Product Description

If you’re a .NET or Microsoft Office developer, this book will give you the tools and the techniques you need to build great solutions for the SharePoint platform. It offers practical insights that will help you take advantage of this powerful new integrated suite of server-based collaboration software tools along with specific examples that show you how to implement your own custom solutions. You’ll then be able to apply this information to create collaborative web-based applications that enhance user productivity and deliver rich user experiences.

You’ll start by building a strong foundation based on a thorough understanding of the technologies that come with the SharePoint platform, while also drilling into specific implementation areas. Next, you’ll dive into seven key SharePoint development areas: the base collaboration platform, portal and composite application frameworks, enterprise search, ECM, business process automation and workflow, electronic forms, and business intelligence.

This book is for ASP.NET developers who want to add collaboration support to their existing applications, Windows/Office client developers who want to move their solutions from the desktop to the web, and experienced SharePoint version 2.0 developers who want to take advantage of the new capabilities available in Windows SharePoint Services 3.0.

You will learn all about Windows SharePoint Services and MOSS 2007, including the following:

• Ways to enhance collaboration using calendars, tasks, issues, and email alerts

• Techniques for developing applications with integrated RSS, blogs and Wikis

• How to build, configure, and manage portal solutions

• Strategies for using enterprise search, XML, and XSLT

• Methods for improving enterprise content management and business intelligence

• Ways to take advantage of built-in support for regulatory compliance and web publishing

• How to create custom workflows and integrate them into your solutions

This book is also available as part of the 4-book SharePoint 2007 Wrox Box (ISBN: 0470431946) with these 4 books:

• Professional SharePoint 2007 Development (ISBN: 0470117567)
• Real World SharePoint 2007 (ISBN: 0470168358)
• Professional Microsoft SharePoint 2007 Design (ISBN: 047028580X)
• Professional SharePoint 2007 Web Content Management Development (ISBN: 0470224754)

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #45414 in Books
• Published on: 2007-06-12
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 744 pages

Features

• ISBN13: 9780470117569
• Condition: NEW
• Notes: Brand New from Publisher. No Remainder Mark.
• Click here to view our Condition Guide and Shipping Prices

Review
"...provides a good programmer to programmer learning experience from real world professionals...good examples to guide you along the way." (Portal.AThousandThreads.net, December 31st 2008)

From the Back Cover
If you're a .NET or Microsoft Office developer, this book gives you the tools to utilize the entire SharePoint platform. It offers practical insights that will help you take advantage of this integrated suite of server capabilities along with specific examples of how to implement classes of solutions on top of the platform. You'll be able to apply this information in order to create a collaborative environment and build web-based applications.

You'll build your SharePoint foundation on the solid details provided on SharePoint technologies, architecture, and development tools. The core of the book takes you into the key areas of development on SharePoint: base platform, collaboration, enterprise search, enterprise content management (ECM), records management (RM), document management (DM), web content management (WCM), workflow, electronic forms, and business intelligence. With these skills, you will be able to set up a SharePoint environment that enhances productivity and delivers rich-looking sites.

What you will learn from this book

• All about the Microsoft® Application Platform, WSS 3.0, MOSS 2007, and SharePoint's relationship to ASP.NET

• What tools you'll need and how to build your development environment

• Ways to enhance collaboration using calendars, tasks, issues, lists, and e-mail events

• Techniques for developing applications with RSS, blogs, and wikis

• Strategies for using enterprise search, XML, and XSLT

• How to create solutions integrating custom workflows and e-forms

Who this book is for

This book is for ASP.NET, .NET, and Microsoft Office developers who want to learn SharePoint development. .NET code examples are given in C#.

Wrox Professional guides are planned and written by working programmers to meet the real-world needs of programmers, developers, and IT professionals. Focused and relevant, they address the issues technology professionals face every day. They provide examples, practical solutions, and expert education in new technologies, all designed to help programmers do a better job.

Enhance Your Knowledge

Advance Your Career

About the Author
Consultant, author, and coach John Alexander is a recognized Microsoft Certified Trainer (MCT), Microsoft Certified Solution Developer (MCSD) and has served as the Microsoft regional director for the Kansas City region for the last nine years. Experienced in the delivery of scalable, stable, and open enterprise-level .NET Web applications, John is an industry-recognized trainer, consultant, speaker, and writer on the Microsoft .NET vision and implementation at both the technical and business decision-maker level. He has also coached several teams of developers, including one that was directly responsible for placing their organization on CIO magazine’s Agile 100 list. You can reach John at john@alexanderjulian.net. John is a principal with Alexander & Julian Inc, a Microsoft Partner specializing in Microsoft SharePoint Server 2007 and custom .NET development. Known for excellence in software delivery, Alexander & Julian prides itself on solving business challenges with innovative solutions.

