Portal Development (MS Office 365: Sharepoint Online)
Portal development enables your company to enable portals where information can be uploaded and shared with other employees, customers and suppliers.
This is accomplished through MS Sharepoint Online which is part of MS Office 365. All this will be more detailed in the following sections:
Summary
Microsoft Office 365: Sharepoint Online enables a company to create a complex internet website, intranet website/portal and extranet website/portal. In the intranet website, you can create, edit and share contacts, products, documents, presentations, contact lists, etc. The admin of the intranet website can manage all these items. The same is true for an extranet website. Microsoft (MS) Sharepoint is fully integrated with MS Office 2010, MS SQL server 2008, MS Dynamics CRM (Online or On Premise), MS Dynamics ERP packages such as Great Plains, Axapta and Navision. Because of MS Sharepoint's rich features and its integration with many softwares, MS Sharepoint is becoming the de facto platform for websites and portals in a company. A quote from an experienced Sharepoint developer summarizes the significance of MS Sharepoint 2010:
"The decision to adopt SharePoint 2010 as a development platform by executive leaders can present significant cost savings for the enterprise in terms of reduced technology stack, lower O&M costs and streamlined application lifecycle management, whether this is an on premise, cloud or hybrid instance".
The following video shows you how MS Sharepoint Online enables people to collaborate on documents:
Features/Capabilities
The capabilities of MS Sharepoint Online are as follows:
Portal | RSS Content Syndication; Audience Targeting (by group only) Site Manager; Site and Document Aggregation Office 2010 Integration; SharePoint Designer
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| Collaboration & Social Computing | Standard Templates; Wikis; Blogs; Surveys; People and Groups Calendars; Tasks; Issue Tracking Email alerts/notifications; Document Collaboration
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Content Management | Business Document Workflow; Document Info Panel & Action Bar WYSIWYG Web Content Authoring; Content Publishing and Deployment Master Pages, Page Layouts, Navigation Controls Site Variations; Retention and Auditing Policies
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| Search | Search for documents and other SharePoint content
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| Standard Parameters | Unlimited number of Sites (subject to space limit) 250 MB per user, aggregated across the organization Use of https helps keep internet access secure Virus filtering via Forefront Business continuity and disaster recovery Single Sign-on capability via Sign In Tool Web form and phone based Tier 2 Support for IT Admin; 6am – 6pm PDT for Beta; 24/7 for general availability
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| Data Protection Service | Self service document restore with a 30 day recycle bin recovery period Business continuity and disaster recovery
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| Security | Self service document restore with a 30 day recycle bin recovery period Business continuity and disaster recovery
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| Service Level Agreements | - 99.9% scheduled uptime with financially backed SLA
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| Directory Synchronization Tool | - This tool allows you to keep the on premises and the online active directories in sync
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| Admin Center | Centralized, Web-based access for configuration and administration of SharePoint Online. Centralized location f or tools download including: Directory Synchronization Tool, Migration Tools, and Sign-In Tools
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Sign In Tool | - Provides single sign on capability and access to all Microsoft Online Services
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For more details on the Microsoft website, click
here.
Demos
The following demos illustrate an overview and details:
Feature Demos
MS Office Sharepoint Online Overview Demo
Although this demo uses MS Windows Sharepoint Services, which is the old Sharepoint version, the steps for creating a doc library and uploading documents are about the same in MS Sharepoint Online.
- A Demo that shows the portal features: Querying for specific information, Targeting audiences, and My Site
- Creating and managing an Infopath form
- Connecting a form to a database (MS Access, SQL) or a list
- Import Excel file into Sharepoint Online, transfer data to a MS Access database accessible from Sharepoint Online
The first demo shows how a dcument goes through multiple levels of approval.
The second demo shows how to add a total expense column to an expense report, and how an expense report can go to the next level of approval if the total expense in a report is lower than a certain limit.
- Content Management
- Search
- Central Administration
- More ..
Integration Demos
Usage Scenarios
The more your company will use MS Sharepoint Online, the more useful you will find it. Our company uses MS Sharepoint Online for its public website, its intranet portals and extranet portals. We keep creating sites, libraries, lists and pages for different departments, business functions and cross department groups. We have reduced a lot of paper work, and made our operations more efficient. We like to share with you some of our usage scenarios where we became more efficient. Leam more.
Customer Success Stories
A few customer success stories are shared next:
Benefits
The benefits are as follows:
Being able to share information online with employees, customers, and anyone to whom you give access. No more need to email documents or any files.
You don't need to be a developer to set up a portal where you can share information. Templates exist to set up a team site
You don;t need to be a developer to set up a public website. Templates wil help you.
Data access from anywhere at anytime
Capital expenditure savings: No servers needed. Your sharepoint is in the cloud, and the cost is pennies compared to an on premise server investment and maintenance
Operational expenditure savings: No system administrator needed.
Pricing
You can buy MS Sharepoint Online seperately or you can buy the MS Office bundle. We recommend you to buy the bundle since it is so cheap. See details of the pricing.
How to Buy It
We are an authorized reseller of MS Office 365. See our listing at the Microsoft Partner site.
Please consult us so that we can assess your needs properly, and that you get the right services for the right needs. Call us at 973 244 1470, or email us at
sales@intercs.com , or complete the form below and submit it.
You will need dedicated support while setting up those services. You will need us to ensure a successful implementation and usage.
Once you have contacted us, we will guide you to the site where you refer us as your partner.
Development Tools and Methodologies Used
The development tools used by our company to develop web applications are as follows:
MS Sharepoint Foundation and Designer 2010
MS Web Expression 4.0 (Studio, Encoder and Blend)
Webmatrix Razor
MS Visual Studio 2010 Ultimate and Team Foundation Server using:
Lightswitch
Silverlight Application Development Tools
MS SQL 2008
Adobe Photoshop and Illustrator
The development methodologies used by our company are as follows:
Visual Studio Team Foundation Server 2010
UML
Case Technology
MS SureStep
Agile Software Development Methodology
Scrum
| MS Office 365 Summary MS has combined the capabilities of MS Office Live for Small Business (Interactive website development , Contact Manager, Document and Team Management), MS Office Live Workspace (including Office Web Apps), MS Exchange Online, MS Sharepoint Online, and MS Office Communitions Service (Lync - Instant Messaging, Video Calling and file sharing), and MS Office Professional Plus ( Office Web Apps and online email, contacts, calendars and presentations) into MS Office 365. The next slide show presents an overview of MS Office 365.
MS Office 365 Overview and Price
MS Office 365 Sharepoint Online MS Office 365 Sharepoint Online will have nearly all the features of MS Sharepoint server 2010 (on premise). Learn more. |