Chapter 9: Programming SharePoint Services

Overview

Throughout our investigation of SharePoint Services, we have found many different ways to use the built-in features to solve business problems; however, Microsoft has not provided all of the capabilities you are likely to need. As soon as you roll out SharePoint Portal Server (SPS), your end users will begin to point out the weaknesses in the product. Some of the more obvious weaknesses include lack of support for workflow, difficulty in navigating site collections, and cumbersome task management.

The solution to these missing pieces is to extend the capabilities of SharePoint Services. Fortunately, Microsoft has spent a significant amount of time developing .NET namespaces and web services for SharePoint Services. This comprehensive set of namespaces allows you programmatic access to a significant portion of SharePoint Services.

The SharePoint Services object model is extensive , to say the least. There are 18 namespaces within the object model and dozens of classes covering most of the features of SharePoint Services. The depth and breadth of the architecture makes it impractical to study the object model directly. Instead, it is better to use the object model to solve specific problems. In this chapter, you will get started using these namespaces by creating solutions to some of the fundamental weaknesses in SharePoint Services.