Introduction to Microsoft SharePoint Online Capabilities, Security, Deployment and Management

Editor's Notes

• #2: As a company, our journey started with success in the desktop software, and in the past decade, we have become a leading player in the enterprise software arena. And now, we are investing heavily to make these capabilities available online that can be experienced through multiple device types.Our vision is more than just software delivered over the internet or software experienced through a browser only. With Software + Services, our vision is to create an unique experience that combine software with the power of internet services that can be experienced across multiple device types. For example, depending on the device and scenario, services can be experienced through a rich client or a thin browser. The software can be delivered as a service or running out of your own datacenters or a combination of both.
• #3: As a company, our journey started with success in the desktop software, and in the past decade, we have become a leading player in the enterprise software arena. And now, we are investing heavily to make these capabilities available online that can be experienced through multiple device types.Our vision is more than just software delivered over the internet or software experienced through a browser only. With Software + Services, our vision is to create an unique experience that combine software with the power of internet services that can be experienced across multiple device types. For example, depending on the device and scenario, services can be experienced through a rich client or a thin browser. The software can be delivered as a service or running out of your own datacenters or a combination of both.
• #4: To enable this vision, fundamental to our S+S approach is the idea of choice. We want to create a spectrum of capabilities that are tailored to different scenarios and customer needs. Our “Live” services are designed for individuals or small businesses which the end user is responsible for managing their service. For the IT Managed space, our business customers will have a choice to decide whether they want to experience our software capabilities as a “Online” service or continue to operate the software themselves to take advantage of the greatest set of controls and flexibility. We believe there are unique requirements in the IT managed space which are very different than the consumer space such as features, availability, compliance capabilities, SLA, etc. and also a different business model. Given the customer’s existing environment, we want to empower our IT Professional the ability to mix and match between online and on-premise software depending on the particular application, geography or end user roles. They can choose to move to Online as quickly as they like or stay with On-premise or a bit of both, it is entirely up to you.
• #5: Let’s now drill down on “Online” services. Online services is a set of enterprise class software delivered as subscription services hosted by Microsoft and sold through partners. Our goals is to create a service option for every one of our business software products. The initial set of services we are offering focus on the business productivity capabilities that includes Exchange Online, Office SharePoint Online, Office Live Meeting, Office Communications Online, Exchange Hosted Services and Microsoft Dynamics CRM Online. Exchange Hosted Services are attached services that include filtering, archiving, encryption and continuity. We plan to add many more Online services to this portfolio in the coming months.The Business Productivity Online Suite, shown here, includes Exchange Online, Office SharePoint Online, Office Communications Online, and Office Live Meeting. Office Communications Online is currently available as part of the dedicated offering and a multi-tenant offering of the service will be added in early 2009.
• #7: FedEx has developed a fast and convenient way for its customers to easily access some of FedEx’s most popular features found on fedex.com using the familiar tools of the Microsoft Office system. With FedEXQuickShip, customers can create and track US shipments, get rates, schedule pickups and find the nearest staffed FedEx location all from within Microsoft Outlook. It’s simple to use and it’s available for individuals, small businesses and the biggest enterprise. QuickShip is the first of many such solutions that FedEx plans to provide. It has exposed its services via the web and developers can extend these freely. FedEx has developed prototype integration with SharePoint Web Parts too. So that, for example, customers can “Print to FedEx Kinko’s” from with a SharePoint document library. What’s interesting with this approach is that the same technology underpins Office SharePoint Server, SharePoint Server Online and Office Live Small Business. As a result, with one solution, FedEx is able to address the needs of each of the business segments for which the SharePoint server is tailored.S+S attributes: multi-headed, deployment, composition, federation.
