SharePoint 2013 For Dummies E-Book

Ken Withee

• Herausgeber: John Wiley & Sons
• Kategorie: Wissenschaft und neue Technologien
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 454

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2013

Beschreibung

The bestselling guide on running SharePoint, now updated to cover all the new features of SharePoint 2013 SharePoint Portal Server is an essential part of the enterprise infrastructure for many businesses. Building on the success of previous versions of SharePoint For Dummies, this new edition covers all the latest features of SharePoint 2013 and provides you with an easy-to-understand resource for making the most of all that this version has to offer. You'll learn how to get a site up and running, branded, and populated with content, workflow, and management. In addition, this new edition includes essential need-to-know information for administrators, techsumers, and page admins who want to leverage the cloud-hosted features online, either as a standalone product or in conjunction with an existing SharePoint infrastructure. * Walks you through getting a SharePoint site up and running effectively and efficiently * Explains ongoing site management and offers plenty of advice for administrators who want to leverage SharePoint and Office 365 in various ways * Shows how to use SharePoint to leverage data centers and collaborate with both internal and external customers, including partners and clients SharePoint 2013 For Dummies is essential reading if you want to make the most of this technology.

Leseprobe

Microsoft® SharePoint® 2013 For Dummies®

Published byJohn Wiley & Sons, Inc.111 River StreetHoboken, NJ 07030-5774

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About the Author

Ken Witheehas been a Microsoft SharePoint consultant for many years. He currently writes for the Microsoft TechNet and MSDN sites andis President of Portal Integrators, LLC (www.portalint.com). Portal Integrators is a software development and services company focused on developing world-class business solutions for the SharePoint platform. He lives with his wife Rosemarie in Seattle, Washington and is the author or coauthor of many other books, including Microsoft Office 365 For Dummies, SharePoint 2010 Development For Dummies, Microsoft Business Intelligence For Dummies (all published by John Wiley & Sons, Inc.), as well as Professional Microsoft SQL Server 2011 Reporting ServicesandProfessional Microsoft SQL Server 2008 Reporting Services(both published by WROX). Ken has also written a number of other published works in journals and magazines.

Ken earned a Master of Science degree in Computer Science studying under Dr. Edward Lank at San Francisco State University. Their work has been published in the LNCS journals and was the focus of a presentation at the IASTED conference in Phoenix. Their work has also been presented at various other Human Computer Interaction conferences throughout the world.

Ken has more than 13 years of professional computer and management experience. He is a Microsoft Certified Technology Specialist and is certified in SharePoint, SQL Server,and .NET.

Dedication

I dedicate this book to two people. The first is my grandma, Tiny Withee, who turns 100 years old this year. The second is my wife and best friend, Rosemarie Withee, who encouraged me daily throughout this time-intensive process. I owe her a rain check for all of the late nights and weekends this book consumed, and I hope to make it up to her over the rest of our lives. I love you!

Author’s Acknowledgments

I would like to acknowledge my grandma Tiny Withee, who turns 100 years old this year and is still going strong. I would also like to acknowledge my wife Rosemarie Withee, mother Maggie Blair, father Ken Withee, sister Kate Henneinke, and parents-in-law Alfonso and Lourdes Supetran and family.

I would like to thank Elczar Adame, SharePoint Server MVP, for all of his help and patience. Elczar is truly a master at SharePoint and I am thankful for his patience as I peppered him with questions throughout writing this book.

An extraordinary amount of thanks to Katie Mohr, Jean Nelson, Mike Talley, and the rest of the For Dummies team for providing more support than I ever thought possible. It is truly amazing how much work goes into a single book.

Special thanks to my leadership team at Microsoft — David Maguire, Cheryl Jenkins, and Shelley Benson — for letting me take on this important project. The For Dummies brand is a place I have always gone to understand technology at a fundamental level, and I appreciate Microsoft’s support on this project.

And of course, last, but definitely not least, thank you to Vanessa Williams for shepherding the SharePoint For Dummies series to this point and her assistance in passing this honorable torch to me for this book and into the future.

Publisher’s Acknowledgments

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SharePoint 2013 For Dummies®

Visit www.dummies.com/cheatsheet/sharepoint2013 to view this book's cheat sheet.

Table of Contents

Introduction

Who Should Read This Book

How to Use This Book

Foolish Assumptions

How This Book Is Organized

Part I: Getting Started with SharePoint 2013

Part II: Diving Headfirst into SharePoint 2103

Part III: Becoming a SharePoint Administrator

Part IV: Getting Social and Going Mobile

Part V: Managing Enterprise Content

Part VI: Office 365 and SharePoint Online

Part VII: The Part of Tens

Icons Used in This Book

Where to Go from Here

Part I: Getting Started with SharePoint 2013

Chapter 1: Getting to Know SharePoint 2013

Wrapping Your Head around SharePoint

No, really, what is SharePoint?

