How MOSS Can Help Improve Business Processes

As one of the most widely used document collaboration tools, it is no wonder organizations want to understand how to build better business processes in SharePoint. Of course, not all documents are electronic. Organizations still deal with a vast amount of paper-based information. So you look for document imaging software to help you get those documents into SharePoint easily. But once they are there, how can you leverage the SharePoint environment to improve your business processes?

Business and IT professionals are increasingly looking at how to leverage their existing investment and knowledgebase in Microsoft SharePoint to achieve success with business process management (BPM) initiatives.

Mauro Cardarelli, director of Portals and Collaboration at Vitale Caturano, took the time to address questions on strategies for linking document scanning with SharePoint to eliminate business process bottlenecks. (Editor Note: This interview was conducted by eCopy)

By Barb Mosher | Feb 23, 2009

This article was published on :

http://www.cmswire.com/cms/enterprise-cms/how-moss-can-help-improve-business-processes-003996.php

For latest news visit on :
http://www.microsoft.com/sharepoint/news.mspx

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Microsoft SharePoint Sales To Hit $1 Billion In 2008

SharePoint is a collection of server-side tools and applications that lets businesses make documents and other key data available through a single online portal.

With more companies looking to make critical information easily accessible to and shareable with employees, Microsoft (NSDQ: MSFT) said Monday that it expects total sales of its SharePoint online collaboration software will surpass the $1 billion mark in 2008.

"It's a significant number," said Microsoft chairman Bill Gates, delivering a keynote address Monday in Seattle at the company's Office SharePoint Conference 2008. SharePoint is "based on a vision of letting workers share information in a better way," Gates added.

SharePoint is a collection of server-side tools and applications that allows businesses to make documents and other key data available through a single online portal. Microsoft launched the most recent version, Office SharePoint Server 2007, last year. With that release, the company added a number of new content management and collaboration features to the offering.

"You want to create a product that you can assume everyone in your company has access to," Gates said.

Microsoft said it has now sold more than 100 million SharePoint licenses since launching the product in 2001. Microsoft sold 75 million through the end of 2005 and 25 million more in the last two years -- meaning the suite has enjoyed a compound growth rate in license sales of about 15% over the past two years.

Gates said businesses' interest in, and willingness to buy, collaboration tools has been aided by the availability of cheap processing, storage, and bandwidth that let users economically post huge amounts of information -- such as training videos -- to their intranets. One benefit: It makes worker education less expensive and more efficient. "Only take the part that requires people meeting face to face and working as a group as the part you invest the offsite hours," said Gates.

Microsoft said it now has 2,250 certified SharePoint integration partners and noted that the software is used in a diverse range of environments -- from the Eureka, Mo., fire department to multinational corporations like Monsanto.

SharePoint, however, isn't without its competitors. Last week, Microsoft archrival Google added Google Sites to its Google Apps suite of free and low-cost hosted services. Google Sites is designed to give businesses a quick and easy way to build collaborative intranets. At SharePoint 2008, Gates couldn't resist taking a swipe at his competitor. "In terms of Google, not to overstate it, but they don't really understand the special needs of business," said Gates.

Also Monday, Microsoft unveiled Search Server 2008, a free, downloadable enterprise search product that integrates with SharePoint.

It also announced the availability of Silverlight Blueprint for SharePoint. The offering is designed to make it easier for SharePoint users to add multimedia to their pages using Microsoft's Silverlight Web presentation technology.

For More information : http://www.informationweek.com/news/internet/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=206901417

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Popular tools for sharepoint

SharePoint 2007 Tools Collection v1

A while ago - I posted about My Favourite SharePoint 2007 tools ... since then a lot of new cool exciting stuff has come out... So here's an update:

• SharePoint Tips Utility Pack - package of SharePoint 2007 utilities for administrators and developers.
• Floating ToolPane for SharePoint 2007
• SharePoint 2007 RSS Aggregation web part
• Dan and Teds web part solution package template
• STP Language converter - SharePoint Site Template Language Converter enables you to convert an Site Template that was created in one language to another language
• SharePoint Frantic Redirection webpart - Allows you to redirect users to a specific site depending on a specific user profile property.
• Microsoft IT Delete Capture 1.0 - http://www.codeplex.com/governance
• Chatterbox - persistent chat session for SharePoint Server 2007
• Generic SharePoint 2007 solution installer - allows you to install and deploy SharePoint solution files using a nice UI.
• SPCAMLViewer - Uses SharePoint webservices to provide inside into the CAML used in SharePoint lists and views . You migth also want to take a look at similar tool CAML Builder.
• Internet Explorer Developer Toolbar - provides a variety of tools for creating, understanding and troubleshooting web pages. (Final Release)
• Fiddler HTTP Debugger - Fiddler is a HTTP Debugging Proxy which logs all HTTP traffic between your computer and the Internet. Fiddler allows you to inspect all HTTP Traffic, set breakpoints, and "fiddle" with incoming or outgoing data. Fiddler is designed to be much simpler than using NetMon or Achilles, and includes a simple but powerful JScript.NET event-based scripting subsystem.
• Upgrade toolkit for Windows SharePoint Services - Guidance and white papers to upgrade customized site or site template to WSS 3.0
• BDC MetaMan - Tool to generate Business Data Catalog application definition files for Microsoft Office SharePoint Server.
• MOSS 2007 utility for import/export of user profiles - allows you to populate your SharePoint Server user profile database using basic XML files as source.
• Cross-browser editor for SharePoint 2007 (Telerik) - RadEditor for Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 (MOSS) is a cross-browser alternative to the default rich-text editor in MOSS and WSS v3. The product is developed in an agreement between Telerik and Microsoft and is provided free of charge to registered clients of SharePoint 2007.
• MOSS Query Tool - Next version of the SharePoint Query Tool, designed for MOSS (SharePoint 2007). It has a similar feature set to the SharePoint Query Tool - it allows you to use a point and click interface to gather information such as search scopes and properties, type in search terms, and click a button to create both the search SQL syntax as well as the Xml document that is needed to run a query against MOSS. You can see results in plain text, structured Xml and now a dataset view. It supports FREETEXT and CONTAINS as well as wildcard searching. A very valuable tool for those trying to write custom SharePoint queries.
• Forms Based Authentication Setup Helper for MOSS 2007 - Utility to ease the process of setting up and configuring Forms Based Authentication for MOSS 2007.
• Download all documents from document library feature - allows you to generate a zipfile containing all the documents in the list and provides it as a download to you.
• CAML.Net - Another tool which builds CAML queries dynamically in code while preserving the syntactic structure of the native CAML language. You might also want to take a look at this introducion article - Working with CAML.Net Part I .
• Site Provisioning Assistant - Public beta - SPA provides you with centralized management for controlling how new SharePoint 2007 sites are requested and provisioned in your organization. Based on provisioning profiles that you define, users are presented with an easy-to-use interface for requesting a new site. Site requests can be associated with custom workflows that match your organization's approval process. Upon succesful workflow completion, SPA automatically provisions the SharePoint site, and notifies the requesting user.
• SPClientUtilities feature - allows you to switch any SharePoint page into edit mode or show the Web Part toolpane
• SharePoint Builder on CodePlex
• SharePoint Inspector - free tool to browse your WSS 3.0 and MOSS 2007 farm. You can see objects composing its structure, get their properties by reflection, which can be very useful when you want to check if your code does what it should do.You can use also some advanced features like activate/deactivate SharePoint features, add/remove event receivers, manage your recycle bin.
• AppPool recycler for SharePoint Devs
• SharePoint Features Project at GotdotNet - This project contacts the next features:
  • Presence Contact List v1.0: This is a contact list modified to show presence information as a drop-down associated with the e-mail field
  • Content Type Hierarchy Viewer v1.0 :This Feature presents the site content types in a hierarchical view. It shows the relationships between the content types, including hidden types. The Feature appears as the first link in the "Galleries" section of the Site Settings page.
  • Log Viewer v1.0 : This is a Feature for viewing the Unified Logging Service (ULS) logs through the SharePoint Central Administration site. It adds a new "Utilities" section to the "Operations" tab with a link to the ULS viewer.
  • Debugger feature for SharePoint - When activated, the Debugger Feature adds an “Attach Debugger” menu item to the Site Actions menu.

