Yo – harryb here – publisher of the Microsoft Small Business Specialist Primer book that is focused on the 70-282 exam. Did you know that I hold a annual fall conference for Channel Partners in the SMB space each October? It’s true, its VEGAS and it’s the 7th annual SMB Nation!
Read on:
Configure Windows SharePoint Services
Windows SharePoint Services (WSS) is the intranet (intraweb) of the company and is automatically installed during the SBS installation. The WSS site is a collaborative platform that allows businesses to organize and manage information in a browser-based and office-integrated environment.
Central to understanding WSS are the following high-level concepts:
- WSS replaces the COMPANY share. Older versions of SBS had a network shared folder called COMPANY (the path was <drive letter>:\Company Share Folders). Now, in the SBS 2003 time frame, you are directed to place your bona fide company-related documents and data in the WSS repository. The WSS repository is a SQL Server-type database file and isn’t part of the NTFS storage system (NTFS can be thought of as the “yellow folders” you are familiar with from MyDocuments or Windows Explorer).
- WSS has alerts and NTFS does not. You will want to configure the alerting capabilities in WSS, to advise you when documents have been checked out, help desk tickets entered, etc.
- Full Search. SBS 2003 Standard Edition uses the Windows MSDE engine to manage WSS. SBS 2003 Premium Edition uses the MSDE engine from SQL Server 2000 to manage WSS and has superior search capabilities.
Chapter 7 Configuring Windows Small Business Server 2003
- More than a document management system. In the real world, it’s easy to view WSS as only a document management system (and a darn good one for free out-of-the-box in SBS 2003). However, that is not the only way MICROSOFT VIEWS IT (remember the 70-282 exam is based on Microsoft viewpoints). In fact, you won’t even see the words “document management” on Microsoft’s SharePoint page at www.microsoft.com/sharepoint. Here is the current WSS description from Microsoft’s site:
Windows SharePoint Services is a collection of services for Microsoft Windows ServerTM 2003 that you can use to create team-oriented Web sites to share information and foster collaboration with other users on documents. You can also use Windows SharePoint Services as a development platform for creating collaboration and information-sharing applications.
Different strokes for different folks. There are numerous ways to access WSS that are fair game on the 70-282 exam:
- CompanyWeb. This is the default home page in Internet Explorer for a
client computer connected to an SBS 2003 network. See Figure 7.9. - My Network Places. WSS folders can be published as network places.
- File, Open. Office 2003 applications can directly open and close documents in WSS.
- Shared Attachments. A new form of e-mail attachment interacts directly with WSS. Very cool!
Configuring WSS
There are several customizations you can perform after installation to make the intranet more useful for your clients and/or organization. WSS is comprised of different web parts that can be modified, moved or removed, and added.
| Notes: |
You can configure WSS by using Tasks located in the Server Management
console under the Internal Web Site link where you can manage:
- Importing files—Using the Import Files Wizard, files, and subfolders can be moved into the SharePoint site from shared folders.
- Add link—Allows you to add an internal or external link to the company’s intraweb site.
- Change name—You can change the name of the intranet displayed on the intranet site.
- Change homepage layout—Lets you modify the layout of the site.
- Manage access—Here you can specify roles for users to manage user access.
- Manage your company’s internal website—Where you can manage intranet site settings.
- Central administration—Used to configure server, virtual server, security, and component settings for SharePoint services.
You may also configure WSS in other ways from the CompanyWeb page. For example, you can create sub-webs from CompanyWeb. Sub-webs are like mini- web pages created to collaborate on a specific project.
IMPORTANT: WSS has very generous permissions. A user added to the SBS 2003 network is given the second-highest level of permissions in WSS: Web Designer. This allows users to create sub-webs by default and enter Help Desk tickets. Contrast that with the restrictive default NTFS shared network folder permission setting for a user on the SBS 2003 network: read-only (actually read, execute, and list—but effectively read-only).
The above comparison of WSS and network share permissions is presented to touch on two points in the 70-282 exam. WSS is considered cool by Microsoft and will certainly be on the exam. And I’ve offered you a security example. Microsoft takes security very seriously.
So the WSS section ends with a couple of homework assignments. First, use
WSS as experience and you will find no better teacher for this section of the
Chapter 7 Configuring Windows Small Business Server 2003
70-282 exam. Keep in mind the exam still covers WSS version 2.0, unlike the 70-631 exam which covers WSS version 3.0! Visit www.sharepointknowledge. com and look for postings on the SBS newsgroups (detailed in Appendix A) from SBS-MVP Chad Gross.