A Microsoft product

Many different SharePoint definitions

More than a website

Getting Familiar with SharePoint Building Blocks

Taking a Peek at a SharePoint Site

Getting Familiar with SharePoint Terminology

Branding

Business Connectivity Services

Business intelligence

eDiscovery

Identity management

Mobile

Records management and compliance

Search

Social

Web content management

Chapter 2: Introducing SharePoint Online

Getting Familiar with SharePoint Online

Understanding Why SharePoint Online Has Become So Popular

Differences between SharePoint Online and SharePoint On Premise

Exploring the Benefits of SharePoint Online

Data center and hardware

Software platform

Backup, redundancy, and security

Chapter 3: Wrangling SharePoint Functionality

Coming to Terms with Website Templates

Show Me the Apps

Working with Web Pages

Wiki page

Web Part page

Publishing page

Understanding Web Parts

Digging into SharePoint Features

SharePoint Tools

Integrating with Office 2013

Part II: Diving Headfirst into SharePoint 2013

Chapter 4: Getting to Know the Team Site

Creating a SharePoint Site

Requesting a SharePoint Site

Viewing Your Team Site in the Browser

Accessing Team Sites in Office 365

Introducing the SharePoint Team Site

Uploading documents

Sharing your site

Getting organized

Changing the look and logo of your site

Staying in sync and collaborating

Chapter 5: Working with Web Pages

Introducing the Ribbon

Understanding SharePoint Web Pages

Choosing a wiki page

Choosing a Web Part page

Choosing a Wiki Content page over a Web Part page or vice versa

Creating a New Wiki Content Page

Adding media

Managing wiki pages

Categorizing your wiki pages

Creating a New Web Part Page

Chapter 6: Working with Web Parts

Adding a Web Part to Your Page

Choosing the Right Web Part

Changing Web Part Properties

Reviewing Web Part properties

Editing Web Part properties

Deleting or minimizing Web Parts

Connecting Web Parts

Chapter 7: Getting Familiar with Apps

Introducing SharePoint Apps

Adding Apps to Your Site

Accessing App Settings

Configuring the General Settings

Changing the title, description, and navigation

Versioning settings

Advanced settings

Validation settings

Rating settings

Audience Targeting settings

Form settings

Chapter 8: Creating a Custom App

Planning Your Custom App

Creating a Custom App

Adding Columns to Your App

Getting to know column types

Validating data entry

Working with the Title Column

Importing a Spreadsheet as an App

Taking Your App to the Next Level: Calculated and Lookup Columns

Creating a calculated column

Using a lookup column

Downloading Apps from the SharePoint Store

Chapter 9: Viewing Data in Your Apps

Viewing the View

Getting to Know Your View Formats

Creating a Standard View

Choosing columns for your view

Filtering apps with views

Grouping results

Quickly edit app data with Quick Edit

Choosing a display style

Managing App Data in a Datasheet View

Using Ad Hoc Views

Creating a Calendar View

Displaying Tasks in a Gantt View

Managing Existing Views

Modifying your views

Setting the default view

Other SharePoint built-in views

Displaying Views via Web Parts

Part III: Becoming a SharePoint Administrator

Chapter 10: Getting Familiar with Site Settings

Finding Site Settings

Digging into Site Settings

Users and Permissions

Web Designer Galleries

Site Administration

Search

Look and Feel

Site Actions

Site Collection Administration

Chapter 11: Configuring Site Navigation

Understanding How to Configure SharePoint Navigation

Configuring SharePoint Navigation

Configuring global navigation

Configuring current navigation

Configuring Static Navigation

Navigation Using Web Parts

Understanding Managed Navigation

Chapter 12: Understanding SharePoint Features

Getting a High-Level View of SharePoint Features

Turning On and Off Features

Exploring Common Features

Extending SharePoint with Features

Chapter 13: Changing the Look and Feel of Your Site

The Look and Feel Section of Site Settings

Changing Your Site Icon

Changing the Look of Your Site

A note on fonts

A word on usability

The benefits of composed looks

Changing Team Site Navigation

Going global with the top link bar

Staying local with Quick Launch

Chapter 14: Securing Your SharePoint Site

Using SharePoint Groups

Adding users to a group

Understanding the permission structure

Securing a site collection

Securing Apps, Folders, Documents, and Items

Creating unique permissions for a subsite

Removing existing permissions

Creating unique permissions for an app or document

Managing permissions scenarios

Viewing a group’s permissions

Checking a user’s permissions

Granting Administrative Access

Viewing Site Permissions

Managing SharePoint Designer Access

Part IV: Getting Social and Going Mobile

Chapter 15: Taking Control of Your Personal Profile and Content

Finding Your My Site Hubs and Profile

Aggregating SharePoint Activity with Your Newsfeed

Saving Stuff with SkyDrive

Adding documents to your SkyDrive

Following a document from another site

Tracking Your Favorite Sites

Reaching Out with a Blog

Expressing Yourself with Your Profile

Creating a holistic profile experience

Filling in your profile information

Chapter 16: Getting Social

Sharing and Tracking Using the Ribbon

Tagging for Yourself and Others

Information Sharing with Blogs and Wikis

Creating a blog site

Posting to a blog

Using wikis to collaborate and coauthor

Communicating with Discussion Boards

Creating a Discussion Board app

Posting and replying to a subject

Connecting with Others Using Feeds, Microblogs, and RSS

Staying connected with feeds and microblogs

Viewing RSS feeds

Reading RSS feeds with Outlook

Displaying RSS feeds of other sites

Alert Me

Staying in Sync with Lync

Chapter 17: Taking SharePoint Mobile

Viewing SharePoint on a Mobile Device

Creating Views for Small Screens

Targeting Devices Using Channels

Pushing Content to a Windows Phone

Keeping Track of Locations

Viewing Office Documents on Your Phone or Tablet

Part V: Managing Enterprise Content

Chapter 18: Sharing and Approving Content

Sharing Your Documents

Getting Your Documents into an App

Uploading a single document

Uploading multiple documents

Uploading documents into a folder