• #8: CalendarsCalendars have been enhanced with richer calendar views, expanded support for recurring events, and all-day events. Document Collaboration Improvements to SharePoint document libraries include:• Checking out documents locally• Offline document library support in Outlook 2007• Major and minor version numbering and tracking• Support for multiple content types • Policy, auditing, and workflow• Tree view supportStandard Site Templates Windows SharePoint Services V3 includes the following standard collaboration site templates• Team site• Document workspace• Blank site• Blog• WikiWikis A wiki is a new site template in Windows SharePoint Services V3 that makes it easy to create, edit, link, and restore an individual Web page. Wikis can be used as creative forums to brainstorm ideas, manage knowledge bases, create designs as well as instruction guides or simply gather information in an easy-to-edit format. Wikis are easy to create, modify, and annotate; in addition to tracking contributions and changes.Key features include:• Fast and easy page creation• Easy and automatic linking• Version differences• WYSIWYG (what you see is what you get) Web page editingWikis leverage existing SharePoint functionality including search, navigation, alerts, and custom fields.Blogs Blogs provide a publishing-oriented experience for a single user or a team. Windows SharePoint Services V3 includes a site template that supports:• Article posting• Reader comments• Archive views• RSS feed generationEmail Integration Document libraries, discussion boards, calendars, and announcements can be enabled to receive new postings via e-mail. In addition, extensible support is provided for custom e-mail handlers in Windows SharePoint Services V3.Similar to the functionality provided by public folders in Microsoft Exchange Server, e-mail enabled discussion boards support:• A highly scalable, topic-based architecture• New “super rich-text” field type• Unified experience for both e-mail and Web-based discussions• One-step creation of Active Directory distribution lists as part of the site creation process• Unified SharePoint group and Active Directory management functionsSurveysSurveys now include conditional branching as well as support for inserting page breaks in long surveys such as annual employee satisfaction or and customer surveys. Task Coordination The new Project Tasks list template provides lightweight task management functionality including Gantt charts for visualization of task relationships and status. Issue Tracking The Issue Tracking list template has been updated to use the enhanced versioning and version-history storage features of Windows SharePoint Services V3. People and Groups Lists People and Groups offer a unified place to find, communicate with, and manage people and their permissions, including support for custom fields such as Department, “Office #” and Area of Focus; in addition to the new Person field type. The Person field type creates rich displays of lists of people including support for a People Picker for browsing a list of users.Member Group provides:• Re-use of groups across sites• Distribution list for the members of the site
• #9: Audience TargetingEnables use of Web Part pages, Web Parts, and content to target distribution lists and groups in addition to SharePoint audiences.Content SyndicationUse RSS feeds to syndicate content managed in a portal site.Mobile Device SupportAll SharePoint portal, team site, and list pages now render on international and North American mobile devices (including Web-enabled mobile phones) using a simplified text-only format.User Profiles and the Profile StoreUser Profiles store personal information for system users. Improvements include multi-valued properties bound to taxonomy from Office SharePoint Server 2007, property-level security controls by person or group, open and closed vocabularies, and per-site property extensions. Profile synchronization and directory import support the extended capabilities of the User Profile Store with enhanced scalability and performance.Privacy & SecurityUse authorizations to control visibility of information in a My Site public view. Site ManagerManage a SharePoint site’s navigation, security access, and general look and feel using this easy drag-and-drop tool. Site Manager unifies site management tasks for portals and Web sites, including management of areas, pages, listings, SharePoint site lists, and associated component parts. My SharePoint Sites List List all the SharePoint sites that a user is part of and documents the user has authored. My Site Personal SiteThe My Site personal site gives users an opportunity to aggregate information “for me,” “by me,” and “about me.” Significant enhancements include social networking, privacy controls, SharePoint Sites and Documents Roll-Up Web Parts, and Colleagues and Memberships Web Parts.Documents Roll-up Web PartsThe Documents Roll-up Web Part also supports more general capabilities for querying and filtering the documents stored in a collection of SharePoint sites.Colleagues and Memberships Web PartsList people the user knows and people who belong to common distribution groups.
