By Jeff Webb
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Table of Contents

Chapter 1: Using SharePoint

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SharePoint delivers office applications over the Web. An office application can be something as simple as a way to store and manage a library of documents within a small office, or as complex as a project management system used across continents.

In this chapter, I'll tell you how SharePoint saves you time (and money), and I'll walk you through creating three SharePoint applications that almost all businesses can use right away.

That was the question a clever woman asked me at one of the first training sessions I presented. I had to think a bit, but here's what I came up with—SharePoint helps you:

• Find the information you need quickly
• Link to that information to stay current
• Share the information you have with others
• Do all that through standard tools that folks already know

SharePoint does those things by creating a web site for your business that integrates with Microsoft Office applications: mainly, Word, Excel, and Outlook. From a user's perspective, it's just like using the Internet: click on links to go to a new page, search on a phrase to find something, and so on (see ). What's unique is the way that SharePoint integrates Office documents, task lists, calendars, email alerts, and other features in a way to simplify the flow of work through your business.

Figure : Using SharePoint is just like using the Internet

Instead of routing a document for approval via email, you post the document to SharePoint and collaborate with the reviewers interactively. Because the file is stored in a central location, everyone can see changes as they are made without resending the document each time it is changed; reviewers can discuss changes online, read one another's comments, and assign tasks and deadlines, and all changes are recorded in version history.

Document review is a simple but important example. and illustrate the differences between SharePoint and email solutions to a document review workflow.

Figure : Document review through email (lots of copies)

Figure : Document review through SharePoint (one shared copy)

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How Does This Help Me Do My Job?

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That was the question a clever woman asked me at one of the first training sessions I presented. I had to think a bit, but here's what I came up with—SharePoint helps you:

• Find the information you need quickly
• Link to that information to stay current
• Share the information you have with others
• Do all that through standard tools that folks already know

SharePoint does those things by creating a web site for your business that integrates with Microsoft Office applications: mainly, Word, Excel, and Outlook. From a user's perspective, it's just like using the Internet: click on links to go to a new page, search on a phrase to find something, and so on (see ). What's unique is the way that SharePoint integrates Office documents, task lists, calendars, email alerts, and other features in a way to simplify the flow of work through your business.

Figure : Using SharePoint is just like using the Internet

Instead of routing a document for approval via email, you post the document to SharePoint and collaborate with the reviewers interactively. Because the file is stored in a central location, everyone can see changes as they are made without resending the document each time it is changed; reviewers can discuss changes online, read one another's comments, and assign tasks and deadlines, and all changes are recorded in version history.

Document review is a simple but important example. and illustrate the differences between SharePoint and email solutions to a document review workflow.

Figure : Document review through email (lots of copies)

Figure : Document review through SharePoint (one shared copy)

The biggest difference between and is visibility. In the email workflow, reviewers don't see each other's comments or changes because those are stored away in each person's email. With SharePoint, comments and versions can be viewed by all reviewers. Additionally, you can include links to related topics, track tasks, and collect approvals in a structured way.

SharePoint is a big improvement over email solutions, but it comes with two conditions:

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What Types of Sites Can I Create?

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SharePoint comes with a set of templates that you can use to create web sites right out of the box, and many more are available as downloads or from third-party vendors. Before we tackle those templates, however, it helps to sort them into a few main types:

Publishing sites

Present corporate communications (newsletters, press releases, events, holidays, announcements, and so on) through one or more web pages. This category also includes communication managed by employees through blogs and Wikis, which may or may not fit in your corporate culture.

Document control

Manages version and change control for standard forms such as NDAs, vacation requests, and so forth. This category also includes repositories for executed agreements that can be scanned in as PDFs.

Workflow applications

Encompass any multistep task that follows a defined process. A common workflow example is Issue Tracking, where a problem is reported, assigned to a team member, resolved, approved, and then published to a knowledge base for future reference.

Dashboards

Are a type of management application where related tasks and reports are centralized for easy access.

Extranet portals

Provide a contact point among your business, customers, and partners. You can use these to provide external access to your corporate information in a limited and secure way.

Combinations of these types are common; when we talk about an application type, we're really identifying its primary purpose, not its sole use. organizes the built-in SharePoint templates by the type of site.

