5 O'Reilly SharePoint Titles
Book Review

By Dale Farris, Reviews Coordinator Golden Triangle PC Club November 2008 Overview From O'Reilly, the long-time standard bearer in information technology book publishing, comes 5 super new books on Microsoft's SharePoint Server system of software. When SharePoint began to hit the market, all organizations and businesses quickly ramped up their internal IT support in order to maximize the many new features in SharePoint that support the interdepartmental, collaborative idea. Here is just a sample of what Microsoft's SharePoint can do for any organization. Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 is a new server program that is part of the 2007 Microsoft Office system. Your organization can use Office SharePoint Server 2007 to facilitate collaboration, provide content management features, implement business processes, and supply access to information that is essential to organizational goals and processes. You can quickly create SharePoint sites that support specific content publishing, content management, records management, or business intelligence needs. You can also conduct effective searches for people, documents, and data, participate in forms-driven business processes, and access and analyze large amounts of business data. Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 provides a single, integrated location where employees can efficiently collaborate with team members, find organizational resources, search for experts and corporate information, manage content and workflow, and leverage business insight to make better-informed decisions. • Collaboration Allow teams to work together effectively, collaborate on and publish documents, maintain task lists, implement workflows, and share information through the use of wikis and blogs. • Portals Create a personal MySite portal to share information with others and personalize the user experience and content of an enterprise Web site based on the user’s profile. • Enterprise Search Quickly and easily find people, expertise, and content in business applications. • Enterprise Content Management Create and manage documents, records, and Web content. • Business Process and Forms Create workflows and electronic forms to automate and streamline your business processes. • Business Intelligence Allow information workers to easily access critical business information, analyze and view data, and publish reports to make more informed decisions. Integration With 2007 Microsoft Office System Office SharePoint Server 2007 is designed to work effectively with other programs, servers, and technologies in the 2007 Office release. For example, with Microsoft Office PowerPoint 2007, you can create a slide library on an Office SharePoint Server 2007 site that allows other users to pick specific slides for their own presentation and receive notifications and updated versions when the slides have been modified. If you've heard about Microsoft Windows SharePoint Services, you may wonder how it relates to Office SharePoint Server 2007. Windows SharePoint Services is an enabling technology that is included in Microsoft Windows Server 2003. It helps teams stay connected and productive by providing easy access to the people, documents, and information that they need to make well-informed decisions and get work done. Office SharePoint Server 2007 relies on the Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 technology to provide a consistent, familiar framework for lists and libraries, site administration, and site customization. Any features that are available in Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 are also available in Office SharePoint Server 2007. However, Office SharePoint Server 2007 offers enhanced and additional features that are unavailable on a Windows SharePoint Services site. For example, both Office SharePoint Server 2007 and Windows SharePoint Services include site templates for collaborating with colleagues and setting up meetings. However, Office SharePoint Server 2007 includes a number of additional site templates related to enterprise and publishing scenarios. SharePoint provides all an organization needs to fully support and grow an internal Intranet where team members share files and communicate far more effectively. Naturally, with all the many complex features in this new enterprise functionality, comes a relatively steep learning curve as IT departments everywhere strive to learn how to set up and maintain their SharePoint site. To their rescue comes O'Reilly, as is usually the case, with these 5 excellent resources on SharePoint that will be a welcome investment to any IT staff. The 5 Titles Reviewed Here Include the Following (1) - SharePoint 2007: The Definitive Guide (2) - Essential SharePoint 