Working with Documents

Using the ellipsis

Editing a document’s properties

Checking documents in and out

Sending a link to your document

Viewing documents in the browser

Using Office 2013

Recovering Deleted Documents

Configuring Content Approval

Turning on content approval

Identifying approvers

Casting an approving eye

Disapproving: Not just for stern parents

Getting alerts on approval/rejection status

Chapter 19: Finding What You Need with Search

Understanding How SharePoint Search Works

Searching for Content

Searching for a string using quotation marks

Wildcard searches

Including and excluding terms

Building compound search queries using Boolean operators

Getting fancy with the parentheses

Finding terms in proximity

Same meaning, different terms

Viewing and Refining Search Results

Making Search Your Users’ Best Friend

Removing Content from Search Results

Reviewing Search Analytics

Adding a Search Center Site

Chapter 20: Archiving Documents and Records

Defining the Terms

Creating Information Management Policies

Setting Up a Records Center

Using the Content Organizer

Managing Records in Place

Placing Records on Litigation Hold

Chapter 21: Gaining Total Control with Workflow

Getting Up to Speed with SharePoint Workflow

Understanding Workflow in SharePoint 2013

Getting Up to Speed on SharePoint Designer

Connecting to a SharePoint site

Creating a workflow

Rediscovering the Out-of-the-Box Approval Workflow

Deciding whether to use content approval or approval workflows

Configuring the approval workflows

Setting up an approval workflow

Approval workflow options

Initiating a workflow

Approving an item

Checking the status of an approval workflow

Part VI: Office 365 and SharePoint Online

Chapter 22: Creating a Public Website in SharePoint Online

Creating Your New Website

Using a Vanity Domain Name

Updating and Adding Web Pages

Reviewing what you get with your new site

Adding a new page

Editing your pages

Updating page properties

Changing the Site’s Look and Feel

Chapter 23: Creating a Client Portal in SharePoint Online

Planning for Your Client Portal

Locking Down the Portal

Managing User Accounts

Launching Your Portal

Part VII: The Part of Tens

Chapter 24: Ten Hot SharePoint 2013 Topics on the Microsoft TechNet Website

SharePoint for IT Pros

Recently Published Content

Explore SharePoint 2013

Plan for SharePoint

SharePoint Development

Install and Configure SharePoint

Operate and Maintain

Using SharePoint

Business Intelligence

Workflow Resource Center

Chapter 25: Ten Ways to Maintain Control with Governance

Failure Is Not an Option (Neither Is Looking Away and Whistling)

Getting Executive Buy-In and Support

Building an Effective Governance Group

Finding the Right Level

Yours, Mine, Ours: Deciding Who Owns What

(Re)Visiting Social Networking Policies

Design and Branding

Content Management

Reusing Web Parts

Keeping Things Current: Web Operations Management

Chapter 26: Ten Ways to Become a SharePoint Guru

Getting Information from the Horse’s Mouth

Reading SharePoint Blogs

Finding Local User Groups

Building a Virtual Lab

Starting with a Good Foundation

Borrowing from Others

Getting Certified

Taking a Peek under the Covers

Digging Deeper under the Covers

Deconstructing a SharePoint Site

Cheat Sheet

Introduction

A centralized web portal has become a necessity in organizations both small and large. An integrated portal provides efficiencies and advantages not seen since the adoption of computers and networks. The value of getting everyone in the organization on the same page and working in unison is instrumental to success. Modern organizations have had to adapt, and the people within them have had to adapt as well. As technology giants fought to get their web portal products to market, one platform has emerged a clear winner: Microsoft SharePoint.

I wish I could say that I foresaw the success of SharePoint back when I first started working with it as a consultant. The fact is that when I was a new consultant, I simply worked on whatever projects were selling. Nearly a decade ago, I stumbled into a small SharePoint project and still haven’t emerged from the SharePoint world.

SharePoint 2013 is the latest version of the product and has more fanfare attached to it than any previous version. Microsoft products tend to get better over time. (Some of my friends won’t buy a Microsoft product until it’s the third version or later.) SharePoint 2013 won’t disappoint; it’s a very mature and polished product.

The release of SharePoint 2013 ushers in a new strategy for SharePoint Online. No longer do you need to wait a couple of years to use the latest version of SharePoint in the Microsoft cloud. SharePoint Online uses SharePoint 2013, and everything you read about in this book directly relates to SharePoint Online.

If you’re already familiar with SharePoint, then this latest version of the product will be familiar, and many of the annoying and painful bugs and interfaces of previous versions have finally been worked out. You no longer need a highly paid consultant to walk you through each aspect of every feature. In a nutshell, things are finally starting to get intuitive. (Although, if you need a consultant, I can recommend a good one.)

Whether you need to create a new website for your team, a new app to store content, or a page to approve and publish critical information, SharePoint 2013 has a solution. SharePoint 2013 is intended to be a self-service environment, and this book helps you get the most out of the platform.

I’m not saying that SharePoint is always easy; in fact, like any enterprise software system, you can expect some frustration. However, if your organization uses SharePoint 2013 or SharePoint Online, you have a wealth of solutions to solve your particular needs.

Who Should Read This Book

This book is intended for anyone who encounters SharePoint or is curious about using the product. SharePoint is a vast product with many nooks and crannies, and no single book can cover all the pieces. This book is designed to provide an introduction and overview of the platform. It shows you how to get the most out of the product, whether you have never used it before or are deeply familiar with specific aspects it.