Table : Built-in site and list templates

Site type	Site templates	List templates
Publishing	Wiki Site Blog Meeting Workspace Collaboration Portal Publishing Portal News Site	Web Pages Announcements Wiki Page Library Discussion Board Survey Links
Document control	Document Workspace Document Center Records Center Report Center	Document Library Picture Library Translation Management Library Slide Library Languages and Translators
Workflow	Publishing Site with Workflow Decision Meeting Workspace	Form Library

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What Software Do I Need?

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"SharePoint" means different things to different people. The blame for that confusion lies squarely with Microsoft—it labeled these products with long phrases that almost no one has the time to fully decipher. is my attempt to inject some sense into the fray.

Table : What's in a name? "SharePoint" explained

Official name	Acronym	What it means
Microsoft SharePoint Team Services	STS	This is the first SharePoint. It's out-of-date but still in use in some places. STS is very different from later SharePoint versions, and I don't discuss it in this book.
Microsoft Windows SharePoint Services	WSS	The core services and templates used by SharePoint from 2003 on. WSS is part of Windows Server 2003 and is available as a free download. There are two versions of WSS in use: 2.0 and 3.0. In this book, I cover WSS 3.0.
Microsoft SharePoint Portal Server	SPS	The 2003 server product based on WSS 2.0. SPS includes additional templates and services and enables portal-wide searching. This product is sold through Microsoft Volume Licensing.
Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007	MOSS	The 2007 server product based on WSS 3.0. MOSS includes additional templates and services, enables portal-wide searching, and provides document control workflow templates. This product is sold through Microsoft Volume Licensing. MOSS is the server product I cover in this book.
Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 for Search	MOSS/S	This is a limited version of MOSS that omits the enterprise templates and services. This product is sold through Microsoft Volume Licensing.

If you are using WSS 2.0 and/or SPS, please see the previous edition of this book, Essential SharePoint (O'Reilly).

So what do you need? If you are starting fresh, it is really a choice between WSS version 3.0, MOSS, or MOSS/S:

• Install WSS 3.0 if you are cost-conscious. It provides a basic platform that can still do a lot. The major limitations of WSS are that it does not allow searching across multiple web sites and only includes a basic, three-state workflow template.
• Purchase MOSS if you are building an enterprise portal. In addition to search, full MOSS includes workflow templates for document control, action menus, records repository, personalized sites (My Sites), audiences (targeted content), listings (content expiration), and compliance policies. If you need those things, MOSS is well worth the cost.

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Parts of a Page

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SharePoint setup creates a new, mostly empty web site with a default home page that looks like or , depending on which product you installed.

Figure : Default WSS home page

Figure : Default MOSS home page

The parts of a page labeled in and are common throughout SharePoint:

Top link bar

Contains tabs that link to subsites within SharePoint. Use subsites to organize content and control who can see or change that content.

Quick Launch

Displays links to lists, libraries, and subsites.

Libraries

Collections of documents within a web site.

Lists

Are tables of data.

Recycle Bin

Allows you to restore content that was recently deleted — much the same as the Windows Recycle Bin.

Search

Is used to find information within a web site.

Advanced search

Finds information across web sites or by topic. This feature is only in MOSS.

Web parts

Display views of lists, libraries, or other content on a page.

The Basic installations of WSS and MOSS create the default top-level sites shown in and . Those two sites are very different, and it's a good idea to keep those default sites intact for a while so you can use them as a reference as you learn. For those reasons, it's a good idea to create a test site at this point.

To create a test site in WSS:

1. Click Site Actions → Create in the upper-right corner of the page.
2. Click Sites and Workspaces under the Web Pages heading on the right side of the page.
3. Enter a Title and URL for the site, select the Team Site template, and click Create. SharePoint creates the site and displays its home page.

To create a test site in MOSS:

1. Click Site Actions → Create Site in the upper-right corner of the page.
2. Enter a Title and URL for the site, select the Team Site template, and click Create. SharePoint creates the site and displays its home page. SharePoint creates the site and displays its home page.

You can use this test site to try the procedures in this chapter and to experiment on your own. If you mess up and want to start over, simply delete the site and create a new one.

To delete the test site:

1. On the site's home page, click Site Actions → Site Settings.

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Creating Sites

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Sites group related lists and libraries. In practice, most sites are organized by function or by department. For example, you might have a Legal Helpdesk site for questions and contract requests, and a Legal Department site for contract templates, executed contracts, and other things used internally by the Legal department.

