressure. Motorists, this sounds familiar, doesn’t it? Several months have passed. Dissatisfaction diminished, I began to understand my advantages. Several years later, I can say that a car gives freedom of movement and pleasure from it. On foot - excellent, environmentally friendly and inexpensive. But slowly. Possible on a motorcycle. But imho - it’s not safe, and it’s not suitable for temperament :-)

Myth 4. SharePoint is only for large companies and corporate websites.

There really isn't much ready-made scripts and templates that can be used when developing classic Internet portals or social networking sites that are so fashionable today. But are there many portal platforms that offer this now? Meanwhile, according to rumors, Microsoft has realized the gaps in this direction and is actively working to include relevant features in future versions.

This myth stems from the belief of many customers like: “SharePoint should definitely have templates for all occasions. Make me a website in a couple of days! I've heard that with SharePoint it's a piece of cake." Funny? Rather sad.

Finally, my experience (and probably yours too) shows that the concept of a “ready-made template from Microsoft” is poorly applicable for serious Internet sites. If you start developing your own solutions in this direction, make your own templates. And here we smoothly move on to the next myth.

Myth 5: Web developers and designers are not needed to create a site on SharePoint.

I will say one thing for sure. SharePoint needs to be embraced by all team members. It allows a lot, but requires respecting some of its expectations from your design. And these expectations are most often dictated by issues of security (oddly enough) and support for all the rich functionality of the platform.

But in general, SharePoint, as I already said, is an ASP.NET application with its features and tricks.

Myth 5.5. SharePoint limits creative freedom, and imposed features often only complicate life.

Often developers (especially Russian ones) criticize SharePoint for what they consider to be strange features of the operation of some subsystems. Let's take two as examples - storing list items and Business Data Catalog.

What is puzzling about the lists is the fact that they do not behave like database tables. Queries that are more or less complex are not supported; there is no referential integrity. The answer is simple: lists are not databases. If you want to use SharePoint as a frontend to the database, then use it that way. There are simple rules for lists and document libraries:

1. Document libraries store files that with which users work, as with documents. Seems simple, right? But people in italics are often forgotten and are planning to store, for example, software distributions. Avoiding file sharing is a good idea, but everyone needs common sense. A separate storage class is aspx page files. There are usually no questions with them.

2. The lists store information related to the structures of collective work of users, direct publication of information (articles, news, etc.) and file metadata (from the first rule). Nothing else needs to be stored in lists. The rule can be broken if there is little data, but with large volumes you will quickly feel performance gaps and difficulties with data queries.

The second example is Business Data Catalog. It seems like a good idea - to abstract data sources and link them to existing structures stored in SharePoint. But the developers complain: the description format is very complex. The answer is simple and is based on the idea behind BDC. The complex XML-like description format is designed to solve two problems simultaneously:

1. Be flexible enough to describe all the necessary entities and operations, allowing SharePoint applications not to directly operate with data in the database.

2. Have a readable format that allows reading and editing without special software.

This may not be very convincing for some, but I’ll try to clarify. Initially, it is assumed that such a data source profile is created once by the developer of the source information system in order to provide access to it from SharePoint Server. This was done quite quickly for systems such as SAP, Siebel or Amazon services. Also, the description format allows, among other things, to specify objects in such a way that it is possible to search for entities from the data source used without developing specialized components.

When I think about this myth, the car analogy comes to mind again.

Tell us about your “I haven’t read Pasternak, but I condemn it.” The impressions of experienced people are even more welcome. Good ideas, as we know, do not come to the head, but “between the heads.”

The more discussions I read about SharePoint, the more I become convinced that the very concept of “SharePoint” carries with it a bunch of myths and misconceptions. Some of them live in the heads of those who are thinking about using this platform, some (and this is the most dangerous) - in those who have only recently started creating sites on SharePoint. Since the second part is more difficult to describe (and today is also Friday), I, being terribly lazy, would rather talk about the first.

So, myths. Or delusions? Doesn't matter. I describe in the order that came to mind, and not because some myth is “more terrible” than another.

Myth 1: SharePoint was actually developed on another planet and given to Microsoft by humanoids from a UFO to break people's brains.

Myth 2: SharePoint is expensive.

It is absolutely logical that as the project grows (and its monetization, as they say), the need for use and adequate configuration arises. Here, software costs of course increase, like all other expenses: servers, channel rental and, finally, staff. It is the last item of expenditure that is the most tangible, but it is often considered separately. This is forgivable for small start-up teams, but when serious experienced companies do not include in the project budget the costs of salaries of people called upon to develop the solution and then support it, this is surprising.

