what version of Sharepoint should I learn ?

gollem_1975

I have been asked to look at Sharepoint as a technology solution for a companies website/content managment system.

I have no experience whatsoever with Sharepoint.

was hoping someone on the forum could advise me as to whether i should focus on Sharepoint 2007 ( there is more support, books etc available ) or should I go straight to 2010 ( which has only just been launched ) ?

any advice would be appreciated.

cheers,

Gollem

Thoie

While Sharepoint 2010 does have new features, you'd be able to pick up the majority of things from 2007 books, and just google the additional features you might want to use. The basic principles of workflows, authorisation etc will remain the same.

2010 is going to use the "ribbon" menus - if you're familiar with Office 2007+ you should be able to find your way around. Sharepoint Designer is getting a new UI, which, while long overdue, might cause problems if you're just starting out.

Personally I'd pick up the cheap/handy 2003/2007 books for Sharepoint itself to get a bit of grounding, then, if you find you need Sharepoint Designer, get a 2010 book for that.

gollem_1975

cheers Thoie!

any books you would recommend ?

I'm thinking I can't go far wrong with Wrox ?

(though have been out of the dev game for so long i might need to go the "Dummies" route )

Thoie

I have Sharepoint Designer 2007 Step by Step which is quite good (but that's one you might want to wait for a 2010 version if you're going to use Sharepoint Designer).

I also have Sharepoint 2007 The Definitive Guide which I use quite a bit. The first 4 chapters are about setting up sharepoint server, which isn't something I've needed, but I've found the rest a handy reference guide. There's a "Look Inside" on Amazon which gives you an overview of what's covered in each chapter.

The Wrox books are comparatively more expensive, given that I suspect you'd want a few of them. Maybe I'm a cheapskate, but I'd probably hold out for the 2010 versions if I was going to buy a few of them. They have a 2007 box set for about STG£100 which looks interesting if they do a 2010 version.

Microsoft's own website mightn't be a bad place to begin either - they have a PDF overview of 2010 here, and some videos here.

Ginger

A lot of how the features etc are setup differ greatly from how they are setup on 2010 and 2007.

Also development on 2010 has changed somewhat with Visual Studio 2010 providing better and simpler integration.

From a user standpoint, the UI is changed in 2010 and is less click heavy and more integrated to look like Office 2010.

From a maintainence point of view you can manage most stuff with PowerShell rather than stsadm as in 2007.

So while you can learn Sharepoint 2007 with a view to changing up, there are enough significant differences to make this a bit of an exercise.

gollem_1975

would it be oversimplifying the issue to say if the users are using office 2010 then go for Sharepoint 2010 ?

if they are using 2007 then go with Sharepoint 2007 ?

Ginger

Its one way of looking at it! Being honest I would be using SP2010 with Office 2010 anyways, just to leverage the fact that UI is the same in both and some of the collaboration stuff is only in the 2010 suites

What aspect are you coming at this from, developer, admin, integrator?

gollem_1975

@ginger -

initially as a developer for a CMS.

then support/admin role.

integration with Microsoft Dynamics CRM is a long-term objective.

Ginger

Development is much better and easier to manage process on SharePoint 2010.

Dynamics 4.0 integration with SharePoint 2007/2010 is a hack at best, whereas the other way round there are some nice webparts. Using MOSS/SP2010 as your document store from Dynamics is messy and non trivial.

With SP2010 you can debug via the IDE via the debug commands (F5) which is not possible in MOSS, you need to attach to the w3p process. You also need to know a lot more about the whole folder structure and XML files in MOSS whereas a lot of this is done automagically in SP2010. There are tools to manage this for VS208.

Also with MOSS 2007 you need to run a server level OS or using the Bamboo installer to install on Vista/7 whereas with SP2010 you can install it on Windows 7 as a supported development environment.

So really I would be pushing for you to go towards SP2010. Are you targetting internal company sites or hosted services.

Remember that WSS has now being renamed as SharePoint 2010 Foundations so if people are looking for the free version before they upgrade to the standard/enterprise versions.

stevenmu

I'd say go with 2010 as well. It seems likely from your posts that that is the version you will go live with, so why not be using it right from the start. One of the biggest difficulties in learning SharePoint is the huge amount of settings and configuration possible, it takes a long time to even get a feel for where you should look for a particular option. You don't want to have to go through this process for 2007 only to go through it again for 2010.

There is a lot of support and info out there for 2007, but in many cases it will apply to 2010 with very little change. And the support and documentation already available for 2010 far surpasses what was available for 2007 in the early days.