Use sites to control access. The main reason to create two separate sites in the preceding example is access: all employees should be able to ask legal questions, but only the Legal department should draft new contracts.

To create a new site:

1. Click Site Actions → Create in the upper-right corner of a page.
2. Click on Sites and Workspaces under the Web Pages heading on the right side of the Create page. SharePoint displays the New SharePoint Site page (see ).
3. Fill out the web page and select a template for the site. Templates determine what lists and libraries are included automatically in the new site. There are instructions on the page for the other items you must complete.
4. Click Create when done. SharePoint creates the site and displays its home page.

On some pages in MOSS, click Site Actions → Create Site instead in step 1 and go directly to step 3.

Figure : Creating a new site

Sites can inherit permissions from their parent site, or they can use unique permissions. It is usually a good idea to create new sites with inherited permissions, and then to change that setting once the site is created. That copies in the users from the parent site; you can then delete unneeded users, which is easier than adding users from scratch.

To change from inherited permissions to unique permissions:

1. Click Site Actions → Site Settings in the upper-right corner of a page.
2. Click Advanced permission under the Users and Permissions heading on the left side of the Site Settings page. SharePoint displays the Permissions page.
3. Click Actions → Edit Permissions on the toolbar. SharePoint warns you before creating unique permissions. Click OK to confirm.

Once a site has unique permissions, the users and groups that have access to the site appear with checkboxes next to them as shown in .

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Putting SharePoint to Work

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If you followed along carefully this far, you should now know how to:

• Customize pages by adding or changing web parts
• Add content to lists and libraries
• Create sites
• Control who can see and use a site

Congratulations! That's about 90 percent of what most folks need to know about using SharePoint. Of course you are more than just a user, so I'll go on for a few more chapters. Right now, I'd like to put what you've learned to work by walking you through "the big three" applications for SharePoint. Specifically, I want to show you how to:

• Create a company-wide phone list
• Replace shared drives
• Control document revisions

The following tutorial sections walk you through creating those applications. Please follow along using SharePoint as the tutorials teach you the core skills you will use when creating many different types of applications.

You will be prompted for your username and password at various times in the following procedures. In each case, enter the user name and password you use to sign on to your network (usually you can substitute your full email name and password). In , I'll show you how to use your network credentials automatically.

Many companies still distribute printed employee phone lists. Those go out-of-date quickly and are a pain to keep up-to-date—this is a perfect first application for SharePoint! Creating the phone list involves these major tasks:

• Create a list based on the Contacts template.
• Customize the list to add a Departments column.
• Create a new view to simplify data entry.
• Place the list on the home page as a web part.

SharePoint comes with a set of predefined list templates, and the Contacts template most closely fits the needs of a company phone list. By basing our new list on an existing template, we save the effort of creating columns for name, phone number, and so on.

To create the phone list:

1. Navigate to the top-level web site in SharePoint.
2. In WSS, click Site Actions → Create in the upper-right corner of a page. In MOSS, click Site Actions → View All Site Content → Create.
3. Click Contacts under the Communications heading on the left of the Create page. SharePoint displays the New page.

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Best Practices

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By now, you should have a good idea of what SharePoint can do for you and should be in the process of evaluating which edition to acquire. The following practices should guide you as you move forward:

• Set up a staging server or virtual machine for evaluation. This is a valuable way to try out different configurations before installing in production, and the evaluation environment can be used for web part development later.
• Think about your existing work processes and how using SharePoint may change them. SharePoint can replace email as a workflow tool. Some subtle things, like document-naming conventions, may also change since SharePoint includes version control.
• If you are considering MOSS, verify that management wants the personalization features. If the idea of employee My Sites and blogs gives them the willies, plan on disabling My Sites. Read for more information on personalization features, why they are useful, and how to control them.
• Try to build instructions into your SharePoint sites. SharePoint is easy to use, but the applications you create with it may need explaining, especially where they replace existing procedures. The SharePoint setup procedure uses a task list to tell you the steps you need to perform after installation—it's a good example of a self-documenting approach.
• Plan to deliver high-value, low-effort projects first. SharePoint is uniquely suited for Agile development: you can get applications in users' hands quickly and adjust as needs evolve.
• Add users to web sites through Active Directory security groups wherever possible. That way, you won't need to edit SharePoint security settings as new employees start, leave, or transfer.
• Open libraries in Window Explorer to upload groups of files quickly.
• Use the datasheet view to add or edit list items in bulk.

