SharePoint Roadmap
Are you new to Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007? Or do you use a
SharePoint site to store documents, but now you're curious about workspaces,
blogs, and wikis? Or do you want to dig deeper and share business data more
efficiently by using reports, dashboards, and
key
performance indicators (KPIs) (key
performance indicator (KPI): A predefined measure that is used to track
performance against a strategic goal, objective, plan, initiative, or business
process. A visual cue is often used to communicate the performance against the
measure.)?
Use this roadmap as a starting point to learn about the broad capabilities of
Office SharePoint Server 2007 and how to complete common tasks as a contributor
to a SharePoint site. You can also find links to site owner tasks, such as
setting up permissions and doing some basic customization.
The capabilities of Office SharePoint Server 2007 are focused in six areas. This
roadmap briefly introduces each of these capabilities and then links to related
articles where you can learn more.
To dowload a training package to view on your desktop or install in your server
environment, see
Get SharePoint training on your desktop.
Note For information about installing SharePoint
Server, see the
Office SharePoint Server TechCenter. For information about building
SharePoint Web applications, see the
SharePoint Server 2007 Developer Portal.
In this article
Collaboration
You can use a SharePoint site to share information and get your work done more
efficiently. A SharePoint site offers workspaces and tools that your team can
use to track projects, coordinate schedules, and collaboratively create and edit
documents. For more information about how you can use a team site, click the
following links.
Improve team productivity by using a SharePoint site
You can use a site to store routine information for a single department or
short-term information for a special project that spans several departments. By
using a collaborative workspace such as a team site, your team can become more
efficient and more productive.
Manage projects more efficiently
You can use a site to manage projects and coordinate tasks and deadlines among
team members. The Project Tasks list template includes a Gantt chart view where
you can see task relationships and project status. Your team can coordinate
their work with shared calendars, alerts, and notifications. You can also
connect a calendar on your SharePoint site to your calendar in Microsoft Office
Outlook 2007, where you can view and update it just as you do your personal
calendar.
Create, review, and publish documents
Groups of people can create, review, and edit documents collaboratively on a
SharePoint site. You can use document libraries to store and manage important
documents, or use Document Workspace sites to coordinate the development of
specific documents. Slide Libraries are a great place to share and reuse
Microsoft Office PowerPoint 2007 slides in a central location. You can take
document libraries offline in Office Outlook 2007 to enable people to view and
edit documents while they are not connected to the network.
Capture and share community knowledge
You can use a team site to capture and share collective team knowledge or
important information. Teams can create and capture community knowledge or
document internal processes in a wiki. You can use surveys or discussions to
gather information or encourage dialog, and then share your findings in a blog.
Team members can use alerts or Really Simple Syndication (RSS) to track updates
to your sites.
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Portals and personalization
You can use portal sites to work collaboratively and access the people,
information, and business applications that you need to do your job. Office
SharePoint Server 2007 includes features that organizations can use to
personalize the portal site for individuals or groups of users. For more
information about portals and personalization on SharePoint sites, click the
following links.
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Search
You can use search on a SharePoint site to help you find information, files, Web
sites, and people. For more information about using search, click the following
links.
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Enterprise Content Management
Office SharePoint Server 2007 provides powerful Enterprise Content Management
(ECM) features for creating, managing, and storing content throughout an
enterprise. You can use
workflows (workflow: The automated movement of documents or
items through a specific sequence of actions or tasks related to a business
process. Workflows can be used to consistently manage common business processes,
such as document approval or review.) to help manage the
process of creating, reviewing, publishing, and even managing the content that
your organization creates. For more information about Enterprise Content
Management in SharePoint Server, click the following links.
Document management
Document management capabilities can help you consolidate content from multiple
locations into a Document Center, which is a centrally managed repository that
has consistent categorization.
Records management
Integrated records management capabilities can help you store and protect
business records in their final state.
Web content management
Web content management capabilities enable people to publish Web content with an
easy-to-use content authoring tool and a built-in approval process.
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Business process and forms
Office SharePoint Server 2007 provides many features that can help you integrate
and streamline your business processes. You can create browser-based forms and
gather data from organizations that do not use Microsoft Office InfoPath 2007.
Workflows can streamline the cost of coordinating common business processes,
such as project approval or document review, by managing and tracking the tasks
involved with those processes. For more information about business process and
forms, click the following links.
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Business intelligence
Business intelligence is the process of aggregating, storing, analyzing, and
reporting on business data to support informed business decisions. Office
SharePoint Server 2007 provides a number of tools that can help you extract data
from a variety of sources and present that data in ways that facilitate analysis
and decision making. For more information about business intelligence in
SharePoint Server, click the following links.