Variables Affecting Web Discussions

This section presents a list of the variables that affect Web discussions, including settings for SharePoint Portal Server, choice of client for using Web discussions, and choice of Web discussions server.

Choosing Web Discussions Settings

When you deploy SharePoint Portal Server, you must choose a setting for the following items (note that the default settings are in parentheses):

  • Enable Web discussions in this workspace (Enabled).
  • Enable searching and indexing of discussion items (Disabled).

    If you include Web discussions in your index, SharePoint Portal Server may return them in a search results list. The discussion items are visible to users with Read access to any folder in the workspace, even if the users do not have access to the document to which the discussion items pertain. This may compromise the security of the content in a document. To prevent this, SharePoint Portal Server disables the option to include Web discussions in search scopes and the index by default.

  • Restrict Web discussions to items that are stored in workspaces on this server (Enabled).

SharePoint Portal Server does not include Web discussions in the index when crawling other SharePoint Portal Server computers or other workspaces on the same server. Therefore, although SharePoint Portal Server returns documents from those servers or workspaces in search results, and these documents may contain Web discussion items, the discussion items are not included in the search results.

A matrix of SharePoint Portal Server Web discussions settings follows. This matrix identifies typical configurations and the effects of the possible settings.

Possible Web Discussions Configurations for SharePoint Portal Server

Web discussions server SharePoint Portal Server SharePoint Portal Server Other Office Web discussions server

Documents stored inside the current workspace Documents stored outside any workspace on the server

n/a

Web Enabled discussions

Disabled3

Enabled2

Disabled

Enabled2

Searching and indexing of discussion items3

Disabled

Disabled 2

Enable d

n/a

n/a

n/a

Configuration A

Yes

Yes

No

Storage location(s)

n/a

n/a

Worksp ace4

n/a

External4

n/a

Notifications for Web discussions: on the dash- board site and optional e-mail

n/a

None

n/a

n/a

None

None

Search discussions

n/a

None

n/a

n/a

None

None

Configuration B

Yes

Yes

No

Storage location(s)

n/a

n/a

Workspace

n/a

External

n/a

Notifications for Web discussions: on the dash- board site and optional e-mail

n/a

n/a

Yes

n/a

None

None

Search discussions

n/a

n/a

Yes

n/a

None

None

Configuration C

Yes

Yes

Yes

Storage location(s)

None

n/a

n/a

None

n/a

Other server

Notifications of Web discussions: on the dash- board site and optional e-mail

n/a

None

n/a

None

n/a

E-mail only from other server

Search discussions

n/a

None

n/a

None

n/a

None

Using Web Discussions with Office 2000 Installed

If Office 2000 is installed on your computer and you use Microsoft Internet Explorer as your Web browser, you can add Web discussions items from Office by using the Online Collaboration toolbar, or from Internet Explorer by using the Online Collaboration toolbar or the Web Discussions toolbar, depending on how you start discussions. If you use Netscape as your Web browser, you can use the Web Discussions toolbar, which is available from a Discuss link that is displayed below the document title in the dashboard site.

Using Web Discussions with Office XP Installed

If Office XP is installed on your computer and you use Internet Explorer as your Web browser, you can add Web discussion items from Office or Internet Explorer by using the Online Collaboration toolbar. If you use Netscape as your Web browser, you can use the Web Discussions toolbar, which is available from a Discuss link that is displayed below the document title in the dashboard site.

Using Web Discussions from a Web Browser Client

If Office is not installed on your computer and you use Internet Explorer or Netscape as a Web browser, you can only insert Web discussions about the document on the dashboard site that has a Discuss link displayed below the document title.

When you click the Discuss link, the Web Discussions toolbar (a custom SharePoint Portal Server Active Server Pages (ASP) toolbar) is displayed with the SharePoint Portal Server computer assigned as the discussion server.

To use Web discussions from a computer that does not have Office installed, you must choose to enable Web discussions in this workspace. By default, SharePoint Portal Server enables Web discussions. For more information, see Variables Affecting Web Discussions earlier in this chapter.

Inserting Web Discussions Items

Office allows two types of discussion items:

  • Items about the Document. These items are related to each discussion item and any subsequent replies to the target document in general.
  • Items Inserted in the Document. These items, available with Microsoft Word and Internet Explorer, are associated with a specific discussion item and any subsequent replies with a specific paragraph in the target document.

In Word, you can insert inline discussion items for Word documents and Hypertext Markup Language (HTML) files. In Internet Explorer, you can insert inline discussion items only for HTML files.

To insert an inline Web discussions item in a document from Word:

  1. Point to the paragraph for which you want to add an inline discussion item.
  2. On the Online Collaboration toolbar, click the Insert discussion in the document icon.

To insert an inline Web discussions item in a document from Internet Explorer:

  1. On the Online Collaboration toolbar, click the Insert discussion in the document icon.
  2. Click the document icon at the end of the paragraph in which you want to insert your comment.

Choosing a Web Discussions Server on the Client

To use Web discussions, you must specify a Web discussions server the first time you choose to discuss a document.

