OK, so you're familiar with the virtual table?
Once you understand the sharing process, you'll have a better feeling for what's needed to enable it. We think you'll find it useful to have a single place to:
- Store shared information (which can be in the form of documents, contacts, tasks, pictures or any other type of file).
- Manage who works on what, see when they worked on it and keep track of all input.
- Create and keep track of tasks and things to-do, so everyone can be up-to-date on progress made.
In addition, this single place:
- Notifies everyone involved when changes are made.
- Is accessible directly from your favourite productivity suite, Microsoft Office.
- Can be customised to display information the way you want it to.
The "single place" we've been talking about is in the form of a SharePoint site. A SharePoint site is a web site which functions as a tool for collaboration, just like a telephone is a tool for communication, or a meeting is a tool for decision making. For example, a SharePoint site can help you:
- Coordinate projects, calendars, and schedules.
- Discuss ideas and review documents or proposals.
- Keep in touch with other people.
The easiest way to get started with SharePoint is with SharePoint To-Go, our take-away intranet in a pizza box (admittedly, a pizza box which packs a lot of punch and plenty of flavour).
Find out about SharePoint To-Go.
See a few practical scenarios.
What is SharePoint, technically?
SharePoint is a collaboration and information aggregation system built out of a set of core Windows Server components, integrated with the Microsoft Office System.
A SharePoint site is viewed in a browser, and delivered from a SharePoint (either WSS or MOSS) server, both of which use SQL Server (in either full or Express form) as the storage component.
Because SharePoint is tightly integrated into several other Microsoft products (including Office 2007), it offers a seamless working environment, with the ability to initiate document creation from within a site, to see presence information on team members (via Windows Live Messenger or Office Communicator), or to directly edit document or item metadata from within Word, Excel, Powerpoint or Visio. In addition, SharePoint links directly with Outlook, enabling you to view content offline, and keep it fully synchronised with the live version on your server.