Aside from being very passionate and somewhat obsessed with the latest and greatest Microsoft technologies that regularly come out of Redmond, J. Dan Attis has been heavily involved in the local Atlanta user group community since 2003, where he landed after completing his degree in applied mathematics at the University of Western Ontario, a hardcore technology program at The Information Technology Institute (ITI), and a short contract in North Carolina. In addition to being an occasional speaker at both the VB.NET and the C#.NET user groups, he helped create the Free Training 1,2,3! series (www.freetraining123.com) to help developers learn Microsoft technologies. Dan created and presented material at the first SharePoint 1,2,3! event (www.sharepoint123.com) along with the other leaders of the Atlanta Microsoft Professionals user group. Dan is also on the team responsible for the highly successful Atlanta Code Camps that run every year, as well as being a speaker. Today, Dan works as a senior consultant for Intellinet, working primarily with cutting-edge SharePoint and .NET technologies, creating innovative technology solutions that achieve measurable business improvements for their clients. He resides in Roswell, Georgia, with his wonderful wife, Jody, and their beautiful daughter, Lily.

Adam Buenz, MVP, CCSP, MCP, is an enterprise software architect for ARB Security Solutions specializing in knowledge management, collaboration strategies, and business process automation. In 2006, Adam was awarded the Microsoft Most Valuable Professional (MVP) citation for Windows SharePoint Services for his contributions to the SharePoint community. Adam is currently completing his Masters degree in mathematics. Adam blogs at www.sharepointsecurity.com/blog and can be contacted at .

John Holliday is an independent consultant and Microsoft MVP for Office SharePoint Server and has over 25 years of professional software development and consulting experience. John has been involved in a broad spectrum of commercial software development projects ranging from retail products to enterprise information systems for the Fortune 100.
After receiving his bachelor’s degree in applied mathematics from Harvard College and a J.D. from the University of Michigan, John developed a specialized computing language for constructing legal expert systems. His expertise includes all aspects of distributed systems development, with a special emphasis on document automation, collaboration, and enterprise content management.
In addition to his professional career, John is actively engaged in humanitarian activities through Works of Wonder International, a nonprofit organization he cofounded with his wife, Alice, and the Art of Living Foundation, an international service organization devoted to uplifting human values throughout the world.

Jeff Julian is a principal consultant with Alexander & Julian Inc, a Kansas City–based Microsoft partner and software consulting firm. His ability to resolve business challenges and passion for the software community was evident when Microsoft awarded him the Most Valuable Professional award in the area of XML for four years in a row. Jeff is also the founder of the largest blogging site of Microsoft professionals, named Geekswithblogs.net. You can contact Jeff by email at jeff@alexanderjulian.net.

Matt Ranlett, a SQL Server MVP, has been a fixture of the Atlanta .NET developer community for many years. A founding member of the Atlanta Dot Net Regular Guys (www.devcow.com), Matt has formed and leads several area user groups. Despite spending dozens of hours after work on local and national community activities such as the SharePoint 1, 2, 3! series (www.sharepoint123.com), organizing three Atlanta Code Camps, working on the INETA board of directors as the vice president of technology, and appearing in several podcasts such as .Net Rocks and the ASP.NET Podcast, Matt recently found the time to get married to a wonderful woman named Kim, whom he helps to raise three monstrous dogs. Matt currently works as a senior consultant with Intellinet and is part of the team committed to helping people succeed by delivering innovative solutions that create business value.

Eli Robillard is a frequent speaker at user groups and conferences, a technical editor, a Microsoft Office SharePoint Server MVP, the founder of the Toronto SharePoint Users Group, a member of the Microsoft Canada Speakers Bureau, and a founding member and past chair of a group of high-profile industry influencers and early adopters known as the ASPInsiders. As the principal architect in the Technology Architecture Group at Infusion Development Corporation, Eli designs SharePoint solutions for Wall Street, Bay Street, and large organizations worldwide. He lives in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, where he plays music and goes on adventures with his 10-year old daughter.

Brendon Schwartz actively participates in the Atlanta area user groups and is known as one of the Atlanta .NET Regular Guys (www.devcow.com), of which he is also one of the cofounders. He is currently on the INETA board of directors as the vice president of technology, working to solve the technology problems of a large nonprofit organization using SharePoint and ASP.NET. Brendon currently works for Wintellect, solving real-world business problems through the use of Microsoft technologies such as SharePoint, .NET, Office, and VSTS. In addition to presenting at local user groups, he created the Free Training 1,2,3! series to help developers learn Microsoft technologies. As a .NET community leader in Atlanta, Brendon coauthored and presented the training material for SharePoint 1,2,3! (www.sharepoint123.com). He also writes technical articles for Microsoft, as well as other magazine publications on the topics of SharePoint and business intelligence. Brendon has worked on the leadership teams of five different user groups and has been interviewed for his community efforts on podcasts, including the ASP.NET Podcast, .NET Rocks!, and The SharePoint Show podcast. Brendon serves as the co-chairman of the Atlanta Code Camps (www.atlantacodecamp.com), at which he also regularly presents.