Others who may benefit from this book include

Developers: This isn’t a development book, but the best SharePoint developers are those who understand the product. The exciting aspect of SharePoint development is that you don’t need to write programming code to develop business solutions in SharePoint. If you can work with a web browser to develop a web presence in a site like Facebook or LinkedIn, then you can develop and administer your own SharePoint site.

IT professionals: This isn’t a book that explains how to set up a SharePoint server farm. However, this book helps you understand what features your end users may want to see in a SharePoint farm that you architect or support.

Managers: If you manage a department or business unit, you need to understand how to get the most out of SharePoint. If your company has made significant investments in SharePoint deployment, it’d be a shame if you didn’t know how to leverage that investment.

How to Use This Book

This book is a reference: You don’t have to read it cover to cover. Because many of the features in SharePoint are dependent on other features, I point you to related chapters in the book when appropriate.

Foolish Assumptions

Because SharePoint is such a huge topic, I have to make some assumptions about your configuration and starting knowledge, such as

You have access to some version of SharePoint 2013. If you don’t have access to SharePoint, then sign up for SharePoint Online. After the free trial period, it costs as little as $5 a month. If you want to see all the specific things that come with the On Premises version of the product, then there is a trial license available for 30 days. Just download it from the Microsoft download center and get started.

You’re a contributor or administrator. Of course, many of the scenarios in this book require only that you be a contributor. So long as you know who your administrator is, you can ask that person for elevated permissions. And if you want to be master of your own SharePoint universe as an administrator, you can sign up for SharePoint Online and control all aspects of your SharePoint environment in a fairly intuitive interface.

Ideally, you have a sandbox or test environment where you can try different scenarios. It isn’t the best strategy to lock down security on your Human Resources site only to find out nobody in your entire organization can get to their pay stub. You need a test environment or test site where you can play around with SharePoint, and then take that knowledge to your department site. Luckily, if you have access to SharePoint, you have your own personal My Site that you can explore. Another alternative is to use SharePoint Online (yes, you can buy a single license).

Many of the scenarios in this book assume your implementation includes My Site. Unfortunately, many companies try to avoid using this feature. In SharePoint 2013, My Site is an integral component for many features. I strongly advise utilizing My Site.

How This Book Is Organized

This book groups related SharePoint topics in parts. Each part covers a different aspect of getting the most out of SharePoint.

Part I: Getting Started with SharePoint 2013

This part of the book covers all the fundamentals of SharePoint. This material covers the basics such as understanding the technology stack that makes up SharePoint, getting familiar with SharePoint Online and the cloud, and wrapping your head around the vast features in SharePoint.

Part II: Diving Headfirst into SharePoint 2103

In Part II, I show you how to use SharePoint. You discover how to create a site, add web pages and web parts, and create and customize apps.

Part III: Becoming a SharePoint Administrator

In this part, I discuss how SharePoint administration is accomplished right from the web browser and how most people are administrators in some fashion. Topics include gaining familiarity with the Site Settings page, configuring site navigation and SharePoint features, and making your site your own by changing the look and feel.

Part IV: Getting Social and Going Mobile

In this part, I show you how to use SharePoint to connect with others and take SharePoint on the road. You find out how to build your visibility using your personal profile; how to reach out and connect with others using microblogging, feeds, alerts, mentions, ratings, and likes; and how to use SharePoint from your mobile device (smartphone or tablet).

Part V: Managing Enterprise Content

Managing content is at the heart of a modern organization. In this part, I walk you through sharing and approving content, finding content with search, and archiving documents and records. Finally, I also show you how to use workflow to integrate and optimize your business processes.

Part VI: Office 365 and SharePoint Online

In Part VI, I cover the cloud version of SharePoint that is part of a bundle of cloud products called Office 365. SharePoint Online is an exciting offering because Microsoft handles the infrastructure and you can simply sign up and begin using SharePoint over the Internet. In addition, SharePoint Online is as inexpensive as $4 per month! In this part, you see how to create a public-facing website and a partner-only site, all using SharePoint Online.

The important thing to keep in mind is that SharePoint Online and SharePoint 2013 are the same thing. SharePoint Online is just Microsoft hosting SharePoint for you. When you use SharePoint Online, you’re using SharePoint 2013, and so everything discussed throughout this book is relevant.

Part VII: The Part of Tens

In this part, I share some parting words of wisdom in the form of top ten lists: Ten ways to govern SharePoint so that it doesn’t turn into the Wild West of web portals, and ten ways to further your SharePoint journey and become a guru.

Icons Used in This Book

You find a handful of icons in this book, and here’s what they mean:

Tips point out a handy shortcut, or they help you understand something important to SharePoint.

This icon marks something to remember, such as how you handle a particularly tricky part of SharePoint configuration.

This icon is my chance to share with you details about the inner workings of SharePoint. Most of the information you find here pertains to some aspect of SharePoint that requires configuration at the server. That means you can point out the stuff beside this icon to IT and ask IT to make SharePoint do that.

Although the Warning icon appears rarely, when you need to be wary of a problem or common pitfall, this icon lets you know.

Where to Go from Here

All right, you’re all set and ready to jump into this book. You can jump in anywhere you like — the book was written to allow you to do just that. But if you want to get the full story from the beginning, jump to Chapter 1 — that’s where all the action starts. (If you are already familiar with SharePoint you might want to flip ahead to Chapter 2, where you can get your hands dirty with creating a site and developing it to fit your needs.)