For More details :http://jopx.blogspot.com/2007/05/sharepoint-2007-tools-collection-v1.html

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List of topics we will discuss in this blog

Contents of Sharepoint/Moss

Basic Things to know you to start with Sharepoint/MOSS 2007
1. A good understanding of Asp.net 2.0(or advance)
2. SQL server 2000/2005(or advance)

Collaboration
1. Document Library (Shared)
2. Announcement Lists
3. Calendar (Integration with Outlook)
4. Team Discussion Lists
5. Tasks Lists
6. Link Lists
Enterprise Content Management
1. Document Management
2. Record Management
3. Web Content Management
Business Process & Forms
1. Introduction To Infopath
2. Infopath Form Service
Business Intelligence
1. Report Center
2. Dashboards
3. Excel Services
4. External Data Sources
5. Filter Web Parts
6. Key Performance Indicators (KPIs)
7. Business Data Catalog (BDC)
Portal & Personalization
1. My site
2. Site Provisioning
3. Target Audiences
4. Master Page
Search
1. Search Web Part
Advance Topics
1. Creating & Deploying Web parts
2. Sharepoint Designer
3. Site Templates
4. Content Templates
5. Enabling AJAX in Sharepoint/MOSS
6. Using Web services
7. Banding Site
8. Creating Features

NOTE If You want me to discuss some extra topic intimate me ,I'll try to Discuss it soon.

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Get your Machine Ready for Sharepoint/MOSS installation

Install Office SharePoint Server 2007 on a stand-alone computer

Note: Required operating system must be:

Microsoft windows server 2003 standard or Enterprise edition or above.

Hardware and software requirements

Hardware requirements

The following table lists the minimum and recommended hardware requirements for deploying Office SharePoint Server 2007, including the deployment of Microsoft SQL Server 2005 Express Edition, for a stand-alone installation.

Component	Minimum	Recommended
Processor	2.5 gigahertz (GHz)	Dual processors that are each 3 GHz or faster
RAM	1 gigabyte (GB)	2 GB
Disk	NTFS file system–formatted partition with a minimum of 3 GB of free space	NTFS file system–formatted partition with 3 GB of free space plus adequate free space for your Web sites
Drive	DVD drive	DVD drive or the source copied to a local or network-accessible drive
Display	1024 × 768	1024 × 768 or higher resolution monitor
Network	56 kilobits per second (Kbps) connection between client computers and server	56 Kbps or faster connection between client computers and server

Software requirements

Because Office SharePoint Server 2007 is built on Windows SharePoint Services 3.0, the requirements that apply to Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 also apply to Office SharePoint Server 2007.

Configure the server as a Web server

Before you install and configure Office SharePoint Server 2007, you must install and configure the required software. This includes installing and configuring Internet Information Services (IIS) so your computer acts as a Web server, installing the Microsoft .NET Framework version 3.0, and enabling ASP.NET 2.0.

Install and configure IIS

Internet Information Services (IIS) is not installed or enabled by default in the Microsoft Windows Server 2003 operating system. To make your server a Web server, you must install and enable IIS, and you must ensure that IIS is running in IIS 6.0 worker process isolation mode.

Install and configure IIS

1. Click Start, point to All Programs, point to Administrative Tools, and then click Configure Your Server Wizard.

2. On the Welcome to the Configure Your Server Wizard page, click Next.

3. On the Preliminary Steps page, click Next.

4. On the Server Role page, click Application server (IIS, ASP.NET), and then click Next.

5. On the Application Server Options page, click Next.

6. On the Summary of Selections page, click Next.

7. Click Finish.

8. Click Start, point to All Programs, point to Administrative Tools, and then click Internet Information Services (IIS) Manager.

9. In the IIS Manager tree, click the plus sign (+) next to the server name, right-click the Web Sites folder, and then click Properties.