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Chapter 2: Word, Excel, and Outlook

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SharePoint works closely with Microsoft Word, Excel, and Outlook. In this chapter, I show you how to use SharePoint through those client applications. Both you and your users need to know these things, so you might consider using this chapter as a starting point for your internal user training.

SharePoint works best with Office 2003 and 2007, so I feature those product versions here. There is a big difference between the 2003 and 2007 Office versions: Office 2007 replaces the menus that most of us know with the Ribbon. The Office Ribbon is a tabbed set of toolbars with commands displayed as icons and text.

You can use SharePoint 2007 with Office 2003 if your organization isn't ready for Office 2007. Office 2007 offers some improved integration with SharePoint, but it is not a requirement. In this chapter, I note where features are specific to Office 2007.

Before you can fully use SharePoint with Office, you must change the security settings on your computer so that the SharePoint domain is trusted. If your computer is part of a domain, you'll probably also want to enable automatic logon so that SharePoint will automatically use your network credentials rather than prompting you for your user name and password. To make those changes:

1. Start Internet Explorer and choose Tools → Internet Options → Security → Trusted Sites → Sites. Internet Explorer displays a list of the trusted sites for your computer.
2. Type the address of your SharePoint site and click Add → OK. Use an asterisk to include subdomains. For example *.somecompany.com includes intranet.somecompany.com, extranet.somecompany.com, www.somecompany.com, and so on.
3. Click Custom Level, scroll to the bottom of the page, and select "Automatic logon with current user name and password." Click OK → OK to close the dialog box.

illustrates the security settings. Step 3 prevents SharePoint from prompting you for your user name and password. Instead, SharePoint uses your network identity. These changes can be made for all users through the group policy settings in Active Directory by your system administrator.

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Setting Client Security

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Before you can fully use SharePoint with Office, you must change the security settings on your computer so that the SharePoint domain is trusted. If your computer is part of a domain, you'll probably also want to enable automatic logon so that SharePoint will automatically use your network credentials rather than prompting you for your user name and password. To make those changes:

1. Start Internet Explorer and choose Tools → Internet Options → Security → Trusted Sites → Sites. Internet Explorer displays a list of the trusted sites for your computer.
2. Type the address of your SharePoint site and click Add → OK. Use an asterisk to include subdomains. For example *.somecompany.com includes intranet.somecompany.com, extranet.somecompany.com, www.somecompany.com, and so on.
3. Click Custom Level, scroll to the bottom of the page, and select "Automatic logon with current user name and password." Click OK → OK to close the dialog box.

illustrates the security settings. Step 3 prevents SharePoint from prompting you for your user name and password. Instead, SharePoint uses your network identity. These changes can be made for all users through the group policy settings in Active Directory by your system administrator.

Figure : Setting your computer's security for SharePoint

Your system administrator may have made these changes for you already, but you need to be aware of these settings if you plan to access SharePoint from home. You won't be able to create workspaces, and you will be repeatedly prompted for your user name and password unless you make the preceding changes.

Whenever you open an Office document from SharePoint, Internet Explorer warns you that "Some files can harm your computer. If the file looks suspicious or you do not fully trust the source, do not open the file." That warning is intended to prevent you from accidentally opening documents that contain viruses written as macros. Most folks learn to ignore the warning, but you can turn it off by performing these tasks:

• Verify that Office macro security settings are set to prevent untrusted macros from running.

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Editing, Saving, and Sharing Documents

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To open a Microsoft Office document from SharePoint in read-only mode, click on the file. To open an Office document in Edit mode, click Edit in the document's Edit menu. The Edit menu is the drop-down list shown in that appears when you click the triangle to the right of the filename.

Figure : Using the SharePoint Edit menu to open documents

Saving an open document saves your changes back to SharePoint. To see how that works, click Save As and save a copy of the document to SharePoint with a new name as shown in .

While you have a document open for editing, no one else can edit it. If someone tries, Office displays a dialog box giving three choices as shown in .

