SharePoint Portal Server and Corporate Portals

SharePoint Portal Server creates a Web portal—known as the dashboard site—automatically during installation. The dashboard site offers a centralized access point for finding and managing information. The dashboard site provides access to the key information that you deem critical to your organization. SharePoint Portal Server allows you to:

• Modify the dashboard site. The dashboard site is composed of multiple dashboards. Each dashboard is composed of customizable Web Parts. SharePoint Portal Server includes about a dozen default Web Parts, including a Search Web Part, a Categories Web Part, a Best Bets Web Part, and others. This default dashboard site allows you to deploy a portal solution with the initial framework and common portal features in place.
• Use Web Parts to assist collaboration. You can use Web Parts to add collaborative applications and tasks, such as group schedules from Microsoft Outlook^® or available discussion groups as building blocks for a wide range of business solutions. Office XP allows you to save these Web Parts directly from Office documents.
• Use ASP and CDO to add Web collaboration. Develop solutions rapidly. Use Collaboration Data Objects (CDO) to develop applications. CDO is dual-interfaced for programming in C++, Microsoft Visual Basic^®, Visual Basic Scripting Edition, Microsoft Jscript^®, and Java.
• Build and host native Web applications. SharePoint Portal Server includes built-in services for accessing high-performance Web applications, including XML and WebDAV. It also provides support for ASP, custom data access forms, business logic events, and reusable components. With this support, you can build your own native Web applications outside of the SharePoint Portal Server workspace and create a Web Part to link to the application content. For more information about building and hosting native Web applications, see Chapter 19, Architecting Web Parts for Business Applications.
• Develop applications with commonly available tools. You can extend the dashboard site with development tools, such as Visual Studio.
• Access information by using database technologies. Data access technologies, such as OLE DB and ADO, enable developers to apply their existing skills and applications when building Web Storage System applications. Your developers can build on existing training and knowledge to create custom solutions for your dashboard site.
• Use XML to link SharePoint Portal Server to other business servers. XML support makes it easy to share data from SharePoint Portal Server with other applications within your organization. XML makes integration with other applications seamless.

For more information about how to develop custom applications, see Chapter 19.