10. In the Web Sites Properties dialog box, click the Service tab.

11. In the Isolation mode section, clear the Run WWW service in IIS 5.0 isolation mode check box, and then click OK.

    Note:
    The Run WWW in IIS 5.0 isolation mode check box is only selected if you have upgraded to IIS 6.0 on Windows Server 2003 from IIS 5.0 on Microsoft Windows 2000. New installations of IIS 6.0 use IIS 6.0 worker process isolation mode by default.

Install the Microsoft .NET Framework version 3.0

Go to the Microsoft Download Center Web site (http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkID=72322&clcid=0x409), and on the Microsoft .NET Framework 3.0 Redistributable Package page, follow the instructions for downloading and installing the .NET Framework version 3.0. There are separate downloads for x86-based computers and x64-based computers. Be sure to download and install the appropriate version for your computer. The .NET Framework version 3.0 download contains the Windows Workflow Foundation technology, which is required by workflow features.

Note:
You can also use the Microsoft .NET Framework version 3.5. You can download the .NET Framework version 3.5 from the Microsoft Web site (http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=110508).

Enable ASP.NET 2.0

ASP.NET 2.0 is required for proper functioning of Web content, the Central Administration Web Site, and many other features and functions of Office SharePoint Server 2007.

Enable ASP.NET 2.0

1. Click Start, point to All Programs, point to Administrative Tools, and then click Internet Information Services (IIS) Manager.

2. In the Internet Information Services tree, click the plus sign (+) next to the server name, and then click the Web Service Extensions folder.

3. In the details pane, right-click ASP.NET v2.0.50727, and then click Allow.

Install and configure Office SharePoint Server 2007 with Microsoft SQL Server 2005 Express Edition

When you install Office SharePoint Server 2007 on a single server, run the Setup program using the Basic option. This option uses the Setup program's default parameters to install Office SharePoint Server 2007 and SQL Server 2005 Express Edition.

Note:

If you uninstall Office SharePoint Server 2007 and then later install Office SharePoint Server 2007 on the same computer, the Setup program could fail when creating the configuration database causing the entire installation process to fail. You can prevent this failure by either deleting all the existing Office SharePoint Server 2007 databases on the computer or by creating a new configuration database. You can create a new configuration database by running the following command: psconfig -cmd configdb -create -database

Run Setup

1. From the product disc, run Setup.exe, or from the product download, run Officeserver.exe.

2. On the Enter your Product Key page, enter your product key, and then click Continue.

   Note:
   Setup automatically verifies the product key, places a green check mark next to the text box, and enables the Continue button after it validates the key. If the key is not valid, Setup places a red circle next to the text box and displays a message that the key is incorrect.

3. On the Read the Microsoft Software License Terms page, review the terms, select the I accept the terms of this agreement check box, and then click Continue.

4. On the Choose the installation you want page, click Basic to install to the default location. To install to a different location, click Advanced, and then on the File Location tab, specify the location you want to install to and finish the installation.

5. When Setup finishes, a dialog box prompts you to complete the configuration of your server. Be sure that the Run the SharePoint Products and Technologies Configuration Wizard now check box is selected.

6. Click Close to start the configuration wizard.

Run the SharePoint Products and Technologies Configuration Wizard

1. On the Welcome to SharePoint Products and Technologies page, click Next.

2. In the dialog box that notifies you that some services might need to be restarted or reset during configuration, click Yes.

3. On the Configuration Successful page, click Finish. Your new SharePoint site opens.

   Note:
   If you are prompted for your user name and password, you might need to add the SharePoint site to the list of trusted sites and configure user authentication settings in Internet Explorer. Instructions for configuring these settings are provided in the following procedure.

   Note:
   If you see a proxy server error message, you might need to configure your proxy server settings so that local addresses bypass the proxy server. Instructions for configuring proxy server settings are provided later in this section.

Add the SharePoint site to the list of trusted sites

1. In Internet Explorer, on the Tools menu, click Internet Options.

2. On the Security tab, in the Select a Web content zone to specify its security settings box, click Trusted Sites, and then click Sites.