The last option in is the most useful one: it opens the file in read-only mode and then lets you switch to Edit mode when the other user closes the file.

Figure : Office applications can save to libraries as if they were regular file folders

Figure : Someone else has the file open for editing

When working with documents from SharePoint, Office enables the Document Management task pane (see ), which lists information about the documents in the library and provides quick access to alerts, document versions, and other features.

To display the Document Management task pane in Office 2007:

• Open an Office document from SharePoint and click the Office button → Server → Document Management Information.

To display the equivalent task pane in Office 2003, click Tools → Shared Workspace. (The task pane is named "Shared Workspace" in Office 2003.)

Figure : The Document Management task pane

Each of the icons at the top of the task pane maps to an equivalent task that you can perform from the SharePoint library. describes the icons and lists the tasks you can perform with them.

Table : Task pane buttons

Office 2007	Office 2003	Name	Use to
		Status	Check whether or not the open document is up-to-date.
		Members	View or add team members to the SharePoint site that contains the document.
		Tasks	View or assign tasks for members of the SharePoint site that contains the document.

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Editing Lists in Excel

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The preceding sections apply equally to Word, Excel, and PowerPoint. Each of those applications includes the Document Management task pane, and supports check out and working offline. The rest of this chapter is devoted to the unique SharePoint features offered by individual Office applications. The first, and most important, is the lists feature offered in Excel.

In Excel, lists are ranges of cells that can easily be sorted, filtered, or shared. Lists have these advantages over regular ranges of cells:

• Lists automatically add column headers to the range.
• XML data can be imported directly into a list.
• Excel can automatically check the data type of list entries as they are made.
• Lists can be shared and synchronized with SharePoint.

That last item is the key advantage: lists are a way to share tables of data. Those tables can be edited and viewed by multiple people at the same time, much the way that a database works; but unlike a database, lists are very easy to create and change.

There are a lot of different ways to create lists in SharePoint. In fact, since SharePoint uses lists everywhere, most tasks involve either creating lists or adding new items to lists.

To view a list in Excel:

1. Display the list in the browser. For example, navigate to the Phone List sample you created in .
2. Click Actions → Export to Spreadsheet on the list toolbar as shown in . SharePoint creates an Excel query and displays the File Download dialog box.
3. Click Open to display the query results in Excel. Excel displays a security warning.
4. Click Enable to run the query. Excel creates a new workbook and inserts the list as shown in .

In Excel 2003, click Open instead of Enable in step 4. The appearance of the resulting list is also somewhat different.

Figure : Exporting the Phone List to Excel

Figure : Viewing the Phone List sample in Excel

Why view a list in Excel? SharePoint lets you sort and filter lists, but it won't let you analyze data, chart, or print the way that Excel can. You can also use Excel to bring data together from a number of sources: SharePoint, databases, web pages, host systems, and so on. You can also use Excel to move data from a source into SharePoint.

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Viewing SharePoint Calendars from Outlook

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A SharePoint calendar is a special type of list that displays events in a calendar view as shown in . SharePoint calendars can be viewed from Outlook much like Exchange shared calendars. Also, you can export individual events from a SharePoint calendar into your personal Outlook calendar so you can get reminders and plan your time while offline.

Figure : Use SharePoint calendars to view events

The Team Sites and Document Workspace site templates include calendars, but other site templates do not. To add a calendar to a site:

1. From SharePoint, click Site Actions → Create, and click the Calendar link under the Tracking heading in the middle of the page. SharePoint displays the New page.
2. Name the list and click Create. SharePoint creates a new calendar within the site.

To view a SharePoint calendar in Outlook:

1. Display the calendar in SharePoint and click Actions → Connect to Outlook on the list toolbar. Outlook displays a warning that SharePoint Services is adding a folder to Outlook.
2. Click Yes to allow SharePoint to add the folder. Outlook adds the SharePoint calendar under the Other Calendars heading in the Navigation Pane.

SharePoint calendars are read-only in Outlook, so you can't add events from there. To add an event to the calendar:

1. Display the calendar in SharePoint and click New on the list toolbar.
2. SharePoint displays the new item page. Fill out the fields and click OK. SharePoint adds the event to the calendar.

