With RapPort, once employees decide they need an intranet site, they simply fill out a two-page Web form, and the site is ready the next business day. On the second day they configure the site, which resides in the corporate data center, and then load their documents and other content. The site is deployed by the third day, instead of weeks.
The contents of a RapPort site are pre-loaded at the time a user creates each site. RapPort copies the content of the master template the user selected to the new site. The templates are the key to RapPort success. A template is simply a pre-built SharePoint workspace, and includes:
RapPort currently includes templates for department and business unit portals for product development and sales organizations. Experts from each of these groups helped build this set of templates. KMIT continues to refine and extend templates as adoption accelerates. The architecture for RapPort supports an unlimited number of templates.
Figure 28.1 shows the architecture of RapPort. The RapPort server stores both the RapPort application and the templates. The AUTOSETUP component creates the sites and populates them on any one of a number of servers based on simple allocation rules. Finally, Microsoft uses SharePoint Portal Server as the enterprise search solution. RapPort offers a Web Part that enables each RapPort site to "plug in" to the enterprise search solution.
Figure 28.1. RapPort architecture