2007 (3) - SharePoint for Project Management (4) - SharePoint User's Guide (5) - SharePoint Office Pocket Guide These 5 titles will be summarized here. (1) - SharePoint 2007: The Definitive Guide For any organization that wants to use Windows SharePoint Services to share and collaborate on Microsoft Office documents, this book shows administrators of all levels how to get up and running with this powerful and popular set of collaboration tools. SharePoint 2007: The Definitive Guide provides a detailed discussion of all SharePoint features, applications and extensions. You learn how to build SharePoint sites and site collections, along with ways to administrate, secure, and extend SharePoint. Microsoft Windows SharePoint Services technology in Office 2007 is an integrated set of services designed to connect people, information, processes, and systems both within and beyond the organizational firewall. SharePoint 2007: The Definitive Guide provides a detailed discussion of all SharePoint features, applications and extensions. You learn how to build SharePoint sites and site collections, along with ways to administrate, secure, and extend SharePoint. This book teaches you how to: Get up to speed on SharePoint, including ways to create lists, libraries, discussions and surveys Integrate email, use web parts, track changes with RSS, and use database reporting services Customize your personal site, create sites and areas, and organize site collections Integrate with Office applications, including Excel, Word, Outlook, Picture Manager, and InfoPath Install, deploy, maintain and secure SharePoint Brand a portal, using your corporate style sheet, designing templates, and building site definitions Extend SitePoint, such as creating client side and server side web parts, using the SharePoint class library and SharePoint web services Each chapter starts with a "guide" that lets you know what it covers before you dive in. The book also features a detailed reference section that includes information on compatibility, command line utilities, services, and CSS styles. Why wait? Get a hold of SharePoint 2007: The Definitive Guide today! SharePoint 2007: The Definitive Guide Table of Contents The 27 chapters include: 1  -  Introducing Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 2  -  Changes in the WSS Architecture 3  -  Installing SharePoint 2007 4  -  Configuring a Multiserver Farm 5  -  Designing SharePoint Sites 6  -  Understanding the Datasheet and Explorer Views 7  -  Applying Templates, Page Layouts, and Themes 8  -  Creating Web Parts 9  -  Creating and Managing Document Workspaces and Libraries 10 - Creating and Managing Meeting Workspaces 11 - Creating and Managing Discussion 12 - Creating and Managing SharePoint Groups and Users 13 - Creating and Managing Picture Libraries 14 - Creating and Managing Lists 15 - Business Intelligence and SharePoint 16 - Sharing Contacts and Meetings with Outlook 17 - Creating, Editing, and Managing Word Documents with SharePoint 18 - Creating, Editing, and Managing Excel Documents with SharePoint 19 - Creating in SharePoint Designer 2007 20 - InfoPath and SharePoint 21 - Designing SharePoint My Sites 22 - Applying Security to Your SharePoint Site 23 - SharePoint Administration 24 - Upgrading From SharePoint Portal Server 2003 25 - Using Server-Side and Client-Side Web Parts 26 - Using SharePoint Web Services 27 - Using SharePoint Server for Search 28 - Using the SharePoint Object Model 29 - Web Content Management Date September 2007 ISBN ISBN 10: 0-596-52958-9 ISBN 13: 978-0-596-52958-1 Book Contents 819 pages; figures; tables; screenshots; index Authors James Pyles, Bob Fox, Christopher M. Buechler, Murray Gordon, Michael Lotter, Jason Medero, Nilesh Mehta, Joris Poelmans, Christopher Pragash, Piotr Prussak, and Christopher J. Regan About the Lead Author James Pyles is a technical writer at Aquent Studios in Boise, Idaho. The author of PC Technician Street Smarts: A Real World Guide to CompTIA A+ Skills (Sybex) and numerous other technical works, James regularly reviews books on operating systems, web design, and programming for various web and print publications. He served as a SharePoint site administrator for a software group at Micron Technologies. You can reach him at www.wiredwriter.net. List Price $49.99 $59.99 CAN (2) - Essential SharePoint 2007 If you're considering the vastly improved 2007 version of SharePoint, this concise, practical and friendly guide will teach you how to get the most from the latest version of Microsoft's information-sharing and collaboration platform. Essential SharePoint 2007 demonstrates how your business can use SharePoint to control documents, structure workflow, and share information over the Web using standard tools business users already know -- Microsoft Office and Internet Explorer. Written in a conversational tone by internationally recognized SharePoint consultant and trainer Jeff Webb, this book helps SharePoint administrators, site owners, and power users quickly gain the skills necessary to perform a wide variety of tasks for intranet and extranet web sites, and explains what's new in SharePoint 2007 for experienced SharePoint 2003 administrators. Essential SharePoint 2007 teaches you how to: Use SharePoint 2007 with Outlook, Word and Excel, and as a document management tool, replacing, for example, shared network drives with libraries Build and customize sites, lists, libraries and web parts for intranets and extranets Use SharePoint 2007 for team communication through blogs, wikis, surveys, and RSS and email alerts Build a SharePoint workflow application Create and program web parts in order to deliver custom services and data to a site Deploy and administer SharePoint 2007 Each chapter ends with a summary of best practices advocated by the author, and the first few chapters of the book are ideal as training materials for end users. Later chapters give developers and administrators tools not only to keep company sites running smoothly, but also to customize and extend them. The book also contains several appendices with a glossary of terms and hard-to-find information. Essential SharePoint 2007 is a one-stop task-oriented guide for learning what's necessary to make this tool a vital part of team productivity. Essential SharePoint 2007 Table of Contents The 13 chapters include: 1   - Using SharePoint 2   - Word, Excel, and Outlook 3   - Creating Sites 4   - Creating Lists 5   - Creating Libraries 6   - Building Pages 7   - Creating My Sites, Blogs, and Wikis 8   - Enabling Email and Workflow 9   - RSS, Rollups, and Site Maps 10 - Gathering Data With InfoPath 11 - Programming Web Parts 12 - Consuming SharePoint Services 13 - Administering SharePoint The book also has 2 appendices: Appendix A - Upgrading Appendix B - Reference Tables Date September 2007 ISBN ISBN 10: 0-596-51407-7 ISBN 13: 978-0-596-51407-5 Book Contents 445 pages; figures; tables; screenshots; appendices; glossary; index Author Jeff Webb About the Author Jeff Webb is a SharePoint consultant and trainer who has written about computers and technology for 20 years. Among his published O'Reilly titles are Essential SharePoint, SharePoint Office Pocket Guide, Programming Excel with VBA and .NET, and Excel 2003 Programming: A Developer's Notebook. Jeff was an original member of Microsoft's Visual Basic team. List Price $39.99 $47.99 CAN (3) - SharePoint for Project Management Microsoft SharePoint is perfect for project management, but most companies don't understand it's power. This hands-on book demonstrates how SharePoint can help you organize and manage complex projects -- a decidedly more productive way to use this popular collaboration software. You'll learn how to apply common and practical project management concepts in SharePoint, and build a Project Management Information System (PMIS) that can efficiently coordinate communication and collaboration among team members. Most companies don't understand SharePoint's power, and use it simply to share documents or spreadsheets. This hands-on book demonstrates how SharePoint can also help you organize and manage complex projects. With SharePoint for Project Management, you'll not only understand how to apply common and practical project management concepts in SharePoint, you'll learn how to build a Project Management Information System (PMIS), customized to your project, that can efficiently coordinate communication and collaboration among team members. With this book, you will: Learn to apply key project management techniques by leveraging SharePoint as a PMIS Track a case study that illustrates the circumstances and processes of an effective SharePoint PMIS Appropriately define access permissions for project stakeholders and team members Centralize project documents and keep track of document history with version control Automate project reporting mechanisms and generate on-demand status reports Track project schedules, control changes, and manage project risks Integrate project management tools such as Excel, Microsoft Project, PowerPoint, and Outlook Each chapter includes activities that let you practice what you learn. Most SharePoint books are either too introductory (for end users), or too technical (for system administrators). SharePoint for Project Management is just what project managers like you need to learn how to harness the organizational abilities of this powerful software. SharePoint for Project Management Table of Contents The 9 chapters include: 1 - Project Kickoff 2 - Setting up the PMIS 3 - Adding PMIS Components 