• #10: Full Search Capabilities within the same site collection only in V1Search results filtered by user permissionsSearch does not index enterprise content sources or data on SharePoint server on-premisesUser Interface Simple, clean yet powerful user interface with industry-standard query syntax. Scopes are decoupled from content sources so users can easily broaden or narrow the scope of a content search. Search can be based on arbitrary content properties such as URL, type, and author. Actionable search results can be easily filtered and sorted; used and shared. Alerts and RSS feeds easily provide updated results for common and frequent queries. Search Results Search results are rendered more clearly. Results are security trimmed so users only see what they can access. Results include user-friendly features such as hit highlighting, duplicate collapsing and synonym suggestion. Optional integration with real time communications tools allow users to easily contact content authors and experts.Enterprise Content SourcesSearches over 200 file types in many enterprise content sources, including files shares, web sites, SharePoint sites, Exchange Public Folders, and Lotus Notes databases out of the box with the ability to extend to additional 3rd party repostitories and filetypes through the use of Protocol Handlers and iFiltersRelevanceNew and improved search algorithms tuned for enterprise content along with the use of relevance and ranking factors such as click distance, hyperlink anchor text, URL depth, and metadata extraction yeild the best results for enterprise contentAdministration and ManagementImproved administration user interfaces and admin API provides broad support for various search and indexing scenarios, central controls for resource-intensive operations, as well as tools for management and reportingIndexing ControlsGranualr indexing controls for easy inclusion and exlusion of searched content as well as immediate result removal of any site or item. Continuous index propagation to keep information fresh. Improved crawl rules and crawl log; multiple start addresses per content source; a new browsable, filterable index log provide necessary information to optimize searchSecurityAdministrator permissions no longer required by crawler. ACL and ACL-only crawls index content permissions for compliance, privacy, and protection of IP. Security-trimmed search results only allow users to see content they are allowed to access.People SearchPeople search capabilities allow users to find people not only by department or job title but also by expertise, social distance, and common interests.Business Data SearchSearch data residing in your line of business applications using the Business Data Catalog. Structured content sources as well as LOB application data and reports accessible through web services or ADO.NET can be indexed and retrieved through the Business Data Catalog as search results or into a SharePoint list
• #11: Content Authoring Provides the ability for information workers to create content rich web pages using a web browser.Document Information Panel Makes editing document properties an integral part of the Microsoft Office system document-authoring experience.Document Action Bar Describes to users what business policy or workflow governs the current document and what action they are expected to take.High Fidelity Websites with Consistent BrandingProvides the concept of Master Pages and Page layouts to enforce the branding and navigation of web sites. CSS supports gives pixel level control on the look and feel of these sites. Navigation ControlsOut-of-the box navigation controls that can be easily customized by end usersPage LayoutsPage Layouts simplify content authoring and publishing—site administrators define a structure that guides authors through the publishing process; content contributors focus on doing their jobs rather than on the details of publishing and deployment. Flexible Page Layouts also allow designers to mix and match ASP.NET applications, Web Parts and Authoring Templates in any configuration to create customized sites to meet specific business needs.Business Document Workflow SupportThree-state workflowRetention and Auditing PoliciesDefine customized information management policies to control retention period, expiration actions, and document-auditing settings. Document retention and expiration policies Highly customizable policies Workflow process to define expiration Access control and security TrackingWYSIWYG Web Content EditorExtends the SharePoint user interface with additional commands and status indicators for in-context Web page authoring.Slide LibrariesThe repository features in Windows SharePoint Services V3 provide the platform support for slide libraries, a feature of Office SharePoint Server 2007. Slide libraries enable the storage of individual slides in a SharePoint site. PowerPoint 2007 slide decks can be automatically created from a selection of slides in a slide library.