Customer Reviews

Great True Development Book
Most of the SharePoint books out there focus on the basic features of WSS, including lists, document libraries, views, blogs, wikis, etc. Although these are integral parts of SharePoint, they don't begin to scratch the surface of what it has to offer.

This book begins to cover these details. Topics such as building a true development/production environment, designing an enterprise portal application, creating custom field types (not just creating custom columns), creating web parts, building custom features and solutions, and programming through the object model are important to SharePoint developers creating SharePoint content in Visual Studio.

This book also takes great aim as documenting that which hasn't been documented yet, especially the XML schemas of features, elements, and solutions.

Finally, the book focuses on the enterprise portal features of MOSS, including Excel services, the Business Data Catalog, Enterprise Search, and Document Management.

Because this book focuses heavily on development, Content Managers will be better off choosing another book from the many out there for creating lists, customizing master pages, creating style sheets, and other content topics.

But for SharePoint portal architects and development programmers, this is your book. There's a wealth of information in this book and deserves to be in your library.

A thorough book, but it lacks depth in important matters
Considering the plethora of subjects which should be covered on MOSS 2007 this book is thorough. When it comes to depth this book loses its five stars (I would give 4 ½ if it was possible). Let's first make it clear that I strongly recommend this book. This being said, I add that this book does not cover enough to get someone prepared to be a Sharepoint Developer. However, it is a good starting point for experienced developers trying to get a grasp of what it entails Sharepoint Development. Let's go chapter by chapter:

1. The Microsoft Application Platform and Sharepoint
Good introduction to terms and technologies used by Sharepoint and Windows (when relevant to Sharepoint). But if you don't know what LDAP is, you won't learn it from here. Don't expect either programming references to authentication mechanisms (though you are going to see a few things in Chapter 5).

2. MOSS 2007 Overview for Developers
It contains a General Overview of MOSS architecture. It brings an entire topic listing the software pieces you should/must install and put together to developer for MOSS (very useful). It also explains how to install most of the utilities and, yes, they know you will prepare VPCs for this task and explain you better ways to do it, step by step, including the steps to set up remote debugging.

3. The Sharepoint User Experience
I only passed through this chapter but it seemed to be important for those not so familiar with WSS and MOSS. Here you start to see some coding.

4. WSS v3 Platform Services
WSS 3 is much powerful than its antecessor. This chapter is a good reference to templates location, site definition files, navigation, master pages, modules etc. You also can see a detailed step by step on how to create a Custom Site Definition. There are also the steps to extract the public key of an assembly without having to copy it manually from GAC (you will need this for the whole book and during your development). I used this chapter for my first Sharepoint development which was a feature to concatenate various MS Word documents from a file list into one. The book was not of much help, but it introduced me to the M.O. so I could research in the Internet for the various parts I needed to put together. But the lesson on how to create the CAB file almost redeemed the lost star.

5. Programming Windows Sharepoint Services
This chapter alone would worth the purchase of the whole book and may suffice as reference for most application types. It approaches the SP Object Model. The references you need to add in order to develop using Visual Studio. Here you also learn how to handle events (useful to write a handler to log which user spends more average time with check-out documents, for example). It also shows another way of retrieving the public key of an assembly (when it is the GAC). SP Webservices also enables access to SP Object Model and this chapter gives "a tiny glimpse" (using the author's words) of them. I felt as it deserved a whole chapter as with Webservices we are able to develop in an environment without MOSS installed. This is more important because the documentation at Microsoft is shallow on Webservices.

6. A Sample Collaboration Solution
7. RSS, Blogs, and Wikis
8. Building Personalized Solutions

I just browsed these chapters, so I'd better not comment. I know that chapter 8 will save my live someday.

9. Using Enterprise Search
This chapter comes with a sample code to retrieve search content programmatically which is very useful. Most of the chapter concerns configuration though.

10. Using the Business Data Catalog
This is the most disappoint chapter of all. I was very interested in learning how to transform a Webservice definition into an Application Definition File. Though it comes with nearly 28-pages of innocuous examples of ADF, this chapter is not able to explain how to create a ADF out of a webservice or database definition.

11. Building Document Management Solutions
I am still working in this one and it seems to be one of the best chapters too. It enables you to create customs lists, specially for document management. I don't know if the depth is enough yet, but so far so good.

I did not have the time to go into the other chapters yet.

Appendix A - Using the Microsoft Visual Studio 2005 Extensions for WSS 3.0
These extensions are not good enough. This appendix helped me know for sure what I suspected.

I also missed information on debugging. There is something on Webservices debugging in Chapter 4, but I would have enjoyed if there was more information.

Good supplement to the SDK
If you need to extend MOSS functionality, or integrate other systems with MOSS, this book will help get you going.

The MOSS SDK is a good reference, but doesn't provide much direction. This book fills in those gaps and gives you good, real world examples of MOSS development.

Good examples of workflow, and the chapter on BDC was very helpful for us.

Highly recommended.