4 - Adding Stakeholders to the PMIS 5 - Supporting Team Collaboration 6 - Project Tracking 7 - Project Reporting 8 - Integrating PM Tools 9 - Project Closing Date October 2008 ISBN ISBN 10: 0-596-52014-X ISBN 13: 978-0-596-52014-4 Book Contents 250 pages; figures; tables; screenshots; index Author Dux Raymond Sy About the Author With over 15 years of experience in Information Technology, Dux Raymond Sy has earned a reputation as among the leading experts in leveraging technology to enhance project management. He is currently a managing partner and the chief evangelist of Innovative-e, Inc., a Microsoft-certified, business technology consulting and services company that serves startups to Global 50 clients. As a thought leader in maximizing project team collaboration, he is focused on empowering organizations on how to leverage the benefits of collaborative tools with quantifiable goals such as: Increasing productivity and efficiency, decreasing collaboration redundancies and streamlining electronic communications. In addition, he is Bamboo Nation's resident project management expert. A sought after trainer for Learning Tree International, he has developed and facilitated management and technology training to government organizations, Fortune 500 companies, non-profit institutions in the United States, Bahamas, Barbados, China , the United Kingdom and the Philippines and regularly writes about project management, SharePoint and globalization at MeetDux.com. List Price $44.99 $44.99 CAN (4) - SharePoint User's Guide This straightforward guide shows SharePoint users how to create and use web sites for sharing and collaboration. Learn to use the document and picture libraries for adding and editing content, add discussion boards and surveys, receive alerts when documents and information have been added or changed, and enhance security. Designed to help you find answers quickly, the book shows how to make the most of SharePoint for productivity and collaboration. There's nothing like teamwork for making progress on a project, but sharing information and building on each other's successes can be challenging when your team is scattered across the miles. Microsoft's SharePoint helps teams and organizations close the distance. With SharePoint, groups construct web sites specifically for collaboration--sites where individuals can capture and share ideas, and work together on documents, tasks, contacts, and events. It's the next best thing to being in the room together. Unfortunately, much of the documentation for SharePoint is written to help system administrators get it up and running, which often leaves end users in the dark. The SharePoint User's Guide takes another approach: this quick and easy guide shows you what you need to know to start using SharePoint effectively and how to get the most from it. You'll learn how to create sites that your organization can use to work together or independently, from an end user's point of view. Now, even beginners can learn how to: access sites that are already set up create new sites personalize sites use the document and picture libraries for adding and editing content add discussion boards and surveys to a site enhance security You'll learn how you can receive alerts to tell you when existing documents and information have been changed, or when new information or documents have been added. You can even share select information with partners or customers outside your organization. No one that uses SharePoint collaboration services can afford to be without this handy book. The SharePoint User's Guide is designed to help you find answers quickly, explaining key concepts and major points in straightforward language. With SharePoint, any team or organization can overcome geographic or time-zone challenges, and the SharePoint User's Guide will show them how. SharePoint User's Guide Table of Contents The 6 chapters include: 1 - Working With Sites and Workspace 2 - Basic Web Parts 3 - Extending Site Pages 4 - Securing SharePoint Sites 5 - Integrating With Office 2003 6 - Setting Up Windows SharePoint Services Date March 2005 ISBN ISBN 10: 0-596-00908-9 ISBN 13: 978-0-596-00908-3 Book Contents 148 pages; figures; tables; screenshots; index Author Infusion Development Corporation About the Author The Infusion Development Corporation offers software development services, developer training, and consulting services for large financial firms, such as Dun & Bradstreet, Deutsche Bank, MetLife, and Wachovia. A Microsoft Certified Solutions Provider, the company focuses on emerging and established Windows NT and Unix software development technologies. Infusion Development Corp is also a TIBCO Alliance Partner and Authorized Learning Partner (TALP). Their expertise lies in the architecture and