The
previous versions of SharePoint brought confusion to end users. The
user interface was inconsistent, and it was difficult to maneuver
between pages. For example, some pages had a Back button, some had menu
items on the page that you could click and go back to, and some had
nothing to get you “back,” and you had to use the browser’s Back feature
or type in the URL to get back to where you wanted to go. In addition,
there were some functions that had to be performed outside of
SharePoint, some could only be done from within, and some could be done
either way.
MOSS 2007 has a better
user interface, and also has tighter integration with Microsoft Office. A
user working on a document in Word 2007 can decide that collaboration
is necessary and create a shared workspace, invite users to participate,
and set up some milestone tasks without ever leaving Office 2007.
MOSS provides the end user
with a much better set of features for customizing and personalizing
sites. Users can create their own personal sites containing their own
documents, their own links, and other content that is meaningful to
them, as opposed to having to live with a “generic” website with
“generic” content that might not be applicable to their position in the
organization.
Some of the new and improved features available for enhancing the end-user experience are discussed in the following sections.
Expanding Document Management Capabilities
Previous versions of
SharePoint, particularly the 1.0 versions of the product line, had some
limitations with their document management capabilities. MOSS 2007,
however, has become much more of an enterprise document management (DM)
solution, including features such as the following:
Document check-in/check-out to ensure that revisions are not overwritten by another user
Ability to maintain versions of documents for tracking changes
Ability to require approval when checking a document back in for quality control
Improved document workflow capabilities
In addition to these
features, MOSS provides the user with the flexibility to create a
structured document storage environment, as opposed to the relatively
flat view of the document space in older versions. MOSS is also more
tightly integrated with Microsoft Office 2007, providing enhanced
features available directly from the Office interface. Features in these
areas include the capability to perform the following tasks:
- Create folders within a document library, and view all documents in a library, including those in subfolders.
- Create a MOSS document workspace directly from Word 2007, providing a means for easily setting up collaboration sites.
- Easily
save and retrieve SharePoint documents from Office 2007 applications.
Improvements in Microsoft Office 2007 and MOSS make saving documents to a
workspace as easy as saving them to a file share.
- Access
document libraries in the same manner as file shares through HTTP DAV
Web Folder support, preventing users from having to learn a whole new
set of commands.
- View Office documents through the
browser without having Office installed on the client computer. This
enables the remote and mobile user to view documents stored in
SharePoint when on the road from a client’s computer, when sitting at an
airport kiosk, or when having a cup of coffee at an Internet café.
Introducing Meeting Workspaces
When organizations have
meetings, there is generally an agenda for the meeting, some type of
document or documents associated with the meeting, and often follow-up
tasks. Although email can be used to send out agendas and documents
prior to the meeting, and to send out follow-up tasks and meeting notes,
a better solution is to have all of the information associated with the
meeting available in one place. Meeting workspaces in MOSS provide this
capability—a place for managing all of the documentation and tasks
associated with a meeting. Meeting workspaces can be created from the
site or from the “schedule meeting” function in Outlook 2003/2007. When a
meeting is scheduled using Outlook 2003/2007, an option is available
for creating a MOSS meeting workspace to store the meeting agenda, a list of attendees, documents relevant to the meeting, and any action items that result from the meeting.
Several meeting
templates are available when creating the meeting workspace. In addition
to a “standard” single meeting workspace, the other types of meeting
workspaces include the following:
Decision meeting workspaces
Social meeting workspaces
Multiple meeting workspaces
Figure 25.5 shows some of the different templates that can be chosen when creating a new site.
Integrating with Microsoft Office 2007
A key design goal for
MOSS 2007 was to have it even more tightly integrated with Microsoft
Office. Although SharePoint technologies support earlier versions of
Office, such as Office 2000 or Office 2003, improvements and
enhancements in both WSS 3.0 and in Microsoft Office 2007 provide a more
efficient way for users to access shared document workspaces and team
sites. This ease of use for accessing information encourages users to
share, collaborate, and communicate together on projects, initiatives,
or ideas. For example, instead of simply opening up a document in an
older version of Office and working on the document, a user opening the
same document off a SharePoint server with Microsoft
Office 2007 is presented with not only the document, but also a new
task pane that lists the members of the team site where the document is
stored (showing presence information about the users), the status of the
document, as well as any tasks and links associated with the document.
Specifically, Microsoft Office 2007 integration means that
The entire
setup of the document workspace can be done from the Word 2007
interface. Using the Shared Workspace task pane, the document workspace
can be created, users granted access, links pertaining to the document
added, and tasks created.
The
document workspace is accessible through the task pane whenever the
document is opened in Word 2007. The status of the members is displayed
(such as whether they are online); messages can be sent to the members,
links browsed to, and tasks viewed and updated.
When
a meeting is created using Outlook 2007, a SharePoint meeting workspace
can also be created for storing content related to the meeting.
SharePoint contacts can be viewed directly from Outlook 2007.
Metadata
and file properties are copied from Office documents to SharePoint
libraries—therefore, file information doesn’t have to be reentered into
SharePoint if it has already been entered in Office.