After you specify a Web discussions server, type comments inline (in a document), or about the document (in your browser window), depending on the document type. You can also subscribe to be notified of changes to the document or folder. In addition, you can add additional Web discussions servers from the Online Collaboration toolbar.

You can select any of the available Web discussions servers. If the discussion server you choose differs from the one in use by other users, your discussions are stored on a different server. Consequently, other users cannot view your discussion items.

Specify the Web Discussions Server in Office 2000

The first time you open the Online Collaboration toolbar, you must enter a Web discussions server. Type the name of the Web discussions server in the text box, and then click OK.

Specify the Web Discussions Server in Office XP

The first time you use Web discussions, the active document's server is automatically selected as the Web discussions server.

This behavior only occurs if the server of the active document is a valid Office Web discussions server, such as a computer running SharePoint Portal Server with Web discussions enabled.

By default, the Online Collaboration toolbar uses the last manually specified Web discussions server, regardless of where a document is stored. For more information, see Using Web Discussions with Office XP Installed later in this chapter.

Depending on the combination of settings for the SharePoint Portal Server computer and the location of the document that is open, you may not be able to designate the SharePoint Portal Server computer as a Web discussions server. For more information about possible incompatibilities, see the Issues and Incompatibilities section of this chapter.

Modify the Default Web Discussions Server

You can use the Online Collaboration toolbar to add additional Web discussions servers and to specify which Web discussions server to use.

To add a Web discussions server by using the Online Collaboration toolbar:

  1. On the Online Collaboration toolbar, click Discussions.
  2. Click Discussion Options, and then click Add.
  3. Type the name of the SharePoint Portal Server computer where the document is located (for example, http://Adventure-Works/).

    If you specify a SharePoint Portal Server computer as the Web discussions server, do not include any workspace name in the URL.

  4. Click OK.

    If you use the Web Discussions toolbar, you cannot specify a Web discussions server. When you use the Web Discussions toolbar, the active server is automatically chosen as the Web discussions server.

Planning Additional Factors

You must consider several factors when you decide how to implement Web discussions, including the following:

  • Enabling Web discussions on external content may log user activity. If you do not restrict Web discussions to items stored in workspaces on this server, leaving the Online Collaboration toolbar open in Internet Explorer causes SharePoint Portal Server to log the Internet browsing activity of each user's computer.

    When a user accesses the dashboard site to discuss a document that is stored in a workspace, the Online Collaboration toolbar is started to access the Web discussions feature. If the Online Collaboration toolbar remains open when the user later navigates to other Web sites, SharePoint Portal Server logs the URL of any Web site the user visits, in addition to the user name, in the Microsoft Internet Information Services (IIS) logs that are stored on the system disk. Depending on the log settings on the server, this could potentially affect the Event Viewer system log size.

  • Including Web discussions in an index can allow users to view discussions on content to which they do not have access. If you include Web discussions in your index, SharePoint Portal Server may return them in a search results list. The discussion items are visible to users on the dashboard site even if the users do not have access to the document to which the discussion items pertain. All existing discussion items for all versions of a document are viewable by any individual with Read access to a document, regardless of whether the version is published. This may compromise the security of the content in a document. To prevent this, SharePoint Portal Server disables the option to include Web discussions in search scopes and in the index by default.

    SharePoint Portal Server does not include Web discussions in the index when crawling other SharePoint Portal Server computers or other workspaces on the same server. Thus, although SharePoint Portal Server returns documents from those servers or workspaces in search results, and these documents may contain discussion items, the discussion items are not included in the search results.

  • Users may not search for discussions on high-ASCII or double-byte character set (DBCS) URLs created by using the Online Collaboration toolbar in Internet Explorer. For Office users who discuss documents on high-ASCII or DBCS URLs, SharePoint Portal Server saves discussions created using the Online Collaboration toolbar in Internet Explorer in the following location, regardless of whether the document is stored in the workspace:

    http://Server_Name/Public/Workspaces/System/Discussions

    The process of retrieving Web discussions that contain European (high-ASCII) and Japanese/Chinese (DBCS) characters in the related document's URL is unpredictable because of the URL encoding schemes of Web browsers. The encoding schemes generally expect to have URLs provided in low-ASCII character sets. Depending on the combination of methods that are used for accessing the Web discussions from their Office client version or for accessing a document from the workspace, SharePoint Portal Server may not recognize the document's URL as residing in the document store.

    Because SharePoint Portal Server does not recognize these discussions correctly, they are not searchable, and you cannot subscribe to these discussions. To enable users to search for and subscribe to discussions, use the Web Discussions toolbar for high-ASCII or DBCS URLs.

  • The locale of the client and server must match during a high-ASCII/DBCS URL discussion. This applies whether you are using the Web Discussions toolbar or the Online Collaboration toolbar.
  • The Close Discussion Items feature is not supported. SharePoint Portal Server uses the Office 2000 implementation of the Web discussions server for administering discussion items. Consequently, SharePoint Portal Server does not support the Close Discussion Items feature of Office XP.


Microsoft Sharepoint Portal Server 2001 Resource Kit
Microsoft SharePoint(TM) Portal Server 2001 Resource Kit (Examples & Explanations Series)
ISBN: 0735615624
EAN: 2147483647
Year: 2001
Pages: 231

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