implementation of the most popular technologies in use today, including: C++, COM/COM+, .NET, Java™, EJB™, Visual Basic, CORBA, Win32, XML, XSLT and TIBCO, as well as a number of relational database systems including Oracle, Sybase, and Microsoft SQL Server. List Price $14.95 $20.95 CAN (5) - SharePoint Office Pocket Guide With this handy reference as your guide, you can reap all the benefits of SharePoint--Microsoft's amazing information-sharing tool. It shows you, in plain language, how to construct a web site where individuals from all over can capture and share ideas. Learn how to upload documents, edit content, send alerts, track work items, add new team members, and much more. SharePoint Office Pocket Guide is the quick path to sharing documents and building lists. Written specifically for users of Microsoft Word, Excel, and Outlook, it covers the ins and outs of SharePoint clearly and concisely. Within minutes, you'll understand how to: Create team sites, document libraries, and shared workspaces Add web parts to create custom pages Build searchable libraries of PDF files Link local copies of Word and Excel files to SharePoint workspace copies Reconcile changes from multiple authors Review document history Use the Explorer Views to drag-and-drop files into SharePoint quickly Create data lists that look up values from other lists (look-up tables) Group, total, and filter list items using views Use InfoPath form libraries to collect data You get the how and why of the top tasks without the tedious menu-by-menu walkthroughs that take hundreds of pages but add little value. SharePoint Office Pocket Guide also includes a guide to online resources that expand your knowledge of specific topics SharePoint Office Pocket Guide Table of Contents The 6 chapters include: 1 - Why Use SharePoint 2 - Start With SharePoint 3 - Share Meetings With Outlook 4 - Workspaces With Excel 5 - Document Libraries With Word 6 - Gather Data With Lists or InfoPath The book also has 2 appendices. Appendix A - Office Version Compatibility Appendix B - Online Resources Date June 2005 ISBN ISBN 10: 0-596-10112-0 ISBN 13: 978-0-596-10112-1 Book Contents 84 pages; figures; tables; appendices; index Author Jeff Webb About the Author Jeff Webb is a SharePoint consultant and trainer who has written about computers and technology for 20 years. Among his published O'Reilly titles are Essential SharePoint, SharePoint Office Pocket Guide, Programming Excel with VBA and .NET, and Excel 2003 Programming: A Developer's Notebook. Jeff was an original member of Microsoft's Visual Basic team. List Price $9.95 $13.95 CAN Targeted Readers Of these 5 titles summarized here, SharePoint User's Guide is the one that is most relevant to end users of SharePoint who have relatively little to do with the back-end, server side of setting up and maintaining SharePoint servers. With the tremendous complexity of operations of SharePoint and its many handy features, even the user side of working with SharePoint can be overwhelming for first-time users who want to take advantage of what SharePoint can do. The SharePoint User's Guide is an excellent resource for all team members who need a little help in getting acquainted with and understanding SharePoint. The other 4 titles reviewed here are excellent tools for use by SharePoint system managers who have the responsibility for setting up SharePoint servers, including the Office SharePoint server, and for ongoing maintenance and support. This responsibility usually rests with information technology teams who are also likely supporting all the computer operations within their respective organizations. For these IT professionals, having these titles handy may prove beneficial as they learn how to implement and expand SharePoint. Of course, with any enterprise side software as complex and feature rich as SharePoint, there will be an abundance of books and various other support tools related to the software, and this is certainly the case with SharePoint. The focus with these titles is to provide informative, usable material in book form, and O'Reilly is of course one of the best publishers of IT material. These 5 titles reviewed here are but a few of the many other SharePoint works now flooding the market, and as is always the case, IT professionals can always look to O'Reilly for reliable, cost-effective titles related to their particular interest. In the future, look for O'Reilly to continue expanding their titles on SharePoint as this exciting, dynamic software begins to rollout in more organizations around the world. Publisher of All 5 Titles Marsee Henon marsee@oreilly.com O'Reilly & Associates, Inc. 1005 Gravenstein Highway North Sebastopol, California 95472 707-827-7000 707-827-7114 800-998-9938 FAX 707-829-0104 www.oreilly.com