If you want to receive a reminder for an event, export the event from a SharePoint into your personal Outlook calendar. To do that:

1. Click on the event in the SharePoint calendar to view the event details.
2. Click Export Event on the toolbar. SharePoint displays a File Download dialog box.
3. Click Open to open the event in Outlook. Outlook displays the Appointment details dialog box.
4. Select Reminder and click OK to add the appointment to your personal Outlook calendar.

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Organizing Meetings from Outlook

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SharePoint provides a special type of site called a meeting workspace, which can be created from meeting requests sent from Outlook. Meeting workspaces are meant to prepare attendees by publishing the objectives and agenda before a meeting is held, and they help record decisions and related documents after the meeting takes place.

Workspaces are used to organize the meeting process like this:

1. Attendees receive a meeting request in Outlook that links to the SharePoint workspace.
2. Attendees can click on the link to see details about the meeting and add items as needed.
3. Optionally, someone can open the workspace and make notes during the meeting.
4. Later, the person who called the meeting can go to the workspace to record conclusions, assign follow-up tasks, or add key documents.

Meeting workspaces aren't online meeting places, but they can be used in conjunction with Microsoft Live Meeting or other online meeting services.

The following sections show you how to create SharePoint meeting workspaces from Outlook.

To create a meeting workspace from Outlook:

1. Select the Calendar in the Navigation pane to choose a date and time for the meeting.
2. Choose Action → New Meeting Request. Outlook displays the Meeting Request dialog box.
3. Complete the fields on the dialog box and click Meeting Workspace. Outlook displays a workspace task pane in the dialog box as shown in .
4. Click Create. Outlook creates a Meeting Workspace for the meeting and adds a link to the workspace in the dialog box.
5. Click the link and add objectives and agenda items to the workspace as shown in .
6. Return to Outlook and click Send to close the dialog box and send the meeting request. The request includes a link to the meeting workspace so attendees can review the objectives, agenda, and add documents before attending.

Figure : Creating a meeting workspace

Figure : Adding objectives and agenda items for the meeting

The workspace in is for a meeting that happens once. Recurring meetings create a different type of workspace called a meeting series. To create a meeting series from Outlook:

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Sharing Contacts with Outlook

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Outlook provides a set of tools for viewing and maintaining the list of contacts in your address book. If your company uses Exchange Server, you may already use a public list of contacts from Outlook to contact someone in your organization. SharePoint provides another way to share contacts from your address book with others. Rather than providing a single, public list containing everyone's information, SharePoint is focused more on team-based or project-based lists of contacts.

For example, a Team Site might include everyone on the team in the contact list. Later, as new members join and lines of communication are established across groups, the contact list grows. In this case, the contact list is a way to share the collected knowledge of who the key people are and how to get in touch with them.

For a project site or a document workspace, the contact list obviously includes everyone with responsibilities on the project. Outside resources, such as sales people or customers, would be added as they become available.

Of course, you can also use SharePoint to share a general, company-wide list of contacts. One advantage of that approach is that SharePoint contacts are easily shared over the Internet.

Finally, there's nothing stopping you from using all these approaches to help organize contacts by company, team, and project.

It's not a great idea to add the same contact to multiple lists. If the contact's information changes, it then has to be changed in all the lists. Instead, it's a good idea to follow rules about where you store contacts and how you use them. Here are some suggestions:

• Decide whether you are going to use SharePoint or Exchange Server to share company-wide contacts.
• If using SharePoint for company-wide contacts, organize those contacts into one or more lists at the top-level site.
• Restrict who can add or change contacts in the top-level SharePoint lists.
• Use project or workspace contact lists as temporary resources that have a limited lifetime.

A company might provide Employee, Customer, and Vendor contact lists in its top-level site that can't be edited by most members, but then allow team members to create their own ad hoc contact lists in team sites and workspaces. Although the ad hoc lists might become out-of-date, they allow members to organize the contacts that the team needs and perhaps include contacts that don't belong in the company-wide lists.

