Microsoft released SharePoint 2010 in May. The software provides better integration with products such as Microsoft Office and supplies flexible deployment and centralized administration, giving you the efficient and secure working environment you need.
SharePoint 2007 offered site production and management, document sharing, and basic collaboration through alerts and document protection. In addition to many improvements in these applications, the new version expands SharePoint significantly in two categories: Community, which provides an array of social networking tools, and Insights, which allows you access to information in databases, reports, and business applications for business intelligence and analysis.
When members of a team work in different offices, cities, or even countries, keeping in touch with co-workers and employees is critical. SharePoint 2010 supports that with profiles that show what users are working on, particular competencies, and who they work with, blogs and wikis to share and exchange information and experience, and SharePoint 2010 Communities where information of interest is the focus. Content tagging and personal sites offer even more ways of sharing information, and integration with Outlook enables users to see when this information is updated from one always-on application.
Whether your company uses SharePoint only for document sharing, for running your entire intranet, or even for your public website, the improved Web CMS features in SharePoint 2010 Sites will help you do it better and easier. Microsoft’s goal is to make SharePoint more like other Office applications, and to that end, they have updated the user interface to function more like Word and Excel, including adding the Ribbon and the new Backstage View. Other updates include cross-browser support, improved search capabilities, and the addition of web analytics.
With SharePoint 2010 Composites, you can work with data from external systems and databases as if it was in SharePoint, creating custom sites and no-programming application solutions. You can even centralize Access databases and Excel workbooks and deploy safe sandboxes where new ideas can be tested without risk to the platform.
Analysis, web-based reports, and dashboards are available for the SharePoint 2010 Insights user. These tools produce graphical reports and heads-up displays that employees and managers can use to stay up to date on key performance indicators and make good business decisions.
In SharePoint 2010 Content, Microsoft offers the ability to designate a stored item as a record. This freezes the information for compliance or regulatory purposes, preventing any change. Document management also directly integrates with MS Office, allowing you to work on your documents in a familiar environment, improving document access control mechanisms and categorizing them for easier searches.
SharePoint 2010 gives you deeper insight into operations with an easy-to-use central administration web site, PowerShell support, and extensible architecture to add third-party services. SharePoint Health Analyzer allows you to locate potential problems and automatically fix common configuration and performance problems automatically. Plus, Visual Upgrade enables you to upgrade to SharePoint 2010 but keep the SharePoint 2007 interface until you’re ready to change.
Learn more about upgrading to SharePoint 2010 and all the new Microsoft applications by calling Infinitely Virtual at (866) 257-8455 or requesting more information at www.InfinitelyVirtual.com.