Occasionally, we have updates to our technology books. If this book does have technical updates, they will be posted at www.dummies.com/go/sharepoint2013fdupdates.

Part I

Getting Started with SharePoint 2013

Visit www.dummies.com for great Dummies content online.

In this part . . .

Get familiar with SharePoint as a product and platform. SharePoint is a complicated beast and most people use only a smidgen of it.

Dive into a quick intro into what makes up the SharePoint Online product and get a handle on the buzzwords around SharePoint.

Get your head around the vastness of SharePoint by exploring some of its functionality at a high level.

Chapter 1

Getting to Know SharePoint 2013

In This Chapter

Gaining a general understanding of SharePoint

Exploring how the product is put together

Getting familiar with SharePoint concepts

Seeing how SharePoint works at a fundamental level

When I first heard about SharePoint, I just didn’t get it. What the heck was this new thing called SharePoint? I knew it was a Microsoft product that was supposed to do lots of things, but I just couldn’t figure out exactly what it was or how to get started working with it.

Well, after years of working with SharePoint, I have finally figured a few things out. SharePoint is indeed a Microsoft product and it is definitely capable of doing lots of things. In fact, SharePoint can do more things than you could ever imagine. And therein lies the problem. If you ask ten people what SharePoint does, you’re very likely to get ten different answers. SharePoint has such a depth to it that it’s hard to get your head around it.

In this chapter, I help you see the SharePoint big picture. You discover how SharePoint works and gain understanding on exactly what the term SharePoint means. This chapter peels away the mystery and shows you SharePoint at a basic level. After all, you need to understand SharePoint at a basic level before you can dive into its advanced functionality.

Wrapping Your Head around SharePoint

At a basic level, SharePoint is a web-based software platform, meaning that SharePoint is software designed for you to interact with using a web browser.

In past versions of SharePoint, you really needed to use Microsoft Internet Explorer to work with SharePoint. Times have changed though, and you can now use most any web browser to work with SharePoint.

No, really, what is SharePoint?

Maybe you’re a whiz at Word or a spreadsheet jockey with Excel. Going forward, you’re going to have to be just as good at SharePoint to get the most out of your desktop Office client applications. Microsoft continues to integrate functionality that used to be locked up in client applications, or not available at all, with SharePoint. For example, using SharePoint 2013 with Office 2013, you can create an online gallery of PowerPoint slides, display interactive spreadsheets in web pages, or reuse information from your company’s databases in Word documents. You can even use Visio 2013 to automate your business processes using SharePoint.

Officially, Microsoft represents SharePoint 2013 as a “business collaboration platform for the enterprise and web.” SharePoint is a platform from Microsoft that allows businesses to meet their diverse needs in the following domains:

Collaboration: Use SharePoint’s collaboration sites for activities, such as managing projects or coordinating a request for proposal.

Social networking: If you work in a large company, you can use SharePoint as a social network for the Enterprise experience to help you track coworkers and locate people in expertise networks.

Information portals and public websites: With SharePoint’s web content management features, you can create useful self-service internal portals and intranets, or you can create visually appealing websites that are actually easy for your business users to maintain.

Enterprise content management: SharePoint offers excellent document- and record-management capabilities, including extensive support for metadata and customized search experiences.

Business intelligence: SharePoint is an ideal platform for providing entrée into your organization’s business analysis assets. You can use insightful dashboards that allow users to get the big picture at a glance and then drill down to get more detail.

Business applications: Use SharePoint to host sophisticated business applications, integrate business processes’ backend databases and your SharePoint content, or simply use SharePoint as the means to present access to your applications.

The functionality I discuss in the preceding list is delivered by two editions of the product and one online cloud service:

SharePoint Foundation 2013 is the underlying software platform that delivers all the building-block functionality of SharePoint. That includes apps, web pages, websites, and alerts. SharePoint Foundation is licensed as a Windows Server component. In other words, as part of a properly licensed Windows Server, you also get all the functionality of SharePoint Foundation 2013.

SharePoint Server 2013 is a set of applications that uses the building blocks of SharePoint Foundation 2013 to deliver all the functionality mentioned in the previous bulleted list. When using SharePoint internally, you have at least a standard license that grants you access to use search, portals, social networking, and some content management features. You also need an enterprise license if you intend to use SharePoint’s advanced content management, business intelligence, and business application features.

SharePoint Online is a cloud-based service offered by Microsoft that allows you to create much the same SharePoint experience as you can with SharePoint installed on a local server, but you don’t have to install and maintain it. It can come bundled with an Office 365 monthly subscription, giving you access to hosted e-mail, calendaring, and conferencing with Microsoft Exchange and Microsoft Lync, or you can buy a SharePoint Online monthly subscription on its own.

Additional licensing is required to use SharePoint in Internet scenarios unless you have SharePoint Online, which comes with a built-in, Internet-facing website.

You can approach SharePoint with the following model in mind:

Product: SharePoint is a product with a lot of features, even in SharePoint Foundation. Explore how SharePoint works without any customization when you’re deciding how to approach a solution, and then decide if you want to customize it for your specific needs.

Platform: SharePoint provides everything you need to deliver a robust business solution. It provides the infrastructure (the “plumbing”) required to deliver web-based solutions.

Toolkit: Finally, SharePoint is a set of components and controls that you can mix and match to provide a solution. You can create sites, pages, and apps, all without leaving the comfort of your web browser.