I am convinced that the benefits provided by the platform and the development tools that support it, including the now free SharePoint Designer (for the purpose of quickly fixing something), justify the price of such software. The same goes for SharePoint Server (MOSS). The latter is far from free and in the version for Internet sites it costs significantly, but I will repeat once again: stop maximalism in choosing a configuration and evaluate the entire project from the point of view of real needs and income. It’s funny to hear about the high cost of a MOSS Internet license from a person who earns several thousand dollars a day on the site. Again, if you plan to create a community site with income that barely covers costs and hosting, you first need to think about what SharePoint can provide in its minimal configuration.

As a summary of the “myth,” I’ll voice a seemingly obvious idea. For projects of any size, start by thinking about what the most basic SharePoint capabilities will do for you. The opportunity to save on developing a storage system, authorization, managing website infrastructure and layout templates, integration with Office applications and built-in content deployment tools is already a lot.

Myth 3. SharePoint is slow and requires hardware.

Load balancing

Output Cache

Object cache

For those interested, links: technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc298466.aspx and " ". “Bisons” of ASP.NET, pay attention to the last section in the post (IHttpModule and hard optimization). With a careful approach and a responsible attitude, using this technique you can turn pages into truly racing cars.

To finish this topic, I’ll tell you about my first impressions after buying a car. As soon as I got behind the wheel, I realized that the car terribly limits my freedom of movement. Now I have to plan and learn where turns are allowed, where traffic jams are most common, how to get around and how to avoid getting on a one-way street while driving in the opposite direction. And also gasoline, worries about washer, tire pressure. Motorists, this sounds familiar, doesn’t it? Several months have passed. Dissatisfaction diminished, I began to understand my advantages. Several years later, I can say that a car gives freedom of movement and pleasure from it. On foot - excellent, environmentally friendly and inexpensive. But slowly. Possible on a motorcycle. But imho - it’s not safe, and it’s not suitable for temperament :-)

Myth 4. SharePoint is only for large companies and corporate websites.

There really isn't much ready-made scripts and templates that can be used when developing classic Internet portals or social networking sites that are so fashionable today. But are there many portal platforms that offer this now? Meanwhile, according to rumors, Microsoft has realized the gaps in this direction and is actively working to include relevant features in future versions.

This myth stems from the belief of many customers like: “SharePoint should definitely have templates for all occasions. Make me a website in a couple of days! I've heard that with SharePoint it's a piece of cake." Funny? Rather sad.

Finally, my experience (and probably yours too) shows that the concept of a “ready-made template from Microsoft” is poorly applicable for serious Internet sites. If you start developing your own solutions in this direction, make your own templates. And here we smoothly move on to the next myth.

Myth 5: Web developers and designers are not needed to create a site on SharePoint.

I will say one thing for sure. SharePoint needs to be embraced by all team members. It allows a lot, but requires respecting some of its expectations from your design. And these expectations are most often dictated by issues of security (oddly enough) and support for all the rich functionality of the platform.

But in general, SharePoint, as I already said, is an ASP.NET application with its features and tricks.

Myth 5.5. SharePoint limits creative freedom, and imposed features often only complicate life.

Often developers (especially Russian ones) criticize SharePoint for what they consider to be strange features of the operation of some subsystems. Let's take two as examples - storing list items and Business Data Catalog.

What is puzzling about the lists is the fact that they do not behave like database tables. Queries that are more or less complex are not supported; there is no referential integrity. The answer is simple: lists are not databases. If you want to use SharePoint as a frontend to the database, then use it that way. There are simple rules for lists and document libraries:

1. Document libraries store files that with which users work, as with documents. Seems simple, right? But people in italics are often forgotten and are planning to store, for example, software distributions. Avoiding file sharing is a good idea, but everyone needs common sense. A separate storage class is aspx page files. There are usually no questions with them.

2. The lists store information related to the structures of collective work of users, direct publication of information (articles, news, etc.) and file metadata (from the first rule). Nothing else needs to be stored in lists. The rule can be broken if there is little data, but with large volumes you will quickly feel performance gaps and difficulties with data queries.

The second example is Business Data Catalog. It seems like a good idea - to abstract data sources and link them to existing structures stored in SharePoint. But the developers complain: the description format is very complex. The answer is simple and is based on the idea behind BDC. The complex XML-like description format is designed to solve two problems simultaneously:

1. Be flexible enough to describe all the necessary entities and operations, allowing SharePoint applications not to directly operate with data in the database.

2. Have a readable format that allows reading and editing without special software.

This may not be very convincing for some, but I’ll try to clarify. Initially, it is assumed that such a data source profile is created once by the developer of the source information system in order to provide access to it from SharePoint Server. This was done quite quickly for systems such as SAP, Siebel or Amazon services. Also, the description format allows, among other things, to specify objects in such a way that it is possible to search for entities from the data source used without developing specialized components.

When I think about this myth, the car analogy comes to mind again.

Tell us about your “I haven’t read Pasternak, but I condemn it.” The impressions of experienced people are even more welcome. Good ideas, as we know, do not come to the head, but “between the heads.”