SharePoint 2010 - Part 1

Today, I am going to describe more details about SharePoint 2010.

New user interface

SharePoint 2010 user interface includes a new ribbon to perform tasks quickly and in the context of your work. If you work with 2007 Microsoft Office applications such as Microsoft Word or Microsoft PowerPoint, you are already familiar with the ribbon.

Like the ribbon in these Office applications, the new ribbon in SharePoint 2010 is designed to help you quickly find the commands that you need to complete your tasks. Commands are organized in logical groups, displayed together under tabs. Each tab relates to a type of activity, such as working with a document in a document library or adding and formatting text on a page.

Collaboration

SharePoint 2010 includes the new co-authoring feature which allows few users to work simultaneously on the same documents. For example, to review a document you can send a link to the document in a SharePoint library, and all of the reviewers can provide their feedback in the document simultaneously.

Calendar feature has been improved. You can now schedule meetings and keep track of your schedule more easily. Improved calendar allows to display multiple SharePoint and Exchange calendars on a single page. You can easily add events to a calendar by clicking a date and entering details for the event without leaving the calendar. You can also drag and drop items within a calendar. There is the new Group calendar to schedule meetings with colleagues and schedule resources such as audio visual equipment and meeting rooms.

Working with wiki pages is more streamlined. You can insert and format content directly on the page with the new Rich Text Editor. Browse for images or photos on your local computer or network and insert them into your site without leaving the page you are on.

Managing multiple items in SharePoint lists is more efficient. Now you can select multiple items in a list and click a button to perform the same action on all the items at the same time. For example, you can check in or check out several documents at the same time.

Creating and managing blogs has improved authoring tools and new navigation. Use the new Rich Text Editor to more easily and intuitively author blog posts. Browse for images or photos on your local computer or network and insert them into your blog posts without leaving the page. Browse blog entries by month as well as by categories. You can see the number of posts for each month or category in real time. A new "Archive" link provides access to a view of all months since the blog’s inception and, within each month, posts are listed by category.

Social Computing

With the new features in SharePoint Server 2010 you can locate content and stay informed about people and areas of interest that matter most to you. New features include newsfeeds, social tagging, and ratings so that you can more easily keep track of your colleagues’ activities, as well as share relevant content.

Improvements to "My Sites" help you use your "My Sites" and profiles to share knowledge in your specific area with your colleagues. Adding interests and responsibilities to profiles makes it easier for colleagues to find each other through newsfeeds, ask and answer questions, and to connect in other ways.

You can use activity feeds on My Sites to follow your colleagues’ activities, stay informed of developments in areas you are interested in, and connect with others who are looking for help in areas you are interested in. You can also receive recommendations for new colleagues or keywords to follow, so that you can expand your professional network and knowledge.

Mobile SharePoint

With SharePoint Web pages optimized for viewing on small devices, you can now view and work with documents, blogs, wikis, back-end business data, and sites from your mobile phone. You can use the mobile search experience for finding people, contact information, SharePoint content, and finding data in custom databases. Subscribe to text message (SMS) alerts for changes to documents in SharePoint or to any SharePoint document library or list.

Offline access to site content

Microsoft SharePoint Workspace now enables you to work with SharePoint sites, libraries, and lists on your desktop while disconnected from your corporate network and then to synchronize your changes when you reconnect to your corporate network.

Major benefits of this offline and online integration include:

• you can quickly view, add, edit and delete SharePoint library documents or list items while you are offline;
• two-way synchronization between your computer and the network—that is, updates to data on your computer or on the network—are automatic while you are connected to the network;
• content is automatically synchronized when you take your computer offline and then go back online;
• you can use the new External List feature to work more efficiently with back-end business data—such as SQL Server databases and SAP—while you are offline.

Business Connectivity Services (BCS)

Business Connectivity Services (BCS) enables SharePoint integration with external data, including line of business applications. BCS builds on top of the Business Data Catalog (BDC) technology delivered in Microsoft SharePoint 2007. Use BCS to:

• more easily define external content types—previously referred to as “entities”—by using SharePoint Designer’s visual interface, without using an XML editor;
• connect to a wider range of data sources—relational databases, SAP, Web services, and custom applications—and interact with them in richer ways, including full create, read, update, and delete support;
• use rich client extensions to build a SharePoint application and extend it to Office client applications such as SharePoint Workspace, Outlook and Word, so you can work with your external data offline;
• view external back-end business data across server and client applications with no customization, including seamless business data integration with SharePoint lists.

I will describe more details about SharePoint 2010 in my next post.