Beginning InfoPath™ 2003

17.1. What Are Windows SharePoint Services?

Quickly becoming a popular solution for creating collaborative Web sites, Windows SharePoint Services (WSS) enable companies to generate such sites rapidly and with a great deal of customization. At last count, Microsoft itself had over 80,000 internal SharePoint sites used for by various product teams. This is a great example of what is referred to as "eating your own dog food.

A collaborative Web site is a site that enables groups of people such as teams or departments in a company to collaborate among themselves in a number of different ways. SharePoint facilitates this by providing templates for various features that are necessary for collaboration.

17.1.1. Windows SharePoint Services Site Features

With WSS sites you can:

• Store working documents in centralized locations called document libraries, including using various Office solutions.

• Assign various users different roles, from a casual browser to an advanced author or administrator.

• Create and maintain various lists including but not limited to contacts, announcements, pictures, tasks, and meetings.

• Make discussion areas that can include general discussions, notifications, and surveys.

• Use Search capabilities within the site, subsites, and documents within the site.

• Use a programmable object model to create your own custom solutions.

WSS is very scalable, whether you are creating a site for a single group or multiple sites combined using a SharePoint portal. The sites also are highly ...