• #12: Customers can use SPD to create workflows, as long as these workflows use only the standard workflow actions that come with the product (i.e. no custom code workflow actions).The Tri-state workflow that comes out of the box with WSS is also enabled.Limitations:The out-of-the-box workflows that come with MOSS (Approval, Translation, Signatures, Expiration and Reporting) are NOT supported. The MOSS out-of-the-box workflows use InfoPath Forms Server and are not supported. “Design Once” Development ModelForms designers can design their forms once and deploy them for use both within the rich Office InfoPath 2007 client program and through a Web browser. Office Forms Server 2007 automatically converts the form into ASP.NET Web forms, with no additional work from the designer.Form Import WizardThe designer in Office InfoPath 2007 provides an easy way to convert forms designed in Microsoft Office Excel and Microsoft Office Word into rich Office InfoPath 2007 forms. The Form Import Wizard handles the conversion of form fields, repeating tables, rich text boxes, and other elements, dynamically generating the underlying XML structure for the new form.Integrated Deployment Model for “No-code” FormsThe Publish Wizard in Office InfoPath 2007 makes it easy to publish forms that do not have any managed code components to a Windows SharePoint Services library, while making the form available as a browser-based form at the same time.Compatibility CheckerThe Compatibility Checker helps forms designers validate those features that need to work across the broadest range of Web browsers.
• #13: Integrated, Flexible Spreadsheet PublishingMicrosoft Office Excel 2007 provides an integrated publishing experience that lets information workers easily choose what they want to share with others and determine how others can interact with published spreadsheets.Share, Manage, and Control SpreadsheetsShare business data broadly while maintaining control and helping to protect sensitive information. Provides access to spreadsheet data and analysis through server-calculated, interactive Microsoft Office Excel spreadsheets from a Web browser. Use these spreadsheets to maintain and efficiently share one centralized version of the truth while helping to protect any sensitive or proprietary information embedded in documents, such as financial models, by limiting access to portions of the spreadsheet and auditing their usage.Web-based Business Intelligence Using Excel ServicesExcel Services empowers spreadsheet authors to easily and broadly share spreadsheets that use the new Business Intelligence functionality through the browser. Fully interactive, data-bound spreadsheets including charts, tables, and PivotTable views can be created as part of a portal, dashboard, or business scorecard, without requiring any development.Data Connection LibrariesData Connection Libraries are centralized SharePoint document libraries that store Office Data Connections (ODC); ODCs describe connections to external data. Centralizing Office Data Connections makes it easier to share, manage, and discover data connections that can be used by any Microsoft Office program.Business Data CatalogThe Business Data Catalog (BDC) tightly integrates external data into the Office SharePoint Server 2007 user experience, providing access to external data residing within backed LOB applications, and enabling the display of and interaction with external data through a set of Business Data Web Parts.Business Data Web PartsUse SharePoint Business Data Web Parts for viewing lists, entities, and related information retrieved through the Business Data Catalog.Business Data ActionsWith no custom coding, easily create actions that open Web pages, display the user interfaces of LOB applications, launch InfoPath forms, and perform other common tasks. Use the convenient links that appear beside business objects returned from the Business Data Catalog.Integrated Business Intelligence DashboardsCreate rich, interactive business intelligence dashboards that assemble and display business information from disparate sources by using built-in Web parts such as dynamic KPIs, Excel spreadsheets, Microsoft SQL Server Reporting Services reports, or a collection of business data connectivity Web Parts that can visualize information residing in backed LOB applications.Report CenterAn out-of-the-box site optimized for report access and management, including a report library, data connection library, and a dashboard template. These sites, hosted by the new Report Center, provide consistent management of reports, spreadsheets, and data connections.Key Performance IndicatorsKPIs communicate goals and status to drive results. Using the KPI Web Part, a user can create a KPI list within a Web Part page, without writing code. The KPI Web Part can display KPIs from Microsoft SQL Server Analysis Services, Excel spreadsheets, SharePoint lists, or manually entered data.Filter Web Parts Filters enable dashboards to be personalized by communicating shared parameters among Web Parts on a dashboard. The parameters passed can be automatically applied based on user profiles, SharePoint lists, the BDC, manually entered information, and so forth.
