What is Windows SharePoint Services?

Windows SharePoint Services is an easy to use, flexible solution for delivering a collaborative, team based web site site that can be used to communicate and share information among groups of people. Using SharePoint Services your team members can communicate, share documents, and work together on a project. You can create a separate site for every project on which your team is working.

You can contribute to the site by using nothing more than a Web browser. However, if you use a Windows SharePoint Services-compatible client program, such as Microsoft Office 2003, you can work seamlessly with the site, saving files to libraries, editing documents in the client program, and moving or linking that information to your site.

Windows SharePoint Services makes it easy to create Web-based workspaces for more effective information sharing and team collaboration.

• Create a single place to share and manage all of your team information such as calendars, tasks, and lists.
• Better manage your document creation and review with document versioning and check-in/check-out.
• Use templates, Web Parts, views, and custom lists to easily customize your workspaces.
• Keep teams on the same page using alerts, discussion boards, surveys, and announcements.
• Keep teams connected through integration with Microsoft Live Communications Server 2003, Microsoft Live Meeting, and Microsoft Office Outlook 2003.
• Access your team workspace directly from any browser and from programs such as Microsoft Office Word 2003.

What is a SharePoint Web Site?

A SharePoint web site provides a central storage and collaboration space for documents, information, and ideas. A SharePoint site is a tool for collaboration, just like a telephone is a tool for communication, or a meeting is a tool for decision making. A SharePoint site helps groups of people (whether work teams or social groups) share information and work together. For example, a SharePoint site can help you:

• Coordinate projects, calendars, and schedules.
• Discuss ideas and review documents or proposals.
• Share information and keep in touch with other people.

SharePoint sites are dynamic and interactive — members of the site can contribute their own ideas and content as well as comment on or contribute to other people's. They don't have to use a complicated Web publishing process before they can post a document or make an announcement.

What is in a SharePoint site?

By default, your SharePoint site includes a default home page with space for highlighting the information important to your group, and several predefined pages for storing documents, ideas, and information so you can start working right away. Your site also includes navigation elements so you can find your way around. This tour covers the default site template, the team site template.

How Windows SharePoint Services Works

Windows SharePoint Services sites take file storage to a new level, providing communities for team collaboration and making it easy for users to work together on documents, tasks, contacts, events, and other information. In addition, team and site managers can coordinate site content and user activity easily. The Windows SharePoint Services environment is designed for easy and flexible deployment, administration, and application development.

SharePoint sites are made up of Web Parts and Windows ASP.NET-based components. Web Parts are designed to be added to pages and configured by site administrators and users, creating complete page-based applications. Windows SharePoint Services ships with a number of ready-to-use Web Parts; more will be available in the future from Microsoft and third-party vendors.

Team Community

SharePoint sites provide places to capture and share ideas, information, communication, and documents. The sites facilitate team participation in discussions, shared document collaboration, and surveys. Site content is accessible from both a Web browser and through clients that support Web Services. The document collaboration features allow for easy check in, check out, and document version control.

Individual Empowerment

SharePoint site members can find and communicate with key contacts and experts, both by e-mail and with instant messaging. Site content can be easily searched, and users can also receive alerts to tell them when existing documents and information have been changed, or when new information or documents have been added. Site content and layout can be personalized on a per-user basis, and Web Parts can be used to present targeted information to specific users on precise topics.

Microsoft Office System programs use SharePoint site content. All of a site's collaborative content—for example, documents, lists, events, task assignments, and membership rosters—can be read and edited within Microsoft Office Word 2003, Microsoft Office Excel 2003, and Microsoft Office PowerPoint 2003. Picture editing of Web-based photo libraries is also possible. Microsoft Office Outlook 2003 allows SharePoint site event calendars to be viewed side-by-side with personal calendars, and it also creates meeting-specific workspaces to augment group appointments.

Management Enabler

SharePoint site managers can customize the content and layout of sites to ensure that site members can access and work with important and relevant information. Members' participation can also be monitored and moderated when necessary. Security and task responsibilities are both flexible and easily accessible. Well-designed lists and entire sites can be saved as templates and reused by individuals, teams, or business units across an organization.