A Microsoft product

SharePoint is a software product that Microsoft develops and sells to customers. As you see in Chapter 2, SharePoint can be purchased in a couple of different ways. Regardless of how you purchase and use SharePoint, you can be rest assured that your organization is paying Microsoft a licensing fee. In other words, SharePoint isn’t free.

In the past, SharePoint had a very large cost for an organization wishing to adopt it. In addition to buying all of the licenses for your organization, you also need an IT team to install and manage SharePoint. For this reason, SharePoint used to be considered enterprise-class software because only large organizations could afford it. This is all changing though, and Microsoft now offers SharePoint Online for as little as $4 per user per month.

Microsoft also offers SharePoint Online as a bundle of other products. The branding for the bundle of products is called Office 365. To find out more about Office 365, check out Office 365 For Dummies by Jennifer Reed and yours truly (Wiley).

Many different SharePoint definitions

SharePoint has many different types of users, and depending on where your role fits in, you might have a very different experience from a fellow SharePoint user. For example, you might be assigned to create and administer a SharePoint website for your team. In this case, you might see first-hand the vast functionality of SharePoint websites. On the other hand, you might be a user of a SharePoint site. In this case, your SharePoint world might be only the site that someone has already created for you. To confuse matters even further, many organizations will roll out SharePoint and give it a spiffy internal name; for example “Connect.” So even though the cool new web tool called Connect is actually SharePoint, most users don’t even realize it!

On the more technical side, if you’re an infrastructure administrator, you see SharePoint as a platform capable of offloading the difficult job of website administration. If you’re a software developer, you see SharePoint as a web platform for developing programs for users.

The vastness of SharePoint creates areas of specialization. The result is that a person’s view of SharePoint is greatly affected by how that person uses the product. It’s important to keep this in mind when talking with people about SharePoint. If you ask ten people to define SharePoint, you’re likely to get ten different answers, as illustrated in Figure 1-1.

SharePoint has many different administration levels, and each requires a different level of technical ability. For example, if you’re comfortable working with software like Microsoft Word and Excel, then you won’t have any problem administering a SharePoint site. At a deeper level, there are also SharePoint infrastructure administrators. To administer SharePoint at the infrastructure level is a role that falls squarely into the realm of the IT geeks.

Figure 1-1: There are many different ways to define SharePoint.

SharePoint is a platform, so the user roles an organization defines depend on the organization itself. Here are some examples of the possible roles of users in SharePoint:

Anonymous visitor: A person that browses to a website that just happens to be using the SharePoint platform. An anonymous visitor just sees SharePoint as a website and nothing else.

SharePoint visitor: A person that browses to the site and authenticates so that SharePoint knows who they are. The visitor might still just see a SharePoint site as any other website, except he notices his name in the top-right corner of the screen and knows he must log in to reach the site. Visitors might not use any of the features of SharePoint, however, and just browse the information posted to the website.

SharePoint casual user: A person that knows all the company documents are posted to SharePoint and knows she can upload her own documents to her personal SharePoint site. A casual user might realize that she is using SharePoint, or she might just think of the platform as the name the organization has given to SharePoint. For example, I have seen organizations give their web platform tool names such as Source or Smart or Knowledge Center. SharePoint is the name of the web platform product from Microsoft, which is often unknown by users of a tool built on the SharePoint platform.

SharePoint user: A person that is familiar with SharePoint and its main features. A SharePoint user often performs various administrator functions even if he doesn’t realize it. For example, he might be responsible for an app that stores all the company policies and procedures. He is thus an app administrator. A user might also be responsible for a site for a small team, in which case he is a site administrator. As you can see, a user can play many different roles.

SharePoint power user: A power user is not only familiar with the main SharePoint features and functionality but also dives deeper. A power user might be familiar with the functionality differences of different features, routing documents using workflows, and building site hierarchies. A power user might also be a site collection administrator and thus is responsible for a collection of sites.

SharePoint technical administrator: A technical administrator is someone from the IT department who is responsible for SharePoint. A technical administrator is less concerned with using SharePoint for business and more concerned about making sure the platform is available and responsive. An administrator might play many different roles. For example, farm administrators are responsible for all the servers that make up SharePoint, such as web front end servers, applications servers, and database servers. Specialized database administrators focus just on the database components. There are even administrative roles for specific services, such as the search service or user profile service. Depending on the size of the SharePoint implementation, these technical administrator roles might be filled by a single overworked individual or a team with highly specialized skills.

More than a website

SharePoint is called a web platform, as opposed to just a website, because of the sheer amount of functionality and capabilities it includes. In fact, if you already administer a SharePoint website, you can easily create a new website right within the existing website. You can also develop websites with an extraordinary amount of functionality without writing a single line of code. The result is a platform for websites instead of just a single website. The multitude of features and the complexity of the product are what lead to confusion.

The terms SharePoint website and SharePoint site can be used interchangeably. Both terms mean a website that is powered by SharePoint. Because this book is all about SharePoint, I sometimes abbreviate these terms to just site.

One thing that makes SharePoint so special is that you don’t need to be a computer genius or even a power user to be a website developer and administrator in SharePoint. You just need to be comfortable using a computer.

The difference between social media and SharePoint

SharePoint and social media websites such as Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter are similar in that you interact with them using your web browser. The difference is in the intended use. Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter are designed for consumers as a whole, whereas SharePoint is designed for individual organizations.

