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Unlocking the Power of Information Sharing

No matter the size of their organisation, customers are looking for better, more efficient ways to share information within their organisation and with outside key suppliers, partners, and clients.

Microsoft SharePoint presents a set of two new technologies from Microsoft that were developed to facilitate information sharing both within organisations and over the Internet, SharePoint Portal Server 2001 and SharePoint Team Services. The SharePoint technologies were developed as a direct result of customer feedback and research into information sharing practices within organisations. The research clearly demonstrated that no one solution could address the information-sharing needs of an entire organisation; small and ad hoc teams share information in very different ways than do large teams.

Small or ad hoc workgroups need informal means to work together on group deliverables, share documents, and communicate status with one another. These groups need to share information easily and effortlessly and SharePoint Team Services–based Web sites allow them to do that.
Large workgroups with structured processes need greater management over their information. They require features like formal publishing processes and the ability to search for and aggregate content from multiple data stores and file formats. For this scenario, SharePoint Portal Server 2001 is recommended.

When organisations offer SharePoint Team Services and SharePoint Portal Server 2001, they can address the information-sharing challenges for both the large and small groups within their enterprise. Together, the SharePoint technologies give users the ability to organise information, readily access that information, manage documents, and enable efficient collaboration—all in a familiar, browser-based and Microsoft Office–integrated environment.

SharePoint Team Services
The Smart Solution for Ad-Hoc Collaboration and Information Sharing

The SharePoint Team Services technology gives users the ability to quickly create and contribute to team or project-focused Web sites from within their browser or Office XP applications. With SharePoint Team Services, teams can create a quick Web site for sharing information such as documents, calendars, announcements, and other postings. And, Web sites created with SharePoint Team Services are easy to customise and manage—even for those who have never created a Web site before. SharePoint Team Services will initially be included with FrontPage version 2002 Web site creation and management tool, and those versions of Office XP that contain FrontPage. Microsoft plans to include the technology in upcoming releases of the Windows Server operating system and other Microsoft products.

Microsoft SharePoint Portal Server 2001
The Complete Portal Solution for Content Aggregation and Document Management

SharePoint Portal Server 2001 creates a portal Web site that allows users to share documents and search for information across the organisation and enterprise, including SharePoint Team Services–based Web sites—all within one extensible portal interface. And, SharePoint Portal Server includes robust document management features that allow companies to incorporate business processes into their portal solution. SharePoint Portal Server 2001 is a stand-alone server product and will be available in the first half of 2001.

End-to-End Solution
Small workgroups often get by using a combination of e-mail, file servers, and their own hard drives to store and share information. This type of information sharing has become the status quo for team information sharing because all members can participate easily and equally, but it does not create an organised record of a team's efforts. Using a SharePoint Team Services–based Web site gives teams an easy and informal way to centralise and share project and team information with team members and other interested parties within the organisation.

At an organisation or business-division level, however, information sharing requirements naturally become more sophisticated. Using SharePoint Portal Server 2001, organisations can aggregate content from across the orgranisation into a portal Web site so that their users can find the information they need to make better business decisions, regardless of where the data resides. This requires comprehensive search capabilities and the ability to manage large volumes of information across a great number of data stores. Business units also need advanced document management, including structured publishing processes to ensure the information they are sharing is complete and up to date.

Together SharePoint Team Services and SharePoint Portal Server 2001 can provide an end-to-end solution that addresses the information-sharing needs for organisations of all sizes. SharePoint Team Services enables an organisation to provide a solution for workgroup information sharing that requires little in the way of IT support, while SharePoint Portal Server allows enterprises to effectively aggregate corporate knowledge across file servers, databases, public folders, and Internet sites—as well as SharePoint Team Services–based Web sites.

Contact Us to see how Dejai and Microsoft SharePoint can improve your efficiency.