5060 A 01

Module 01: Introduction to the Windows
SharePoint Services 3.0 Platform

Table of Contents
Module Overview 1
Lesson 1: Overview of Windows SharePoint Services
3.0 3
Common Collaboration Challenges 4
Discussion: Common Solutions for Addressing
Collaboration Challenges 6
Reasons for Solution Failure 8
Business Needs That WSS Addresses 10
Lesson 2: Collaboration Technologies Provided by
Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 12
WSS Technologies That Support Document Storage
and Management 13
Demonstration: Exploring Document Storage and
Management 15
WSS Technologies That Support Collaboration 17
Demonstration: Exploring Collaboration 19
WSS Technologies That Support Information
Management and Communication 21
Demonstration: Exploring Information Management
and Communication 23
Lab: Identifying How WSS Helps Address Collaboration
Challenges 25
Exercise 1: Identifying the Collaboration Challenges
in Your Organization 26
Exercise 2: Identifying the Windows SharePoint
Services 3.0 Features That Help Address Collaboration
Challenges 27

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EXPIRES 2/22/2007

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Version 1.1

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Module 01: Introduction to the Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 Platform 1

Module Overview

Windows® SharePoint® Services (WSS) 3.0 is a set of components and services that is
included in Windows Vista™ Server. WSS 3.0 can also be downloaded and installed on
Windows Server 2003. WSS 2.0 is available for free download and is also shipped with
Windows Server 2003 R2.
You can use WSS 3.0 to create and manage enterprise-wide Web sites and documents.
You can also integrate WSS 3.0 with Microsoft® Office desktop applications such as
Word, Excel®, PowerPoint®, and Access®. Therefore, you can use WSS 3.0 to work
across applications seamlessly. WSS 3.0 is also a development platform that extends
itself to ASP.NET and provides features such as Web parts, custom lists, document
libraries, content types, custom workflows, and site definitions. These capabilities of
WSS 3.0 help you to share and exchange resources.
In this module, you will learn how the WSS 3.0 platform helps address collaboration
challenges.

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2 Module 01: Introduction to the Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 Platform

Objectives
After completing this module, you will be able to:
• Describe the role of WSS 3.0 in addressing various business needs.
• Describe the collaboration technologies that are provided by WSS 3.0.

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Lesson 1: Overview of Windows SharePoint Services
3.0

For most organizations, collaboration is a challenge. Organizations often adopt ad hoc
solutions to address this challenge. However, these solutions often fail because they are
either not implemented properly or completely. At the end of this lesson, you will have a
better understanding of organizational collaboration challenges and how WSS can help
solve them.

Objectives
After completing this lesson, you will be able to:
• Identify common collaboration challenges that organizations face.
• Identify common solutions to address workplace collaboration challenges.
• Identify why some solutions fail to address collaboration challenges.
• Explain the various business needs that WSS addresses.

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Common Collaboration Challenges

With organizations spread across the world, there is an enormous need for interaction
between employees, business partners, and customers. Employees need to share
information and data; discuss appointments or event information; brainstorm and discuss
ideas about a project; and add, assign, or track project-related activities. However, the
conventional methods of data storage, communication, and information exchange pose
several collaboration challenges.

Collaboration challenges
Some of the collaboration challenges that an organization can encounter are:
• Sharing data. The conventional method to share data is by using shared folders. The
two common problems in this method are:
• Locating data from shared folders. Over time, as the folder structure grows, it
becomes increasingly difficult to locate the desired data.
• Securing data in the shared folders. Different folders within a shared folder may
require different permissions. The folder structure may make it difficult to select
multiple folders at one time and apply permissions.

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• Collaborating through e-mail. Many organizations use e-mail to communicate and
exchange documents. Over time, the e-mail thread becomes bulky and unmanageable.
In addition, collaborating through e-mail is not secure.
• Losing corporate knowledge. When information is not secured properly, the
possibility of employees carrying it with them increases. This can lead to the
dissemination of corporate knowledge to competitors and can have serious business
implications.
• Controlling document versions. When multiple people review documents, the
probability of each person having a different version of the same document increases.
This can lead to the inability to track the latest version, which can result in
inconsistencies in documents.
• Removing unused content on intranets. In the absence of a monitoring system, it is
difficult to detect used and unused content on the sites. This leads to an accumulation
of unwanted content.
• Updating employees. Keeping the employees up to date on documentation changes or
organizational changes, such as events, is difficult. It is impractical to have users
regularly check all the Web sites and update themselves of the changes.

