SharePoint is a collection of very different technology all wrapped up and given a name as a single platform. It can be said that SharePoint is a browser-based collaboration and document management platform whose learning is just similar to learning Microsoft office.
Basically SharePoint is a server product having some connected programs like SharePoint Designer, SharePoint Workspace but its uses vary from user to user.
SharePoint has traditionally been used as a document management tool or content management system (CMS), or to set up a business intranet. The documents can be updated via Office web apps using a web browser or installed MS office applications.
SharePoint Products:
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- SharePoint Online
SharePoint Online is a cloud based service for businesses of all sizes hosted by Microsoft. Any business can subscribe SharePoint online instead of installing and deploying SharePoint on premises.
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- SharePoint Server
Organisations with SharePoint can deploy and manage SharePoint Server on premises. It includes all the features of SharePoint and offers various feature like content management, business intelligence, enterprise search, personal sites, news feeds etc.
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- SharePoint Foundation
SharePoint foundation is another service of SharePoint that is free for on-premises deployment. User can use SharePoint foundation to create web sites, document lists and libraries, calendar and data etc.
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- SharePoint Designer
SharePoint Designer is again a free tool for developer. SharePoint Designer is used to create SharePoint applications for user that can implemented at different levels.
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- One Driver for Business sync
One Driver is a desktop program that user can use to sync documents from a team site. With One Driver user can update and share your files from any device with OneDrive for Business.
SharePoint For Businesses:
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- Intranet
Everyone in the organisation can sign on and get updated with news, announcements, tasks and accesses variety of information. Dashboard can be customised and can be designed based on the department and user roles.
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- Documents
SharePoint provides organization a shared location of space to store documents. Those documents can be accessed by any person based on the permission provided by the admin.
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- Collaboration
User can access in to SharePoint from any desktop or mobile device and work on SharePoint as per convenience.
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- Extranet
SharePoint can be used to setup sites for external users like customers. It can not only be used as a website but also as an interaction portal where users can upload documents etc.
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- Websites
With SharePoint user can easily create a Collaborative Site with the knowledge of average technical skills. With SharePoint user can create other sub sites. SharePoint also permits to update information, add text or graphics, and create new pages.
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- Business intelligence
With SharePoint it possible to find various ways to use your business data to make better analysis and take smart decisions. SharePoint makes it easy to search through all your company’s files. It can display trends over time or relationships between different inputs with intuitively graspable graphs and charts.
Enterprise search allows different sources of content to be indexed and searchable through SharePoint. The search component is now a part of the SharePoint engine itself and is used to power many components within SharePoint
SharePoint For Developers:
SharePoint is a .NET platform that developers can use to create applications and take advantage of its features. For example, lists in SharePoint now support the capabilities of relational databases. Advanced data models can be built and relationships between lists established through lookup columns much in the same way as foreign keys in database tables. This means that joins are now possible
