Dashboard Site Preparation

When creating a workspace, SharePoint Portal Server also creates an associated Web site. By using a Web browser, a user can perform document management tasks and search for information. This is especially valuable if you have users working on operating systems other than Windows 98, Windows NT 4, or Windows 2000. Those users do not need to upgrade or change their software to benefit from your SharePoint Portal Server deployment.

You can add value to your dashboard site by adding Web Parts that display business information such as news headlines and stock tickers, collaboration tools such as Microsoft NetMeeting^®, or general information such as weather or driving directions. You can also tailor the dashboard to meet the specific needs of your organization by creating custom Web Parts. For example, you could add a Web Part that displays an Excel spreadsheet with your quarterly sales figures. You can also export Web Parts from SharePoint Portal Server to another digital dashboard site. For example, you could use the Search Web Part or Subscription Notifications Web Part in your existing corporate portal.

Posting information on the home page is an important step in preparing the dashboard site for your organization. The home page highlights information that is especially important to users. You can also add new Web Parts to display additional information of interest to your readers. For example, a dashboard site for a group or department would include information relevant to the group's work. It might contain a Web Part called Project Status to display project information such as status reports and schedules. In contrast, the dashboard site for a company typically highlights information relevant to all departments of that company. For example, the human resources department learns that searches for information about employee benefits are common. They decide to post information about employee benefits on the home page under a Web Part called Benefits. To keep employees informed about product changes, the marketing department creates a Web Part called Product News with information about a new product line.

For more information about the dashboard site and ways in which you can customize it, see Chapter 4, Introducing the Dashboard Site.

Using Categories for Organization

The success of a search for information usually depends on the volume of content available for searching, the skill of the user who is attempting to find the information, and the user's access permissions. For example, browsing through 10,000 documents can be overwhelming. If a user does not know exactly what he is searching for or where information is stored, finding a specific document can be time-consuming and frustrating.

You can organize information in the dashboard site by using categories to group similar documents. This allows you to browse through information by topic. For users who are unfamiliar with where documents are stored, categories help them find what they need. Another advantage is that a document may appear in several different categories. Categories accommodate users outside a group without changing the existing folder structure and processes that the group uses. Creating an effective category structure requires planning and some understanding of how others might organize the content.

Creating Your Category Structure

Every workspace contains a category hierarchy. SharePoint Portal Server labels the top level of the hierarchy Categories, with subcategories nested under it. To a user browsing the workspace using Windows Explorer, categories operate like folders. By using Windows Explorer, a user can expand the category hierarchy and browse through the associated document links for each category. The dashboard site displays the categories as a Web Part on the home page.

Figure 6.11. Viewing the category hierarchy

After you decide which content to categorize, plan your category structure by considering how users choose to organize the content. For example, do users organize content by department, by project, or by subject matter? If the users organize content by subject matter, what are the top-level categories? What are the subcategories? How many levels of subcategories do you want users to navigate?

You can use SharePoint Portal Server to define as many category levels as you want. However, the more levels you establish, the more likely it is that a user may have difficulty finding content. If you have not organized content in this way before, begin with a shallow structure of one to three levels. You can add more subcategories after users have tested the initial category structure. It is recommended that you use no more than 500 categories in a single workspace.

As with planning for keywords, a user survey facilitates the design of the category structure. You do not need to configure and implement categories, but they can serve as an excellent tool to help dashboard site users find information. Any user with the appropriate permissions can search for and view a published document. However, the category structure offers a way to direct users to a core group of documents that represent that topic. When you decide which categories to use, create the structure in the Categories folder of the workspace. For more information about implementing categories, see Chapter 17, Using Categories.

Categorizing Your Content

After you establish a group of categories, the next step is to assign the appropriate categories to documents. You can manually assign categories on each document or you can assign them automatically by using the Category Assistant.

Manually Categorize Documents

You can manually categorize a document by using the Search and Categories tab on the Properties page of the document. If the document is stored in an enhanced folder, you must check out the document before you can change the document's category assignments. If you have only a small number of documents to categorize, you can use this method of manual categorization exclusively.

Figure 6.12. Categorizing document from the document profile

You can associate a document with specific categories by using document profiles. Adding the Categories property to document profiles provides a way to enforce category assignment when authors check in a document. Allowing authors to assign categories on the profile form at check-in also distributes the task of document categorization among multiple authors.

Automatically Categorize Documents

The Category Assistant is a tool that automatically assigns categories to documents. If you plan to use categories for a large number of files, the Category Assistant can efficiently assign categories to existing documents and add categories automatically to new documents. This reduces the time required to implement categories for your users. Before using it, you must manually apply categories to a selection of documents for the Category Assistant to use as training examples. Documents used as training examples help the Category Assistant learn the definition of a category. The Category Assistant compares training documents assigned to a category with training examples from other categories to identify the most characteristic features (words). Ultimately, the definition of a category is the list of words that best distinguish documents in one category from documents in other categories.

The Category Assistant automatically categorizes new documents by comparing the list of words for each category to the list of words contained in each new document encountered. SharePoint Portal Server will often automatically categorize a single document into multiple categories.

If the Category Assistant does not select the appropriate categories for a document, a coordinator can override the Category Assistant by using the following methods:

• For a single document. The coordinator may enable the Category Assistant for the workspace but occasionally override automatically chosen categories for specific documents. For example, the Category Assistant may place a document about hats in the Coats category. The coordinator can correct the category assignment by editing the document's properties.
• For all documents. If the Category Assistant is not performing as expected, the coordinator can disable it and neutralize all automatically assigned categories.

Improving Search Results with Best Bets

Best Bets enhance search efficiency and provide guidance to users by directing them to documents considered particularly relevant to their search. A Best Bet is a document selected as the best recommendation for a category or specific keyword. SharePoint Portal Sever displays Best Bets at the top of a search results list.

You can use Best Bets to enhance the search efficiency on your portal. You can identify two types of Best Bets:

• A Keyword Best Bet is highly relevant to a keyword. It appears in search results when a user enters that keyword in a query.
• A Category Best Bet is a document that is highly relevant to a particular category.

To identify a document as a Best Bet, you update the Search and Categories tab on the Properties page of the document. The Search and Categories tab has two controls: a simple text field for specifying Keyword Best Bets and a Category selection control for selecting Category Best Bets.

In addition, SharePoint Portal Server identifies documents as Best Bets if it finds a very strong match in the search results.