SharePoint has many of the social and profile features of Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter, but these features are only available to people within your organization. In other words, only the people in your organization can use the features of SharePoint. Although SharePoint includes social and profile features, it also includes much, much more. Think of SharePoint as a product for business and productivity that also happens to have the social and profile features of sites such as Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter.

The term website and web application are often used interchangeably. In the deep, dark technical world of SharePoint administration, the term web application has a very specific meaning. A web application is a technical construct, and each web application has its own databases associated with it. If you create two SharePoint web applications, they store their content and configuration information in different databases. As with technology these days, a simple word can have different meanings, depending on the context of the conversation.

Getting Familiar with SharePoint Building Blocks

In order to obtain a perspective on SharePoint, it is important to understand how SharePoint is put together. As mentioned previously, SharePoint is a web-based platform. A number of technologies are required in order to make the platform available. Each technology builds on the one below it. In this manner, it is common to call the whole ball of wax a technology stack.

The SharePoint technology stack begins with server computers running the Microsoft Windows Server operating system. On top of Windows Server are some additional technologies required by SharePoint. In particular, SharePoint needs a database and a web server — Microsoft SQL Server and Microsoft Internet Information Services (IIS), respectively. Only when this entire stack of technology is available can you install SharePoint, as shown in Figure 1-2.

Figure 1-2: The stack of technologies that make up SharePoint.

SharePoint will only work with the Microsoft stack of supporting technologies. For example, you cannot swap in an Oracle database or the open source Apache web server. SharePoint would simply refuse to install and might ask you what the heck you are trying to do using a non-Microsoft product to install SharePoint.

Taking a Peek at a SharePoint Site

The primary purpose of SharePoint is to provide websites. When you create a website, you select which type of template you want to use to create the site. The dialog shown in Figure 1-3 shows the different templates available. Creating a site is explored in detail in Chapter 4.

Figure 1-3: The dialog box used to select a website template when creating a SharePoint site.

The template tells SharePoint which features and functionality should be included on the site. Keep in mind that you can always add more features, and you can even choose to start with a blank site template and add only the specific features you want to use for the site.

One of the most common SharePoint site templates is called the Team Site template. The Team Site website template includes features such as a discussion board, library to store documents, and a calendar. In fact, many books simply talk about the Team Site template and call that SharePoint. As you will learn in this book, the Team Site is very important, but it is just another SharePoint website template. Part II explores building a site based on the Team Site template.

A SharePoint website created using the Team Site template is shown in Figure 1-4.

Figure 1-4: A standard SharePoint website created using the Team Site template.

Getting Familiar with SharePoint Terminology

You should add a number of terms to your SharePoint vocabulary. Some terms are made up by Microsoft marketing, some are industry standards, and others are buzzwords that have grown to have various meanings depending on the context of the conversation. In the following sections, I describe the various components of SharePoint, how the terms that define functionality fit together, and what they mean.

Branding

The term branding refers to the way a SharePoint site looks and behaves to users. Branding includes things like the colors, fonts, images, logos, and layout of the various components on a site. Branding your SharePoint 2013 site will be covered in Chapter 13.

The term branding is not specific to SharePoint and refers to the way something looks and behaves. The term is borrowed from the marketing industry in which an organization will brand its product. For example, Coca-Cola has a very strong brand. In the software world, branding refers to the look and feel of a piece of software or website.

Business Connectivity Services

Business Connectivity Services (BCS) is a specific feature of SharePoint Server. BCS enables you to connect SharePoint with external systems. For example, say you have a customer relationship system and you need SharePoint to interact with the data in that system. You could use BCS to make it happen.

BCS can be a fairly in-depth piece of SharePoint and also often requires the skillset of a developer.

Business intelligence

The term business intelligence is definitely not new. An article was published in the October 1958 edition of the IBM Journal by H. P. Luhn called “A Business Intelligence System.” The article describes how an organization can process documents in order to make business decisions. Business intelligence has continued to evolve over the years and has morphed into something of a catch-all phrase for using data to drive business.

In the Microsoft realm, business intelligence consists of a number of different technologies. In fact, I wrote an entire sister book on the subject — Microsoft Business Intelligence For Dummies (Wiley). As SharePoint has become a central and nearly ubiquitous application, it has also become a prime place to show the data that decision makers need to make decisions. In other words, SharePoint is a perfect display case for all those fancy charts, graphs, performance indicators, and other data.

Unfortunately, business intelligence has a fairly steep learning curve in SharePoint. Tools such as Report Builder, Dashboard Designer, and PowerPivot unleash endless possibilities, but figuring out how to use them all takes time. One thing you will find with business intelligence in SharePoint is that there are often many ways to achieve the same result. And therein lies the learning curve.

At the basic level, if you can create a chart in Excel, you can plunk it into a SharePoint library and embed it on a page using a web part. Ta-da! You just achieved business intelligence in SharePoint. The consumers of the data might never even know how easy it was to put that data in Excel and embed it in a SharePoint webpage. And that is the point. These things shouldn’t be difficult to get started.

At the other end of the spectrum, however, you might need to create a data cube (a specialized database in the big data world) with millions or billions of records, and then use a specialized tool such as Dashboard Designer to create an interactive graph with click-through capabilities. Whew! That sounds complicated, and trust me, it is.

You need serious expertise when diving into the depths of business intelligence, but that doesn’t mean you can’t understand it at a high level. Many different tools and features make up business intelligence in SharePoint 2013, and Part V walks you through them at a high level and provides you with insights into quick techniques you can use to get started right away.

eDiscovery

The term eDiscovery relates to the legal world of business. In particular, the word derives from electronic discovery in litigation. If you have ever watched Law & Order, you understand that critical evidence can make or break a case. In the high-tech world of digital information, it’s a rather tricky endeavor to discover and hold electronic documents.

