SharePoint 2007 Capabilities Breakdown (Part 1) - Overview
Many of our client relationships began with an initial meeting where the client asked us point blank: "So, what can this product do for us?" Although there are multiple ways to slice up, segment, and view SharePoint's capabilities, we have gravitated towards the structure you see in the pie chart below. Although the categories are not unique to Syrinx's view of SharePoint, it might be beneficial to dive into each slice of the pie in a little more detail. In this post we will discuss the reason for reason for the series of articles and what we plan on covering.
Why can it be so confusing?
As I've mentioned in previous postings, many organizations that purchase SharePoint have considerable difficulty determining and defining how best to use the platform. In many ways SharePoint's versatility can often be its biggest weakness.
Most "boxed" software has a fairly specific purpose. You don't go out and buy a copy of The Microsoft .NET Framework 2.0 at BestBuy and install it expecting it to start helping you write applications. Although server platforms are different and require higher levels of expertise and infrastructure, the expectations around their abilities and implementation requirements should be set accordingly. Most of the other Server Software from Microsoft tends to have fairly well-defined uses. When I see Exchange, Project Server, BizTalk, Commerce Server, etc., I tend to have a decent idea of what general roles those products can fill in a given organization. When a company purchases SharePoint, they could potentially use it for anything, including integration with any of the above mentioned platforms.
Here are some other reasons SharePoint blurs this line:
1. The older versions were more straightforward. SharePoint versions prior to 2007 may not have been necessarily easier to use, but they were certainly more focused in their functionality, simpler in many ways, and much less generic in it's potential use.
2. Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 is a "free" product that comes with your server operating system. Many people aren't sure what this is and how much different from Office SharePoint Server 2007 it really is. Some people are wondering if they simply get "SharePoint" as a service pack or Windows Update release. If so, what can it do for me?
3. SharePoint Configuration Wizard. When I first installed SharePoint 2007, I breezed through the process in 10-15 minutes. A few minutes after that I was up and creating my site. Yes, it can be done this way. As we've discussed before, this is not the correct way to implement SharePoint. This installation only sets up minimal services, locks you into using SQL Express, and creates default web application and site collection without any knowledge or information from the installing user.
4. Features. Features in WSS 3.0 / MOSS represent ways to install and enable individual functional components. As a daily user of SharePoint I have learned the hard way that there are various levels of feature enabling (Farm, Web Application, Site Collection, Site). Certain features combined with certain Site Definitions create exponentially different user experiences. Turning on certain features at certain levels allows certain behavior that changes the user interface, including the availability of certain web parts and lists/libraries.
These elements, among others cause people some confusion as to what SharePoint is, how it can and should be installed and used.
What can we do to help make sense of it?
The goal of this series of articles is to go into a little more detail for each segment of the Capabilities Pie Chart seen above. Each slice of the pie represents a logical breakdown of capabilities within the SharePoint server family of services. Most organizations will not need everything the application can do, but can take advantage of a certain set of features within their enterprise.
Companies often find that increasing familiarity with SharePoint will allow them to branch out and utilize more functionality as they begin to understand the strengths of weaknesses of the platform and their organization.
Hopefully this series of articles will help you determine where you can get started with SharePoint or possibly where you can expand an existing implementatin within your current environment.
Part 2 - Collaboration
I hope this helps,
-Ryan