Happy hump day - we are almost nearing the end of Chapter 3 in
Windows Small Business Server 2003 Best Practices wherein we are
studying Windows SharePoint Services. As you know - I am posting
up a few pages per day from my book for your pleasure.
enjoy....harrybbbb
Harry Brelsford | ceo at smb nation | www.smbnation.com
Microsoft Small Business Specialist (SBSC), MBA, MCSE, MCT and
other stuff!
###
SBS 2003
Integration with WSS
Those “dev dudes” on the SBS 2003
development team slipped in a few points of integration between
SBS 2003 and WSS that need to be highlighted.
•
; &nbs
p; Remote E-mail Access (under Links). This allows you to
view your Exchange-based e-mail via Outlook Web Access (Chapters
6 and 8 discuss this area more).
•
; &nbs
p; Remote Server Management (under Links). This spawns a
Terminal Services session to manage the SBS 2003 server machine
(Chapters 4, 8, and 11 discuss this functionality more).
•
; &nbs
p; Add User Wizard/Add Template wizard. Adding users
and templates automatically get WSS roles
•
; &nbs
p; Client and Server home page setting
•
; &nbs
p; EICW: publishing intranet takes care of publishing the
intranet virtual server in IIS
•
; &nbs
p; Import Files Wizard from Import Files link from the
Internal Web Site.
Office 2003 Integration with WSS
Something I plan to emphasis during the SMB Nation
Summit worldwide tour in 2004 (www.smbnation.com) is the
integration of Office 2003 with SBS 2003. Nowhere is this
integration more apparent than how Office 2003 ties into WSS. In
this section, I’ll discuss Shared Workspace, metadata
promotion, and Meeting Workspaces and give examples of Access
2003 and FrontPage 2003 integration.
Note
that I won’t dwell on another integration feature, Document
Workspace sites, because that’s what we’ve basically
been working with in this chapter. But for the record, Document
Workspaces are clearly an Office 2003/WSS integration point.
Shared Workspace
You have already seen one such tie-in already.
Revert back to Figure 7-11 and observe the Shared Workspace
element on the right-side of the Word document.
This is one major way Office 2003 and
WSS interact. A workspace is an area, hosted on a server (read
SBS 2003), where colleagues can share documents, information, and
hugs. The features of a shared workspace include document
libraries, task lists, links lists, members list, and e-mail
alerts. All shared workspace tasks can be performed in Office
2003 applications.
BEST
PRACTICE: The Shared Workspace task pane opens automatically when
you open an Office 2003 document that is stored in a WSS document
library. In addition to displaying Web site data in the Members,
Tasks, Documents and Links tabs, the Shared Workspace pane
provides information about the active document on the Status and
Document Information tabs:
The
Status tab is pretty darn cool. It lists important information
such as whether the document is up to date, in conflict with
another member’s copy, and whether it is checked out. The
Document Information tab tells you stuff like modified date, etc.
Metadata promotion
Another Office 2003 integration point with WSS is
metadata promotion. To understand the context of this discussion,
consider the following. In a traditional document management
solution, each document has a profile. The document profile
consists of descriptive fields with information about the
document (i.e., what the document is about). These fields are
called metadata.
BEST
PRACTICE: You’ve likely worked with profiles and metadata
at the document level for a long time and not necessarily even
known it. How? Simply open any existing document from any
Microsoft Office product (e.g., Word) and select File,
Properties. The document property sheet that appears is a profile
and the data in the fields (such as your name in the Author
field) are metadata.
In
a WSS document library, the columns of the document library (list
columns) are the fields for the document profile. If you wish to
add a field to the document profile for the library, you simply
add a column to the WSS document library. The user-created
columns of metadata fields automatically become populated
Visit www.microsoft.com/technet
for the latest updates for any Microsoft product.
fields in the file properties of the
document. It’s that easy! Whenever a user uploads a
document to the library, she will be prompted to complete the
metadata for the document. Note if you upload a document and make
some off-line changes to the file properties of the document,
said changes will be added as metadata in the document profile on
the WSS document library.