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Discussion: Common Solutions for Addressing Collaboration
Challenges

For an organization to operate efficiently, it must implement best practices, guidelines,
and tools that help employees, customers, and stakeholders to collaborate easily. In this
discussion, you will describe some of the solutions that your organization has
implemented to overcome collaboration challenges at the workplace.

Discussion questions
Read the following questions and discuss your answers with the class:
Q: How do you locate data stored in shared folders?
A: Some common solutions are as follows:
• You can access the folder hierarchy and search the documents.
• You can use shortcuts to identify the frequently used shared folders
• You can follow folder-naming conventions that clearly indicate the purpose of
the folder.

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Q: How do you secure shared folders?
A: Often, end users do not have the ability to secure shared folders. However, they may
create shared folders and not secure them correctly. Typically, an administrator ensures
that user permissions are diligently assigned and regularly audited.
Q: How do you ensure that collaborating over e-mail is secure?
A: Although e-mail communication is not very secure, you cannot avoid or suitably
substitute it. Therefore, organizations define some best practices and guidelines for its
employees. These guidelines ensure that people adhere to a set of preventive measures
and secure their e-mail transactions.
Q: How do you prevent losing corporate knowledge?
A: It is difficult to protect corporate knowledge. When employees leave, they can take
and misuse information about the organization. Therefore, organizations usually store
critical information on central servers that are protected with a series of firewalls and
credentials. In addition, organizations usually ensure that only authorized employees have
access to data, and the organizations also audit this access periodically.
Q: How do you ensure version control of documents?
A: Organizations use various proprietary applications to maintain version control. Some
of the commonly used applications include Visual SourceSafe® (VSS) and Source Depot.
Q: How do you delete unused Web content on intranets?
A: When you create a new Web page, the unused intranet content is typically overwritten.
Most organizations do not have a process to monitor unused content. Some organizations
have employees who monitor the intranet pages, ask the various teams for updated
content, and post the new content.
Q: How do you notify team members of any updates and modifications to documents?
A: In most organizations, team members are not notified when the content changes. In
some cases, team members learn about updates through newsletters that are manually
created and circulated.
Q: How do you ensure that the files you upload are not infected by virus?
A: Ensure that anti-virus software is installed and is regularly updated for new virus
signatures. Each time a file is uploaded, you must scan it for any virus infection.

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Reasons for Solution Failure

Usually, the solutions that the organizations implement fail to address the problems. For a
solution to be effective, it requires the synergy of the people to implement, support, and
use it.

Reasons for failure
The following are some of the reasons for the failure of solutions:
• Nonintegrated solutions create segmented information. Often, users need to connect
to various servers or sites to retrieve information and collaborate with their
coworkers. Nonintegrated systems hinder data transfer and are also time-consuming.
• Implementation of multiple custom applications requires a development team. This
requires in-house development teams or contract developers, which can be expensive,
complicated, and time-consuming proposition.
• Data consistency is difficult to maintain. With multiple solutions residing in different
locations, it is difficult to maintain data consistency. If an update is not replicated
across all the locations, it can result in loss of data integrity.

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• A secure mechanism is unavailable for sharing information. Solutions do not provide
secure and convenient mechanisms for sharing information with external
stakeholders. In such situations, the chances of information security being
compromised are very high because of the risk of data being attacked by hackers.
• Users are slow or refuse to adopt newer solutions. This is probably because the
solution is difficult to use, or the users are unable to see its business benefit. As a
result, they continue with their old practices such as distributing data through e-mail
messages or sharing their files through channels that are not secure. This can lead to
data loss or corruption.
• Cost of training information workers is often high. Therefore, organizations resort to
training smaller groups. These groups then need to transfer their knowledge to
everyone in the team. This often leads to gaps in knowledge transfer, which
subsequently leads to implementation gaps.

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Business Needs That WSS Addresses

After identifying the collaboration challenges and their solutions, the need for an
integrated solution is apparent. WSS provides a reliable and a highly scalable platform to
meet the growing demands of an organization.

Business needs that WSS addresses
WSS addresses the following business needs:
• Reduce e-mail transactions. With WSS, you can avoid sending documents by e-mail.
Features such as task tracking, issue tracking, workflow, meeting workspaces,
document workspaces, wikis, and blogs keep you updated and informed.
• Reduce exposure to litigation. For example, your legal department requires you to
maintain all versions of your legal documents. The WSS document library supports
versioning, which allows you to keep versions of your documents secure.
• Enable Web access to business applications. By implementing WSS, you can use
Web parts to embed information from other systems in one location. This saves the
user’s effort in exploring and extracting information from different systems.
• Provide a search tool. The search tool helps you find information quickly and
effectively.

