Internet and intranet portals

This is an integrate suite, which facilitates comprehensive content management, accelerating business processes within an organisation, improving in itself its effectiveness. It constitutes a modern tool supporting all intranet, extranet, and Web applications across an enterprise within one integrated platform.

Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 enables very fast and easy portal management, while maintaining all standards of image identification of the company. Shaping the content and its presentation on the portal is performed by an intuitive interface using a web browser. The system uses a mechanism of templates determining the exact look of particular pages. The templates also have automatically generated elements, such as menu, search buttons, footnotes, banners, etc.

The system possesses tools supporting team work on the content of the portal, such as:

• Workflow elements which support the exchange of data, intensify cooperation between particular departments or individuals, and improve effectiveness of processes occurring within the company,
• Tools enabling to gather shared graphics and multimedia documents in the form of a gallery. The clear structure of the system allows users to quickly locate content and current information relevant to their specific needs or add information in the appropriate place,
• Tools enabling to control access rights and method of publishing content on web pages, dividing users in accordance with the rights ascribed to them, e.g. author, administrator, reader, moderator, etc.

The system also supports Forms Services–driven solutions, which make it possible to more securely and accurately collect information both inside and outside the organization without coding any custom applications. This information can then be integrated easily into line-of-business systems, stored in document, used to start workflow processes, or submitted to Web services, thus avoiding duplicate effort and costly errors resulting from manual data entry,
Integration with Microsoft Office suite applications, e-mail, and well-known Web browsers simplifies the user experience. Organizations can easily modify the out-of-the-box processes or define their own processes using familiar Microsoft tools such as Microsoft Office SharePoint Designer 2007 or Microsoft Visual Studio development system.

The system Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 is:

• Dynamic, interactive portals of business analysis, which provides access to data and analyses in real time; this simplifies building a centralised and always up-to-date and accessible platform of knowledge on the company. Easy access to business details, keeping confidential information protected, enables people and organizations to make decisions based on the latest information and facts more quickly,
• Tool for exchanging data from line-of-business applications, such as SAP and Siebel systems, with Office SharePoint Server 2007 through Web Parts, lists, people profiles, search, or programmatically,
• Simplified and more direct collaboration between users inside and outside the organisation. Tool for building networks of partners, Clients and subcontractors, enhancing personal relationships, building relations with the business surroundings,
• Modern, flexible work model, freeing from limitations of corporate network activity in a given organisation,
• Personalisation building corporate culture of an enterprise. Functionality My Site provides users with a totally personalised experience. Each site can be used to store, present and view information about the user, his skills and roles, colleagues and managers, groups and distribution lists the user belongs to, and documents the user is working on. Each site contains stringent privacy control over maintaining confidentiality and enhanced security mechanisms, so that each user can choose how much information to present, and to whom.

Thanks to the use of the intranet, extranet and Web services, the integrated Office SharePoint Server 2007 platform increases the flexibility of the IT system, while reducing the number of maintained tools.

Enhanced interoperability support
Office SharePoint Server 2007 is built on a scalable architecture, with support for Web services and interoperability standards including XML and Simple Object Access Protocol (SOAP). Office SharePoint Server 2007 also has rich, open application programming interfaces (APIs) and event handlers for lists and documents. This enables integration with existing systems and provides the flexibility to incorporate new non-Microsoft IT investments. LDAP integration support for other pluggable authentication providers makes it easier to work with non-Active Directory sources. Out-of-the-box WSRP Consumer Web Part enables integration with other WSRP-compliant portal solutions.

Enable IT to focus on more strategic tasks
Users can now create sites, initiate workflows, self-provision applications, access back-end data, define security at a per-item level, restore deleted items, and complete other tasks without involving employees of the IT department. This reduced user dependence on IT improves productivity and also enables the IT department to focus on providing real value-added services to the organization.

Simplify deployment, management, and system administration
Managing a Web server farm, deploying new pieces of content and managing synchronization across those sites is now much simpler. Deployment can be done in “top-down” or “bottom-up” fashion. Out-of-the-box Site-starter Templates for common Web sites, with Area and Page Layout templates and preconfigured navigation, simplify site staging. Moreover, enhanced capabilities to back up and restore content helps IT professionals schedule backups, back up multisite collections, and then restore each one individually.

Robust system monitoring, usage tracking, and monitoring tools
These tools help isolate and solve problems faster and improve the operational efficiency of the system infrastructure. These types of systems give unlimited possibilities of conducting what is broadly defined as communication, both inside the organisation as well as in its business surroundings. Support the creation of effective promotional campaigns, are a necessary tool of internal communication in large organisations, enable building specialist subject vortals dedicated to e.g. internal sales services, marketing and HR employees or franchisee networks. Today they are a necessary element of each modern organisation and a critical requirement of effective communication.