BEST
PRACTICE: I’m really starting to cross a boundary here and
move into a discussion on InfoPath, an Office 2003 family member.
InfoPath is an editor that looks kinda like Word and is a backend
application that manages forms. These forms are akin to the file
properties for a document except these forms use the data via XML
to create much more meaningful metadata (a property sheet in Word
just sits there).
For
example, a company uses InfoPath and has a forms library with
expense reports. The employee opens the new expense report form,
enters data and saves it. This structured data is extracted by
the accounting system.
More
on this with specific procedures in my advanced SBS 2003 book.
Meeting Workspaces
A
Meeting Workspace is a Web site for centralizing all the
information and materials for one or more meetings. Prior to the
meeting, attendees use the workspace to publish an agenda,
attendee list, and relevant documents. During or after the
meeting, the workspace can be used to publish meeting results and
track tasks. A user is typically invited to the meeting via an
e-mail request and they click a link to join. You will recall
from the SBS 2000 Best Practices book in the Exchange Server
chapter when I turned you on to Exchange Conferencing Server that
this type of invitation with a link capability was present in
that conferencing environment.
There are five types of Meeting Workspace templates in
WSS:
•
Blank
Meeting Workspace. Requires customization to meet your
requirements
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additional SMB and SBS book, newsletter and conference resources.
•
; &nbs
p; Basic Meeting Workspace. Includes all the basics
elements to plan, organize, and track your meeting. Predefined
lists (and associated Web Parts) include: Objectives, Attendees,
and Agenda.
•
; &nbs
p; Decision Meeting Workspace. Similar to the Basics
Meeting Workspace but also focuses on the ability to review
document and record decisions during the meeting. Additional
lists beyond the “basics” include Document
Library, Tasks, and Decisions.
•
; &nbs
p; Social Meeting Workspace. Oriented toward planning
parties and social events. The lists include Attendees,
Directions, Image/Logo, Things to Bring, Discussions, and Picture
Library.
•
; &nbs
p; Multipage Meeting Workspace. This is the same as the
Basic Meeting Workspace but allows multiple pages.
You
can create a Meeting Workspace either in WSS or via Outlook 2003.
From WSS, simply click Create (from the top link bar) and select
Sites and Workgroups beneath Web Pages. Then complete the
information for the workspace site you want and click Create
(when writing this I created a monthly meeting site for SPRINGERS
and I encourage you to do the same). Then select a template on
the Template Selection page (I selected the Decision Meeting
Workspace). Click OK. And that’s it, Your screen should
look similar to Figure 7-22.
Notes:
Visit www.microsoft.com/technet for the
latest updates for any Microsoft product.
Figure 7-22
Something not widely emphasized in other SBS 2003
learning avenues, like the hands-on labs, is the Meeting
Workspace capability of WSS. Use it!
BEST PRACTICE: The online help in WSS has
excellent support for
Meeting Workspaces and I encourage you to delve
deeper here.
Access 2003 Integration
First off, it’s big assumption time. I’m
assuming that you’ve run (not walked) and installed Office
2003 on your client computer to track with me (you heard me
mention this in other chapters such as Chapter 6 in the Exchange
and Outlook discussion). That said, let me explain how one of the
killer applications, Access 2003, integrates with WSS.
There are five integration points between Access 2003
and WSS:
•
; &nbs
p; Export to WSS. Here you simply specify a site during the
Access 2003 export keystroke sequence and the fields are mapped
automatically.
•
; &nbs
p; Import from WSS. This is a wizard-driven import of Lists
and Views of Lists from WSS.
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additional SMB and SBS book, newsletter and conference resources.
•
; &nbs
p; Read/Write live link to WSS. Think of this as revisiting
Dynamic Data Exchange (DDE) and Object Linking and Embedding
(OLE).