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• Reduce complexity and cost of operation. WSS helps reduce the number of
applications and services to a single solution. This helps you to remain focused,
provides faster response, and reduces the need to manage and back up multiple
solutions.
• Provide backup and restore functionality. WSS reduces management overhead for
backup and retrieval jobs and therefore you do not require third-party solutions.
• Provides advanced security and administrative controls. WSS provides multiple
authentication methods and out-of-the-box security that is highly customizable.
Using administrative controls, you can ensure that WSS is easily deployed and
delegate many low-level administrative functions to users without compromising
security.

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Lesson 2: Collaboration Technologies Provided by
Windows SharePoint Services 3.0

The collaboration technologies that WSS 3.0 provides include document storage and
management, collaboration, information management, and communication. At the end of
the lesson, you will have a better understanding of how these features help you meet your
business needs.

Objectives
After completing this lesson, you will be able to:
• Explain the WSS 3.0 technologies that support document storage.
• Explain the WSS 3.0 technologies that support collaboration.
• Explain the WSS 3.0 technologies that support information management and
communication.

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WSS Technologies That Support Document Storage and
Management

WSS 3.0 enhances the conventional storage platforms. Document storage and
management capabilities of WSS 3.0 include creating, storing, tracking, maintaining
version control, deleting, and restoring documents.

Document storage and management features in WSS
The following are the document storage and management features in WSS:
• Document library. It is a repository within the site where you store and maintain
documents. You can customize the default Shared Documents library or create your
own library. You can further secure your libraries by applying custom permissions.
User permissions for document libraries are discussed in Module 2 of course 5060A:
Implementing Windows SharePoint Services 3.0.
• Content types. These are reusable collection of settings that you apply to your
documents and sites. Some of the content types include document, picture, and form.
For example, if you want to create a document that collects customer details, you
select the Form content type, which provides controls such as text boxes, check boxes,
and buttons.

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• Version control. This ensures document integrity and consistency. It is available to
all libraries and lists. Version control helps maintain a history of documents with
each change. This enables you to restore your documents to a previous state, if
required.
• Recycle Bin. It stores all the deleted items and provides a means to restore those that
were accidentally deleted. By default, the Recycle Bin can hold deleted items for 30
days.
• Workflow management. This tool helps you to conceptualize and design the
processes and information flow in your organization. Windows SharePoint®
Designer helps you to create custom workflows by dragging and dropping
components known as activities onto a workflow design surface. For example, you
need to design a workflow process for all documents that require approval from the
senior design engineer. You can use the SharePoint Designer to depict the process
flow.
• Picture library. It provides a simple way to share and organize digital pictures. For
example, WSS can help create a centralized picture library for the marketing team
members who can view, share, edit, and download corporate logos or other marketing
graphics.
• Tasks. These help you manage and monitor the activities in your organizations.
Parameters such as priority status, percentage completion, and alerts help you
determine the status of the activities.
• Task tracking. This helps you monitor tasks, such as creating or editing a document,
performed by users. Monitoring such tasks include tracking issues, contacts, and
documents.
• Issue list. It tracks enterprise-wide issues or problems. You can assign, prioritize, and
follow the progress of issues from start to finish.

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Demonstration: Exploring Document Storage and Management

In this demonstration, you will see how to edit and track a document; add a content type;
and edit a project task tracking and issue list in the document library. This demonstration
will also show how to view version history for a document and the steps to restore a
deleted document.

For more information: The detailed steps illustrated in this demonstration are
available in the Demonstration Steps document on the Student Materials CD.
Please refer to this document as necessary.

In this demonstration, you will see how to:
• Describe the WSS technologies that support document storage and management and
explain their purpose.

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Q: What are the advantages of using the WSS document library over file share?
A: The ability to search for your document, create custom views based on metadata on
the documents, and being able to create document workspaces around your documents
are all great reasons why one should use WSS document library. In addition, being able
to check document in and out for editing and document versioning are two other
advantages over a file share.
Q: Discuss if it gives you a false sense of security to know that files can be restored even
after you have deleted them.
A: Most probably, they will say yes. However, the Recycle Bin warns the user that items
will be deleted after 30 days.