SharePoint
documents can be attached to mail messages as shared attachments. When
the user receives the message, there is a link to the workspace where
the shared attachment can be accessed.
MOSS sites can be searched from the Office 2007 Research and Reference tool pane.
Documents stored in SharePoint picture libraries can be edited with an Office 2007 picture-editing tool.
Personalizing MOSS 2007
MOSS 2007 includes many
ways in which users can personalize a SharePoint environment. Some forms
of personalization can originate from Office 2007, and some features
are accessed directly through MOSS. The following list includes various
ways in which users can personalize the SharePoint experience:
Users can
create private sites and private views with their own personalized look
and feel, in a way that makes sense for the way they work. Changes to
team sites are stored with the user’s profile and will be applied each
time the user visits the site.
News
can be targeted to users based on their audience affiliation.
Considering the amount of information available, this is an efficiency
feature that streamlines the content based on user interest.
Users
can be given the capability to create sites without involving IT
personnel. A typical scenario in today’s world, where the organization
does not have a portal application such as MOSS, might go something like
this:
A user decides that
a website would be helpful for collaborating on a project. The user
presents the justification of the website to and obtains the approval of
the department
manager. The department manager submits a request to the IT department
to have the site created. The IT manager reviews the request and places
it low on the priority list because it will take time to develop the
site, and the users can collaborate in the current environment using
email and shared network drives. By the time IT gets to the project, the
users have already completed the work and no longer need the
collaboration site.
If
users can create shared sites and workspaces on their own, and don’t
have to wade through the red tape of getting IT personnel to create
them, they will be more likely to use them and realize the benefits they
can provide.
Using Lists with MOSS
Each list in MOSS is a Web
Part; therefore, they can be easily customized from the browser. Lists
have been enhanced in many ways, including support for additional field
types such as rich text, multivalue fields, and calculated fields. Field
values can also be calculated. Field types can be changed after the
list has been created, thus providing a means for accommodating data
that is not particularly stable.
MOSS also has many new
options for viewing lists. Filtered list views can also be created based
on a calculation. For example, all events within the next week can be
viewed by setting up a filter based on the date being greater than the
current date plus seven. Another new view is the Event Calendar view,
which enables displaying any list that has a date and time field in it
using the daily, weekly, or monthly calendar view. Aggregated views
enable totaling data into a number field and displaying the value.
Totals can be based on the entire view or a subset of it. Group-by views
enable grouping by one column, and then sorting within each group.
A picture library is a new
kind of list. Graphics and photos can be stored in a picture library and
optionally viewed as a filmstrip or as thumbnails in views
automatically generated by SharePoint.
For Microsoft Office
2003/2007 users, lists can be edited in Datasheet view. This option
presents the data in spreadsheet style and provides spreadsheet types of
editing features, such as copy and paste, adding rows, and fill
options. Using the Datasheet view can be faster then the traditional
SharePoint list editing style for some types of data entry and editing.
MOSS includes security
features for lists. Permissions can be applied to the list so that only
specific people can change it. Also included is the capability for the
list owner to approve or reject items that are submitted to the list.
Other new list features include the following:
Users can create their own personal lists that are not visible to other users.
Alert
notifications for lists include the name of the user who made the
change to the list and which item in the list was changed.
Attachments can be added or removed from a list item dependent on whether the attachment is required or not.
Recurring events can be set up on an event list when an event occurs on a regularly scheduled basis.
Improving on SharePoint Alerts
Alerts in MOSS 2007 are
what used to be called notifications in previous versions. Alerts have
been improved to identify whether the alert was sent because content was
changed or added, and now include the tracking of additional items.
Prior versions of SharePoint tracked search queries and documents. In
addition to these items, MOSS alerts track the following:
News listings
Sites added to the site directory
SharePoint lists and libraries
List items
Site users
Backward-compatible document library folders
Microsoft Outlook 2007 can be used to view MOSS alerts, and it includes rules to sort and filter them into special folders.
Exploring Additional New/Enhanced End-User Features
Many other new and enhanced features improve the end-user experience. These include the following:
A site directory that lists all MOSS sites.
The
capability for users to create a SharePoint site from the Sites
Directory page, to indicate whether they want the site added to the
directory, and whether they want the site content to be indexed. This
provides a level of security for protecting sensitive information, such
as human resources data.
Support
for multiple file uploads. Older versions required files to be uploaded
individually. MOSS supports multiple file uploads (such as an entire
directory or folder). This is a great time-saver for organizations that
are migrating large numbers of documents to SharePoint.
The
capability to select from one of several site templates when creating a
new site. Organizations can also create their own site templates (such
as with the organization logo and color theme) for providing a level of
consistency among different types of sites within the site.
The capability to create surveys and have the results automatically calculated and made available.
Additional
improvements in the survey process. The survey feature now supports
responding to a question using a scale, and the capability for users to
select all answers that might apply to a survey question.
Everywhere
a member name appears in a MOSS site, a user presence menu is
available. The presence menu can be integrated with Active Directory,
Exchange Server 2010, and Office Communications Server 2007 for
providing information such as office location and free/busy status. It
can be used for scheduling meetings and sending email.
Team discussions that can be expanded and collapsed.