3. Clear the Require server verification (https:) for all sites in this zone check box.

4. In the Add this Web site to the zone box, type the URL to your site, and then click Add.

5. Click Close to close the Trusted Sites dialog box.

6. Click OK to close the Internet Options dialog box.

If you are using a proxy server in your organization, use the following steps to configure Internet Explorer to bypass the proxy server for local addresses.

Configure proxy server settings to bypass the proxy server for local addresses

1. In Internet Explorer, on the Tools menu, click Internet Options.

2. On the Connections tab, in the Local Area Network (LAN) settings area, click LAN Settings.

3. In the Automatic configuration section, clear the Automatically detect settings check box.

4. In the Proxy Server section, select the Use a proxy server for your LAN check box.

5. Type the address of the proxy server in the Address box.

6. Type the port number of the proxy server in the Port box.

7. Select the Bypass proxy server for local addresses check box.

8. Click OK to close the Local Area Network (LAN) Settings dialog box.

9. Click OK to close the Internet Options dialog box.

Post-installation steps

After Setup finishes, your browser window opens to the home page of your new SharePoint site. Although you can start adding content to the site or you can start customizing the site, we recommend that you perform the following administrative tasks by using the SharePoint Central Administration Web site.

• Configure incoming e-mail settings You can configure incoming e-mail settings so that SharePoint sites accept and archive incoming e-mail. You can also configure incoming e-mail settings so that SharePoint sites can archive e-mail discussions as they happen, save e-mailed documents, and show e-mailed meetings on site calendars. In addition, you can configure the SharePoint Directory Management Service to provide support for e-mail distribution list creation and management. For more information, see Configure incoming e-mail settings (Office SharePoint Server) .

• Configure outgoing e-mail settings You can configure outgoing e-mail settings so that your Simple Mail Transfer Protocol (SMTP) server sends e-mail alerts to site users and notifications to site administrators. You can configure both the "From" e-mail address and the "Reply" e-mail address that appear in outgoing alerts. For more information, see Configure outgoing e-mail settings (Office SharePoint Server) .

• Create SharePoint sites When Setup finishes, you have a single Web application that contains a single SharePoint site collection that hosts a SharePoint site. You can create more SharePoint sites collections, sites, and Web applications if your site design requires multiple sites or multiple Web applications.

• Configure Workflow settings Specify whether users can assemble new workflows and if participants without site access should be sent documents in email attachments so they can participate in document workflows. For more information, see Configure workflow settings.

• Configure diagnostic logging settings You can configure several diagnostic logging settings to help with troubleshooting. This includes enabling and configuring trace logs, event messages, user-mode error messages, and Customer Experience Improvement Program events. For more information, see Configure diagnostic logging settings .

• Configure antivirus protection settings You can configure several antivirus settings if you have an antivirus program that is designed for Office SharePoint Server 2007. Antivirus settings enable you to control whether documents are scanned on upload or download and whether users can download infected documents. You can also specify how long you want the antivirus program to run before it times out, and you can specify how many execution threads the antivirus program can use on the server. For more information, see Configure antivirus settings .

• Configure search You can configure several search and index settings to customize how Office SharePoint Server 2007 crawls your site content or external content. For more information, see Configure the Office SharePoint Server Search service (Office SharePoint Server).

• Configure Excel Services Before you can use Excel Services, you must start the service and add at least one trusted location. For more information about doing this, see Configure Excel Services .

Perform administrator tasks by using the Central Administration site

1. Click Start, point to All Programs, point to Microsoft Office Server, and then click SharePoint 3.0 Central Administration.

2. On the Central Administration home page, under Administrator Tasks, click the task you want to perform.

3. On the Administrator Tasks page, next to Action, click the task.

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Sharepoint Query Blog started....

Hi Friends,
Today i started my sharepoint blog so that i can help the sharepoint/Moss professional communities to my best of knowledge.

Apart of solving your queries,i will make try to cover most of the topics of Sharepoint/MOSS 2007 starting form basics to expert level.

I will try to give best of mine keeping view of my availability & expects your support for sharing our knowledge among us successfully.

soon I'll come up with the topic list which I'll discuss on this blog......

Regards,
Aman Bhardwaj

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