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WSS Technologies That Support Collaboration

Collaboration helps internal employees, remote employees, business partners, and
customers to effectively:
• Share information and data.
• Share documents.
• Share calendar or event information.
• Brainstorm and discuss ideas about a project.
• Add, assign, and track tasks.

WSS 3.0 provides out-of-the-box collaboration technologies that make it simple for end
users to create and design Web sites with shared elements.

Collaboration features in WSS
The following are the collaboration features in WSS:
• Online presence. This allows real-time communication between team members. The
integration of WSS with Microsoft Active Directory®, Microsoft Exchange, and
Microsoft Windows Messenger helps extract user status and present it in the presence
Web part. Users can see whether coworkers are free, busy, or offline and can also
exchange messages. Other communication channels include e-mail, instant

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messaging (IM), and Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP). This helps users to
seamlessly operate between various communications media.
• Web parts. Many built-in Web parts are available in WSS. You can also download
these Web parts from the Internet. You can customize them to access multiple
applications from a single location.
• Discussion boards. This provides a platform for team members to converse. These
boards support features that help manage discussion threads and ensure that only
approved entries appear on the discussion boards.
• Issue tracking. This helps maintain a list of enterprise-wide issues and problems. This
list helps manage issues by helping you to assign, prioritize, and monitor their
progress.
• Contact lists. This helps you maintain an address book to store contact details such as
telephone numbers, e-mail addresses, and residential addresses of clients, partners,
and vendors. Team members can use this address book to quickly connect and
communicate with each other.
• Blogs. These are online journals where individuals document information on subjects
of personal interest. A blog is owned and maintained by its author, who is also known
as the blogger. The blog may also include links to other blogs and pictures. Readers
can post their comments on the blog and express their thoughts about the content
posted by the blogger. A blog can also be used by team members to share data among
themselves.
• Wikis. These are open sites that allow users to freely create and edit Web page
content by using any Web browser. A wiki evolves from the collaborative authoring
by its participants who contribute to its growth.
• Shared calendar. This provides team members the option to check each others’
schedules and engagements. The calendar stores a list of upcoming meetings,
deadlines, and other important events.
• Document workspace. This site helps you manage your documents with other
members of the site. Web parts such as Announcements, Shared Documents, Tasks,
Groups, and Links enable you to share, update, and inform users of the status and
development of the documents.
• Meeting workspace. This is a team site that contains information such as objectives,
agendas, attendees, tasks, and decisions about your meetings. There are several
Meeting Workspace templates available in WSS that help you plan, organize, and
track your meetings.
• Integration features. WSS supports integration with SharePoint Designer, Outlook;
Exchange Server, IRM, and Active Directory. WSS also supports offline items such
as documents, lists, calendars, and document libraries.

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Demonstration: Exploring Collaboration

In this demonstration, you will see how to use a blog and a wiki.


• Describe the WSS technologies that support collaboration and explain their purpose.

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Q: Are the users in your organization familiar with blogs? How are blogs useful for
them?
A: Blogs work very well for collaborative brainstorming to come up with new ideas.
Q: Why would users select wiki for open forums?
There are many benefits of using a wiki such as an open forum that allows users to freely
create and edit Web page content. A wiki allows team members to collaborate and
exchange information on specific subjects.

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WSS Technologies That Support Information Management and
Communication

Information is an asset, and managing it is critical for business success and continuity.
Some of the WSS features that help in information management include alerts, RSS feeds,
and search. An organization also needs a sound communication mechanism for the team
members to exchange and share information. WSS provides options such as
announcements, links, discussion boards, and surveys to facilitate communication.

Information management features in WSS
The following are the information management features in WSS:
• Alerts. Most often, users find it difficult to keep track of all updates in the sites and
documents because of the volume of the transactions involved. To solve this problem,
you can use WSS alerts. It notifies users through e-mail messages whenever
documents, lists, or items in a list are created, modified, or deleted. Only users who
sign up for alerts receive the alert messages. Users can configure alerts to be sent out
on a daily, weekly, or monthly basis.