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Best Practices

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You should now be comfortable opening and editing documents from SharePoint with Office 2003 or Office 2007. You should understand how to check files in and out, work offline, and edit lists in Excel. The following practices should guide you as you move forward:

• Choose between Office 2003 and 2007. Trying to support both versions within a company is difficult.
• When transitioning between Office versions, set a timeline for the change and convert one department at a time.
• Ask your system administrator to add SharePoint domains to the list of trusted sites and enable automatic logon for all users through a group policy setting.
• The default library versioning settings apply very loose control such as those you might use on a small team project. For more complete document control, change the library's settings to require check out and keep version history.
• Use Excel to quickly import data into SharePoint lists from other systems.
• Use SharePoint calendars to track events for a team or project. Export an event to your personal Outlook calendar to receive a reminder for that event.

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Chapter 3: Creating Sites

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SharePoint sites organize and control access to information. You create a new site when access needs are unique or when the purpose of the site is unique. For example:

• Create sites for each department in your organization so department members can add and edit documents, but others can't (unique access).
• Create a general Helpdesk site where employees can ask questions of any department (unique purpose).

In , I showed you how to create a simple document control site for a Legal department. In this chapter, I'll tell you how to organize your sites, control access, customize their appearance, and create custom site templates.

Sites are organized hierarchically within SharePoint sort of like the folders in a conventional filesystem, only instead of drives, folders, and subfolders, SharePoint uses web applications, site collections, and subsites:

Web application

A web site that has been extended using the SharePoint administration tools. Each web application has a unique address—usually a subdomain of your organization's web address such as http://intranet.something.com.

Site collection

A group of sites that all exist under a top-level site. Web applications usually have several top-level sites: one at the root and others under the /sites and /personal paths.

Subsite

A site beneath the top-level site in a site collection.

illustrates a typical configuration with public, internal, and partner web applications.

Figure : How SharePoint organizes sites

The /root and /sites paths are the default locations for site collections when you install SharePoint; the /personal path is for employee sites (My Sites), which is a feature that comes with MOSS.

When choosing a location for a site, consider these factors:

• Who needs access? Top-level sites have the widest audience; subsites are typically more restricted.
• How will users find the site? It's easiest to create navigation links that follow the physical structure, so put the most widely used sites just under the root.
• Is it a department site? It's generally best to create a site collection for each department under the

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Choosing a Location and Template

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Sites are organized hierarchically within SharePoint sort of like the folders in a conventional filesystem, only instead of drives, folders, and subfolders, SharePoint uses web applications, site collections, and subsites:

Web application

A web site that has been extended using the SharePoint administration tools. Each web application has a unique address—usually a subdomain of your organization's web address such as http://intranet.something.com.

Site collection

A group of sites that all exist under a top-level site. Web applications usually have several top-level sites: one at the root and others under the /sites and /personal paths.

Subsite

A site beneath the top-level site in a site collection.

illustrates a typical configuration with public, internal, and partner web applications.

Figure : How SharePoint organizes sites

The /root and /sites paths are the default locations for site collections when you install SharePoint; the /personal path is for employee sites (My Sites), which is a feature that comes with MOSS.

When choosing a location for a site, consider these factors:

• Who needs access? Top-level sites have the widest audience; subsites are typically more restricted.
• How will users find the site? It's easiest to create navigation links that follow the physical structure, so put the most widely used sites just under the root.
• Is it a department site? It's generally best to create a site collection for each department under the /sites path.

For example, illustrates how you might organize a company intranet.

Figure : Organizing subsites and site collections

In , the subsites under http://intranet.something.com are available to everyone in the organization. Each department has its own site collection with subsites as needed, and each employee has his or her own site collection.

The /sites and /personal paths are used to organize site collections; they aren't sites themselves. If you navigate tohttp://intranet.something.com/sites, you'll get a Not Found error.

Create a site collection if you expect there to be a lot of subsites or a lot of content beneath a level. In , I show departments as their own site collections because each department may have many subsites and may include a large amount of content. Using site collections there allows me to move a department to its own database in the future if needed. It also allows me to assign ownership to someone within the department.

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Customizing Site Navigation

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There are three navigation web parts on the home page () that you can customize:

• The link bar web part displays tabs at the top of the page that link to other sites.
• The Quick Launch web part displays links to lists and libraries within the current site on the left side of the page.
• The Tree View web part provides a hierarchical alternative to the Quick Launch.

The following sections tell you how to change to those web parts to make it easier to find key information.