One big tip I'd give to anybody starting out in SharePoint is to spend a hell of a lot of time playing with the out-of-the-box functionality before even considering to write a single line of code. Spend a lot of time:

-creating web applications & site collections
-trying out each of the different site templates and seeing what they offer
-adding lists and libraries of all the different types available
-creating custom content types
-adding new columns of all the different types
-creating and editing views
-adding all of the web part types to pages
-using the more advanced web parts like the Content Query Web Part
-using SharePoint Designer to edit pages
-creating SharePoint Designer Workflows
-creating Infopath forms and publishing with Forms Server
-using Excel and Word services
-using Business Connectivity Services (and external content types, lists)

And that's just off the top of my head To be a truly effective SharePoint dev/admin you need to have a very in-depth knowledge of the built in SharePoint functionality and it's potential, and know how much you can achieve with simple configuration without having to resort to writing code. As a SharePoint consultant I have on more than one occasion gone to a client site where they have spent multiple man years 'developing' functionality for SharePoint which I have been able to configure in a day or two using out of the box functionality.

Sometimes OOB functionality simply won't do and it is necessary to develop custom solutions and it's great to be able to do this (and the project templates which are now 1st class citizens in VS2010 are fantastic for this), but it should be minimised when possible.

(and a truely great SharePoint dev/admin will try to guide client/user requirements in this direction)

Ginger

Agreed with stevenmu

I spend a lot of time looking at solutions on client sites where they have developed some custom inhouse solutions that could have been done with some simple configuration changes ... Menus are the biggest offenders in this.

Custom masterpages are another offender, with people adjusting the default.master and then wondering why the site breaks.

Learn to understand the term ghostable and what it means when you are changing pages.

gollem_1975

Ginger wrote: »

Dynamics 4.0 integration with SharePoint 2007/2010 is a hack at best, whereas the other way round there are some nice webparts. Using MOSS/SP2010 as your document store from Dynamics is messy and non trivial.

So it would be better to start off familiarising myself with Dynamics first. the company I am going tobe working for is using Dynamis already. there is no sharepoint installation inhouse at the moment..thats where I come in

So really I would be pushing for you to go towards SP2010. Are you targetting internal company sites or hosted services.

at the interview it was mentioned that they are looking at an internal site for document management and also want to use sharepoint as the CMS for their public internet site.

Remember that WSS has now being renamed as SharePoint 2010 Foundations so if people are looking for the free version before they upgrade to the standard/enterprise versions.

cheers, will definitely look at this.

thanks for the info.

Ginger

Well the way that Dynamics uses SharePoint document libraries is through an iFrame so its not ideal (http://www.microsoft.com/dynamics/crm/using/deploy/iframesharepoint.mspx)

Using SP as a CMS .. ask most SP devs and they will say use another.. Licencing is heavy (41K USD) so people usually shy away on that count alone beause after that you need a additional licencing for SQL server and Windows server. (see this for an example http://www.harbar.net/archive/2008/05/23/Office-SharePoint-Server-for-Internet-Sites-Licensing.aspx)

I would look at getting handy with SP2010 and working from there..

Thoie

stevenmu wrote: »

-creating Infopath forms and publishing with Forms Server

Maybe I should start a new thread on this, but what's the point of Infopath?

Maybe it's just something I don't need, but I've stuck my head into it, stared at it in bemusement, and been unable to think of anything I'd do with it. I've read the blurb, I've read the opening help info, looked at the demonstrations... and thought "meh", and gone back to what I was doing.

What do people use it for in the real world?

Ginger

Its quite handy really. A worked example

Business analyst (non programmer type) creates a nice new form in InfoPath for requisition of supplied for example. It has some nice drop downs that are linked to the different BUs in the organisation, some checks to see if you have managerial signoff etc.

They publish this form as a new content type to SharePoint and people can now go to the Requisition library, click new and get this nice form and fill it in and save it back to SharePoint. We have an email notification set up that sends an email when the new form is filled out so that the person in charge can process it.

Since we dont want everyone to have infopath on their machine, we save it as web enabled and display in the browser (form services).

Later we think, you know what, the requisitions could be automated with workflow and we use SP Designer to create a nice requisition workflow that ties into all this and speed up the requisition process.

People use it quite a lot

Thoie

Aha, that makes a bit more sense - particularly the checks (managerial signoff in your example). I'll go do some more reading. The other bits (email notifications and automated workflow) are all things you can do without Infopath (though perhaps not as neatly?).

At the moment I'd have "managerial approval" equivalent setup in the workflow - my version would be that you have to enter your manager's name in the form, then the workflow would start by mailing the manager and asking him to go change the status, which isn't foolproof.

Ginger

That could be done much easier.. Save the form, get teh manager from the from via the workflow, create a task, mail, check task status etc etc

Its just a simple fall down workflow with a form to initiate it