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• RSS feeds. Another means to remain updated about changes in lists, libraries, and
blogs is to use RSS feeds. An RSS feed is XML content that contains a brief
description of the changed data with a link to the complete content from sources such
as blogs and libraries. The RSS feed continuously sends you the latest update. For
example, if your blog is RSS-enabled, the RSS feed will automatically capture all the
updates from your blog and feed them to those who have subscribed to it. For sites
such as blogs, RSS feed is embedded within the template. You can click the RSS
Feed button to view the latest feed. For any library or list, click the Actions button in
Open Menu and select View RSS Feed.
• Search. The search tool allows you to find content in the current WSS site collection.
The search includes all the list items and document libraries. The results appear on
the Search Results page. You can configure the WSS Search tool in the Central
Administration site to enable search for each list or library. However, WSS search is
a scaled down version of the Microsoft Office SharePoint Server (MOSS) search tool.
You can further configure search functionality to encompass all site collections by
using MOSS.

Communication features in WSS
The following are the communication features in WSS:
• Announcements. This Web part provides a place to share news, status, and other
pieces of information with the team members. Users with appropriate permissions
can post notifications and updates for the team members to view.
• Links. This Web part helps you provide links to other content. For example, if your
team members frequently access your organization’s healthcare provider’s Web site,
you can embed this link within the links Web part to provide easy access.
• Discussion boards. These provide a means for team members to discuss projects and
plans and share ideas on topics that interest them. Unlike announcements, discussion
boards allow a two-way communication.
• Surveys. You can use surveys to conduct polls. Team members can participate in it
and cast their opinion about the questions in the poll. The survey feature helps you to
quickly create questions and configure how users can specify their answers.

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Demonstration: Exploring Information Management and
Communication

In this demonstration, you will see how to use alerts, RSS feeds, search, discussion
boards, and surveys.


• Describe the WSS technologies that support information management and
communication and explain their purpose.

EXPIRES 2/22/2007


Q: How can users in your organization take advantage of alerts?
A: The users may use it to keep all the stakeholders updated of any changes that take
place to documents and sites within their scope of work.
Q: Explain how your organization is currently using RSS feeds.
A: There are many individuals and organizations that have deployed WSS. It is most
likely that they may be posting their opinions, articles, and whitepapers on their blogs or
other Web sites. If your RSS feed is subscribed to their blogs and sites, you will receive
the latest updates in one location; perhaps on your own blog.

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Lab: Identifying How WSS Helps Address
Collaboration Challenges

After completing this lab, you will be able to:
• Identify the collaboration challenges in your organization.
• Identify the Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 features that help address
collaboration challenges.

Estimated time to complete this lab: 45 minutes

Lab Setup
This is a paper-based lab.

Lab Scenario
No scenario for this lab.

EXPIRES 2/22/2007


Exercise 1: Identifying the Collaboration Challenges in Your
Organization
In this exercise, you will identify the collaboration challenges in your organization.

Identify the collaboration challenges.
The principal tasks for this exercise are as follows:
• List some scenarios that reflect common collaboration challenges you face in your
organization under each of the four categories in the Common Challenges worksheet.
A sample example for each category is displayed for you in the worksheet.
• Identify the collaboration challenges that are common to all organizations under each
of the four categories.

Common Challenges
Document Storage Information
Communication Collaboration
and Management Management
A team member missed All the team members The project manager is Engineers were unable
a technology update could not make it to a unable to extract to fix and revise their
session that a group of meeting because the relevant documents software because they
Subject Matter Experts project manager stored across either did not receive
conducted because missed sending mails applications for a prompt feedback on
there was no to a few people about project-analysis the bugs or the
announcement posted the meeting. meeting. feedback came in bulk
about it. as e-mail messages.

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Exercise 2: Identifying the Windows SharePoint Services 3.0
Features That Help Address Collaboration Challenges
In this exercise, you will identify the WSS 3.0 features that help address collaboration
challenges in organizations.

Identify the WSS 3.0 features that help address collaboration
challenges.
The principal tasks for this exercise are:
• Map each challenge identified in exercise 1 above with the appropriate feature listed
in the WSS Features and Challenges worksheet.
• Identify the challenges for which there are no applicable features available in the
WSS Features and Challenges worksheet.

WSS Features and Challenges
WSS Feature Challenge
Document Library
Content Types
Workflow Management
Picture Library
Tasks
Task Tracking
Issue Lists
Version Control
Recycle Bin
Online Presence
Web Parts
Discussion Boards
Issue Tracking
Contact Lists
Blogs
Wikis
Shared Calendars
Document Workspace
Meeting Workspace
Integration Features
Alerts
RSS Feeds
Search

EXPIRES 2/22/2007


WSS Feature Challenge
Announcements
Links
Surveys

EXPIRES 2/22/2007

5060 A 01

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