• #14: Customers can use SPD to create workflows, as long as these workflows use only the standard workflow actions that come with the product (i.e. no custom code workflow actions).The Tri-state workflow that comes out of the box with WSS is also enabled.Limitations:The out-of-the-box workflows that come with MOSS (Approval, Translation, Signatures, Expiration and Reporting) are NOT supported. The MOSS out-of-the-box workflows use InfoPath Forms Server and are not supported. “Design Once” Development ModelForms designers can design their forms once and deploy them for use both within the rich Office InfoPath 2007 client program and through a Web browser. Office Forms Server 2007 automatically converts the form into ASP.NET Web forms, with no additional work from the designer.Form Import WizardThe designer in Office InfoPath 2007 provides an easy way to convert forms designed in Microsoft Office Excel and Microsoft Office Word into rich Office InfoPath 2007 forms. The Form Import Wizard handles the conversion of form fields, repeating tables, rich text boxes, and other elements, dynamically generating the underlying XML structure for the new form.Integrated Deployment Model for “No-code” FormsThe Publish Wizard in Office InfoPath 2007 makes it easy to publish forms that do not have any managed code components to a Windows SharePoint Services library, while making the form available as a browser-based form at the same time.Compatibility CheckerThe Compatibility Checker helps forms designers validate those features that need to work across the broadest range of Web browsers.
• #15: Five key types of SharePoint customization: Web-Based UI Customizations - style sheets, HTML and web part customization SharePoint Designer - master pages, data view web part, workflows, XSLT, JavaScript InfoPath Forms Web Services - Interact with SharePoint files and data remotelyCustom Development - custom web parts, coded workflows (Not Supported)Use SharePoint designer to create and deploy no-code workflows, customize content types, taxonomy and branding via master pages and layouts, create and deploy site templates.Use the Data Form Web Part to create applications that mashup, filter, roll-up and render SharePoint data or data consumed from a Web Service (e.g. RSS feeds) in new ways.Use InfoPath to design forms for workflows, provided these forms are user-deployable (i.e. contain no custom code).Use the SharePoint Web Services to access and manipulate SharePoint data remotely.Site templates that don’t require custom code to be deployed on server are supportedCannot use inline code, build coded workflows, or develop InfoPath forms with coded business logic.Cannot deploy features, solutions, pluggable auth providers, Web Parts, site definitions, or anything else that has to be deployed and configured on the server.Cannot modify any SharePoint files, Web configuration settings, security policy, etc.Cannot make any farm-wide configuration changes (i.e. changes that must be made in Central Admin).Templates that require custom code to be deployed on server (such as Site Definition Templates) are not supported in V1
• #16: The purple boxes are the features which currently exist in our SharePoint Online standard product. The blue-green boxes are features we want to enable in future releases. As you can see here our first version already offers a great feature set such as Workflow support, Wikis, blogs, Search and publishing. In future releases we will invest in areas like Business Intelligence to enable Excel Services. Please note that none of the features in blue are committed yet.I am not going to go into details. This slide has a lot of information. Please use this slide as a feature reference.
• #17: When I talked about the data center initially, I was talking about how the data center is designed to make sure there will be no failures in providing service to our customers. Another aspect of the data center design is the physical security. We run a data center within a data center. There are motion sensors, 24.7 secured access, biometric controlled access systems, video camera surveillance, and security breach alarms.When you walk into a facility, it will likely come across as a fortress. There are barriers to make sure no one can drive a car into the data center. Mantraps in place to provide multiple levels of access controls as you go through the data center to make sure individuals not allowed into the facility are not allowed in. All of these things are designed and implemented, and MOS BPOS gets to take advantage of all of the great capabilities of Microsoft’s data centers.
