What Types of Sites Can I Create?
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. ...