The tabs that appear in the top link bar on the home page usually correspond to the top-level web sites within a site collection. Those tabs are inherited from the parent site by default. To change the tabs on the link bar:

1. Navigate to the home page and click Site Actions → Site Settings, and then click "Top link bar" under the Look and Feel heading. SharePoint displays the Top Link Bar page.
2. Click Stop Inheriting Links on the toolbar. SharePoint changes the toolbar as shown in .
3. Click New Link to add a new tab, or click the Edit icon to change an existing link.

To restore the inherited tabs, click "Use Links from Parent."

Figure : The navigation web parts on the home page

Figure : Changing the link bar tabs

The Quick Launch web part displays links to the lists and libraries in a site on the left side of the home page. When you create a new list or library, you can choose whether or not it should appear in Quick Launch. To change those links:

1. Navigate to the home page and click Site Actions → Site Settings, and then click Quick Launch under the Look and Feel heading. SharePoint displays the Quick Launch page (see ).
2. Use the toolbar to create new links or headings or click on the Edit icon to change or delete an existing link.

Figure : Changing the Quick Launch links

MOSS manages the link bar and Quick Launch tabs using a single Site Navigation Settings page () rather than the Top Link Bar and Quick Launch pages found in WSS.

MOSS refers to top link bar tabs as Global Navigation, and Quick Launch links as Current Navigation. To manually change the link bar tabs and Quick Launch links:

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Summarizing Content with Web Parts

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The home page is the first page users see, and it's often the only page they need if you design it correctly. Even though a site may include many lists and libraries representing hundreds or even thousands of documents, you can effectively summarize that content by displaying web parts that show only the most relevant content on the site's home page.

In , I showed you how every list and library can be displayed as a web part. You can use that technique to summarize recent changes on the home page of any site. For example, to feature the 10 newest documents on a home page, complete these tasks:

• Add the library as a web part to the home page.
• Modify the view displayed in the web part to sort documents by the Created column.
• Limit the number of items to display in the view to 10.

To add the library as a web part:

1. Navigate to the home page and click Site Actions → Edit Page. SharePoint changes the page to Edit mode.
2. Click Add a Web Part on the page in the location where you want to add the new library summary. SharePoint displays the Add Web Parts page.
3. Select the library to display and click Add. SharePoint adds the library as a web part and displays the web part properties in the task pane on the right.

To modify the view displayed in the web part:

1. Click "Edit the current view" in the web part properties. SharePoint displays the Edit View page.
2. Scroll halfway down the page to the Sort section and choose "First sort by the column Created (descending order)."

To limit the number of items displayed in the view:

1. Scroll to the end of the page, expand the Item Limit section, and change the Number of items to display to 10.
2. Select "Display items in batches of the specified size" and click OK.

Now, the home page will include a list of the 10 most recent documents. You can use this technique to feature key information from any list or library by changing the view displayed in the web part. For more information on creating custom views, see .

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Adding Other Pages

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In practice, I find that many users have a hard time navigating among lists and libraries—once they leave the home page, they are easily lost. You can make life easier for those folks by creating additional pages that appear as tabs on the home page, and then add web parts to those pages that summarize key lists and libraries.

The Multipage Meeting Workspace is a simple example of this design: it includes a home page, plus three other pages that appear as tabs next to the Home tab as shown in . All of the built-in meeting site templates include this feature, though only the multipage template includes sample pages.

Figure : Meeting site templates include tabbed pages

To use this tabbed approach:

1. Create a new site based on any of the meeting templates. I'll use the Blank Meeting Workspace site template in this example, and I'll name the site "Construction Project."
2. Create the lists and libraries that your site will use. In this example, I've created a Drawings library, a Tasks list, and a Calendar.
3. On the home page, click Site Actions → Add Pages. SharePoint displays the Add Page task pane.
4. Name the first page "Drawings" and click OK. SharePoint displays the new page in Edit mode.
5. Drag the Drawings library web part from the task pane onto the Left web part zone. SharePoint adds the library as a web part on the page.
6. Repeat steps 4 and 5, naming the page "Tasks" and dragging the Tasks web part onto the page.
7. Repeat steps 4 and 5, naming the page "Calendar" and dragging the Calendar web part onto the page.
8. Click Exit Edit Mode in the upper-right corner of the page to view the result (shown in ).

Figure : Using tabbed pages to display lists and libraries to create a Construction Project site

To delete a page:

1. On the home page, c