• #19: Physical security is but one part it. When you look, we ultimately need to make sure that since we are providing an internet based service, we are protecting customer’s data in a variety of ways. We look at this as multiple layers of protection. Microsoft is actually providing 9 layers of logical security for our customers and their service and data. Filtering Routers: these are implemented to protect against any traffic we do not see as well constructed. One of the great benefits of providing a focused service like BPOS is we actually set up the routers to protect against any form of malform data. We block at an aggregate at the edge. Firewalls are set up as deny all. Behind the firewalls we have an Intrusion Detection System. We have a very sophisticated correlation engine for any intrusion alert that we’re tracking 24 hours a day. Below the IDS, we have a level System Level Security. When you look, the service operations organization actually has broad based, dual factor authentication. This means each individual within a support and service operations team have either some sort of secure ID card or a RSH secure ID token that is coupled with their role. Each individual must have a user ID and password and must apply a pin with their secure ID token. Based on the role they have, we grant access per individuals to the service.  Application Authentication: when you get below the System Level Security, the customers actually have application level authentication. We have a very sophisticated mechanism by which we provide access to data. The structure of the service provides users access to only those capabilities they are designed to have. In the reseller model where a partner is actually providing the service to the customer, they have a level of application authentication that sits over top of that which the customers have. So we’re able to provide a very rich set of security protocols for our customers, as it relates to authentication to the different services.Microsoft, as most people know, has a good history as relates to security and trustworthy computing. Our services are actually designed to make sure that we apply those security methods not only to the software, but we also treat that software as a service. So when we do our threat walling and follow the Windows initiative, we’re thinking about our applications as if they are delivered through the Internet. We apply a significant level of counter measures, such as buffer overflows and SQL injection, we make sure that the applications we’re running are sandboxed so you can’t activate elevated levels of security or access a higher level of authentication when you’re actually doing work within our application. Virus Scanning is provided for multiple set of capabilities. We actually virus scan at all over our server levels, we have in place intrusion detection at the host and we’re scanning our content via Microsoft ForeFront.Then we have Separate Data Networks. When you look inside the data center, So what when we do our threat walling and follow the Windows initiative. These are implemented in a form that breaks it apart. For example, the data bases are on a separate sub net then from the actual content server or something that is an internet facing device.When you look, even though we are an internet facing service, very few devices have direct access to the internet. All of the servers are on some form of non-routable subnet space. Finally you are authenticated into the data. The data itself is never stored on the physical servers, we run separate data networks and the data is stored on dedicated storage devices. So when you look at the content, the content is actually being sent from dedicated storage devices, which allows us to provide significant levels of backup as well.
• #20: Once we layered our data center practices in place, we’re actually deploying for our Business Productivity Online Suite in a number of locations. Because service is still in its infancy, we’ve only deployed in two locations in North America at this time. Ultimately, we will be replicating this model in other Microsoft data centers across the world.
• #27: Microsoft Online Services offers two options, Standard and Dedicated. Today, Standard is available only in the US but in early 2009 will be available more widely. Your account manager can provide you with the latest roadmap. If your business has less than 5000 seats and cost efficiency and getting up and running with the greatest possible speed is a key focus for your IT department, Standard is the right service. Standard may also be the right service if you have more than 5000 seats, unless you need advanced server features or a dedicated environment. A dedicated hardware environment requires the Dedicated service option. Due to the higher cost, the dedicated option is optimized for customers over 20,000+ seats but with a minimum of 5000 seats purchased.
• #28: In our first release, there will be feature gaps between our standard and dedicated service with our on-premises server features. Overall time, we will have server feature parity except for the case of deskless workers. In general, our dedicated option will be able to provide a broader array of capabilities especially in the case of SharePoint.
• #30: Unsupported Features:Cannot approve or create workflowsNo read/write access to Business Intelligence Dashboards and KPIs People search – what shows up for a DW since a DW has no my site? DWs should show up in people search results, but DWs should not be able to access search center to do people searches? We need to figure out what (if any) click-through they should have on DW people that appear in the people search.  I think DWs should be able to access the search center to find people. Search is limited to SP data. No search across enterprise content sources. We may be able to restrict some content through ACLs and use security trimming, but it could be complex to manage.  Intranet Collaboration sites My Sites
• #35: Our licensing model is designed to simplify the choice between on-premises and online. Our service is licensed on a per user basis. Customers who currently have purchased the Client Access License (CAL) with Software Assurance will only have to pay “Step-Up” fee as opposed to the users that doesn’t have the license having to pay the full fee. In addition, customer who purchased the service license called “User Subscription License (USL)” will also have license rights to access applications deployed on premises. For example, if SharePoint Online users will also have the CAL rights to access site hosted in a on-premises SharePoint server.