SharePoint 2013 has a number of features specifically designed for eDiscovery. This is great news if you’re a decision maker looking to comply with legal requirements, or you’re a lawyer. If neither applies to you, then just knowing SharePoint 2013 handles eDiscovery is good enough.

Identity management

Frankly, modern technology can often be a real pain. It seems that there are gazillions of systems in any organization, and each requires its own username and password. I have so many usernames and passwords on various websites across the Internet that my mind just tries to block it out. Of course, then I forget my password and have to go through the tiring process of resetting it each time I want to log in to a particular system. On the other side, when a user logs in to a system, that system also needs to know what the user can access.

Identity management refers to the functionality of a software system that manages users and what they can access. Identity management isn’t specific to SharePoint and is used by any system that requires you to enter a username and password.

SharePoint 2013 has made great strides in simplifying identity management. SharePoint 2013 uses claims-based authentication in conjunction with an open authentication standard called Open Authorization (OAuth for short) in order to play nicely with other systems. What this means for you is that you shouldn’t have to remember yet another username and password when working with SharePoint 2013. If only the rest of the Internet could be so thoughtful!

Mobile

It’s amazing how quickly mobile computing has taken over our lives. Not that long ago, the flip phone was a technological marvel. Not any longer! The trend towards using your smartphone or tablet to get things done is accelerating rapidly.

SharePoint 2010 had the capability to access a site from a smartphone, but the experience was less than stellar. SharePoint 2013 support for smartphone devices has come a long way. When paired with the new Windows 8, you might even say accessing your Word, Excel, OneNote, and PowerPoint is enjoyable on your smartphone or tablet. Well, as enjoyable as information work can be.

Working with SharePoint from your smartphone or tablet is covered in Chapter 17.

Records management and compliance

In the world of information work, you often hear about records management and compliance. Depending on how much of a rebel you are, you might think of these terms as keeping people and processes in line or as an invitation to break some rules.

Every organization has a different set of rules around managing records and keeping processes compliant with company policy. This line of thinking is not specific to SharePoint, and, depending on your organization and industry, could be buttoned-up strict, as in the banking industry, or open to the world and free loving, as in many technology startup companies.

In SharePoint 2013, a number of features are specifically designed to keep records organized and easily managed. In addition, SharePoint has compliance features that even the stodgiest of stodgy big banks will adore. And as someone who has done consulting work for the banking industry, let me tell you, there are some really strict compliance rules out there. (Considering that they’re keeping track of our money, that’s a good thing.) Chapter 20 covers records management and compliance features in SharePoint.

Search

If you have ever used Google, Bing, or Ask.com, then you’re familiar with search engines. These search engines for the Internet are amazingly powerful and eerily comprehensive. SharePoint does a bang-up job of managing content, and the next logical step in managing content is finding content when you need it. As an organization grows, the need for search grows too.

Microsoft acquired a top-notch search company based in Oslo, Norway. The company was called FAST, and Microsoft moved quickly to integrate FAST search with SharePoint. The problem was that FAST was a separate product and was difficult to configure with SharePoint 2010. In SharePoint 2013, the FAST technology is fully integrated and baked right into SharePoint 2013. So no separate search product must be configured to work with SharePoint. The result is a very powerful and seamless search experience right out of the box.

Search is one of those topics that spans from simple to mind-numbingly complex. At a base level, you have search capabilities for every SharePoint site right out of the box. The tech geeks can go deeper and optimize search for your organization. For example, your search query can be aware of your role in the organization and display results specifically for you. So, for example, if you’re in sales and searching for a product, your search results will be sales materials. If you’re an engineer and searching for a product, your results will include specifications. SharePoint search can make this happen, but configuring it is best left to the IT department.

Social

In recent years, computers and the Internet have been connecting people like never before. This new way of interacting through computers is called social computing. The biggest public social network of all is Facebook. Not every organization wants to be in such a public space though.

SharePoint is designed for organizations, and the social aspects of SharePoint share a common goal with Facebook — connecting people. The difference is that SharePoint connections are limited to people in a particular organization. The social aspects of SharePoint are covered in Chapter 16.

Web content management

Content is a fairly simple concept. When you create a Word document or an Excel spreadsheet, you generate content. If you develop a web page for your colleagues to admire, you generate content. Even if you just pull out a pencil and paper and start writing, that’s content. If you scanned that paper, you could then let SharePoint work its content management wonders on the scanned image file.

SharePoint 2013 is especially powerful in handling content, as described in Chapter 18. One particularly tricky piece of content, however, is the content you develop for websites. You know, all of those web pages that contain policies and procedures and documentation and all of that? If the content is created for a web page, then it’s web content and it holds a special place in the heart of SharePoint. The web content management features of SharePoint are legendary, and many organizations first started using SharePoint for just this reason.

Content management often goes by the name Enterprise Content Management (ECM). Don’t be fooled by the terminology though. The Enterprise portion of ECM just means the system manages content at a large scale, as found in a large company or enterprise.

You might be wondering what makes the relationship between SharePoint and web content so special. Well, it all comes down to delegation and control. SharePoint provides the ability for many people to generate content and for a few to approve content. After it’s approved, content can be published automatically for the world, or those in your organization, to consume.