The whole really is greater than the sum of is parts!
So the curtain is well and truly up on the next version of SharePoint – now called Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 or MOSS!. Beta 2 is now out and I will be commenting on this over the next few months
So what’s this MOSS all about? – In a sentence it is now much more of a fully fledged .NET 2.0 platform than a single application, combining and extending features of “SharePoint Portal 2003” and “Content Management Server” along with workflow, Excel Services and much, much more.
Full feature lists are available from many sources (see www.microsoft.com/office/preview/servers/sharepointserver/ for example) so I don’t intend to produce a detailed one here but want to consider what it means to a business considering its strategy for better team working, document management, records management, compliance or simply for managing its public web site!
There are several main facets to the product which sit within a “portal” framework (I am not a fan of the ill-defined term “portal” and it is interesting that the word has now disappeared from the product name). These facets include;
Collaboration/Team working (Team sites, Wikis, Blogs RSS alerting etc)
Enterprise Content Management (Web, Documents and Records management)
BI/Business Data Catalogue (easy creation of KPI dashboards_
Forms (web based & rich client)
Search (much improved relevance & user interface)
People (Profiles, Social networking, etc)
This all sits on a foundation of SQL Server (either 2000 or 2005 versions) and Windows SharePoint Services v3.0 (WSS). The integration is supported by the familiar (but now enhanced) web parts for example you can now use the web parts created in Visual Studio .NET. Under pinning this is enhanced security and workflow.
Of course ifs not all good news, – for example the offline working story is still not great - it gets better with OutLook 12, but it still takes more forward planning than many will use. But then again there are 3rd party add-ons coming that will help to improve this – take a look at Digi-Links products (www.digi-link.com) for example. Also some of the richer Records Management features, especially around email, need Exchange 12 to get the most from them, which could be a road block in the short term. Duplications are not automatically controlled in the product - although at least the Search interface will collapse the display of duplicates - making things easier to read
So what will all these well integrated functions give you?
Well one of the key advantages is that this is all Microsoft based (not everyone’s taste – but it is for a lot!) and is well integrated and familiar (particularly to current SharePoint users). It means that if you want to exploit things like enterprise blogging, role based targeted business information, document and records management or even the content management of your extranet or public facing web site (with much improved CMS tools – which can also be used to make your Intranet much more appealing than was practical with SPS 2003) then you can use a single Microsoft framework. Of course in true Microsoft fashion these features may only meet the 80:20 rule – there are better point solutions for each of the facets – but the point is the integration and ease of use (especially with Office 12) –and importantly lower cost of ownership being on the one platform. Of course you need to be a Microsoft shop to really benefit – this is not for the Linux/Unix brigade and access to .NET 2.0 developers will help a lot too.
So where will it be used?
An obvious application is compliance and compliance related activities. Now there is much better document management, with proper versioning with major, minor versions – (echoes of SharePoint Portal Server 2001 here), undelete (hurray!), and practical workflow. Add to this the abilities to properly lock the documents and seal them into a company file plan and to access key business data via the Business Data Catalogue, all the key elements are there to meet compliance requirements.
A more common use may well be the automation of simple business processes, such as holiday requests and staff appraisals. Using the enhanced people profiles and “My Sites” will make this role based workflow much richer. Such processes exploit the workflow and the new web based InfoPath forms capabilities alongside the improved document management (for example document level security, and the powerful concept of “Content Types”). Workflow has effectively 3 levels of complexity in SharePoint 2007, the out of the box pre-built ones – e.g. circulate documents for feedback, the next level is the rule/wizard driven flows you can create with the new SharePoint Designer (one of the sons of FrontPage) and finally the full workflow, which can be built with a graphics designer in Visual Studio (so not for the layman!)
With the right levels of knowledge and imagination powerful yet simple flows can be built – and if that is not enough for you there are still 3rd party tools that will extend it further!
A leading Energy company has already committed to a strategy of using SharePoint 2007 and one its key drivers will be the way that the can automate a large percentage of its business processes using a single standard platform
What sort of impact will this all have?
Remember Lotus Notes (yes I know its still around)? That made a BIG impact on business because it enabled integrated email, workflow and forms so that power users could configure without heavy and expensive IT involvement. Now it is possible to match and even extend what could be done with Notes but now using SharePoint 2007 and a browser – even tighter integration (something Lotus never quite managed) will be possible with Office 12! So watch out for viral growth within large enterprises.