•
; &nbs
p; From WSS to Access 2003. WSS exports stuff to Access
2003. Access 2003 then creates a linked table and reports.
•
; &nbs
p; Lookup field support. Full support for the database
lookup function in WSS.
Excel 2003 integration
Something that’ll excite many readers is the
simplicity with which you can send Excel 2003 data to a WSS list.
You’ll do that right here, right now.
1.
Log on as NormH at
PRESIDENT with the password Purple3300.
2.
Start Microsoft Excel
2003 from Start, All Programs, Microsoft Office, Microsoft Office
Excel 2003.
3.
In Excel 2003, create
a simple spreadsheet with financial information.
As
you’ll see in a moment, I created a quick-and-dirty DuPont
ratio model (if you don’t know what that is, no worries -
it’s an MBA thang!).
4.
Select Data, List,
Create List. The data is converted to a list.
5.
Select Data, List,
Publish List. As seen in Figure 7-23, on the Publish List to
SharePoint Site - Step 1 of 2 pages, complete the Address field
to point to the Breeder1 site you created earlier (http:/
/companyweb/breeder1) and then select the Link to the new
SharePoint list checkbox. In the Name field, give a descriptive
title such as SPRINGERS DuPont Ratio Model and under Description
type something like It’s Norm’s MBA in action!
Notes:
Visit www.microsoft.com/technet for the
latest updates for any Microsoft product.
Figure 7-23
You are
creating the list to publish to WSS.
6.
Click Next.
7.
Confirm the column
format on the next page (Step 2 of 2) and click Finish.
8.
Click OK when the
Windows SharePoint Services dialog box notifies you the list was
successfully created.
9.
Launch Internet
Explorer from Start, Internet. The Springer Spaniels Limited
Home page appears.
10.
Click Breeding Workspace under
Links. Click Lists in the left column. Select SPRINGERS
DuPont Ratio model under Create List.
11.
Observe the list in Figure 7-24.
This is Excel 2003 data being presented in WSS and
it’s active. Go ahead and horse around here. Change values,
insert a row, add data, and see how it affects the list in WSS
and Excel 2003. Yee-haw!
Figure 7-24
This is a great way to integrate Office
2003 and WSS in SBS 2003. This example could be the basis for you
to go forth and create an EIS (discussed in this chapter) on the
SBS network.
BEST PRACTICE: Another cool SBS 2003 WSS and Office 2003
integration point involves looking at a list in a data sheet and
copying and pasting stuff from Excel. Here is what I mean. Create
a data sheet in WSS and click the List in Datasheet option. Then
open Excel 2003 and create a business spreadsheet populated with
business data. Then right-click on your Start toolbar and select
Tile Windows Vertically. At this point, the data list in WSS and
the business spreadsheet in Exchange will be lined up. Then drag
and drop the business data from Excel into the data list in WSS.
This integration method, only possible with Office 2003 or
higher, is another way to transfer data and is very efficient.
Visit www.microsoft.com/technet for the
latest updates for any Microsoft product.
An individual I know who uses this
approach likes it because it allows you to see the Excel-based
business data line up correctly in the WSS data list. Seeing is
believing.
FrontPage 2003 integration
This
integration point is very simple: good looks! FrontPage 2003 can
best be integrated with WSS is to make the pages look better.
Kinda like the popular American television show Extreme Makeover
meets WSS in SBS 2003! More conservative folk would say it allows
you to create professional-looking, high-quality pages. Enough
said.
BEST
PRACTICE: To the extent practicable, PLEASE try to have all of
your client machines upgrade to Office 2003. I propose that the
integration of WSS with Office 2003 is the “killer
application” or a sufficient reason to undergo this
upgrade. Am I all wet on this proposition? Then voice your
opinion to me at sbs@nethealthmon.com!
Note
my advanced SBS 2003 book will have much more discussion on
Office 2003 and even SBS-specific integration with WSS! Stay
tuned.
