subject: Sharepoint Services: Enhancedteamwork For Fast-paced Marketplace [print this page] Let's take a look at just one of the many ways that Windows Sharepoint Services (WSS) can enhance enterprise teamwork and performance, save time and money.
Prior to Windows SharePoint Services, creating a business dashboard was a tedious affair in which a programmer would write custom code and organize data so that business managers could monitor processes and make decisions.
Now that SharePoint Services is here, it does not usually require special programming skills to build a visual display of Key Performance Indicators - a SharePoint KPI - within a web browser that can be accessed by all relevant people in an enterprise. With SharePoint, attractive visual displays allow users to check important business factors in different areas of their business quickly. SharePoint accesses the data from a wide variety of sources - Excel sheets and other enterprise level databases. Drilling down to see the details behind the visuals is easy, too.
SharePoint has rich, out-of-the-box features and functionality that make for quick and cost-effective deployment:
Absence and Vacation Schedule
Board of Directors
Case Work Management
Change Management
Classroom Management
Competitive Intelligence
Discussion Database
Document Library
Employee Activities Site
Employee Timesheet/Schedule
Employee Training
Expense Reimbursement
Help Desk Dashboard
Human Resources Programs
IT Developer Team Site
Loan Initiation Management
Marketing Campaigns
Performance Review
Professional Services Contracts
Public Official Activity
Publication Editorial Review
Recruiting Resource Center
Room and Equipment Reservation
Team Work Site
Professional Services Site
Project Team Site
Public Relations Work Site
RFP Management
Travel Request
Behind this easy-to-use and view front end or, the website - SharePoint is really a vast database front end. SharePoint's pivotal purpose is to store and access data from databases. It uses lists extensively, especially Library. One of the features of hosted SharePoint services is that the databases do not necessarily need to be on the same server as the SharePoint front end, although both could be on the same server if required. A hosted sharepoint services server just needs to be directed to a nearby SQL server, to use a database there. This is an advantage when you want to separate resources and storage, or if you want to eliminate the SharePoint server as a single point of failure. In the same way, several installations of SharePoint can access the same SQL server for configuration and content databases, to produce reliable load balancing and share the configuration and administration settings.
