Executive Summary:
Learn how to configure Microsoft Office SharePoint Server (MOSS) to work with Exchange Server and Outlook Web Access (OWA) so your organization can use an intranet to easily share documents. |
We all know that Microsoft Office Outlook 2007 acts as the primary interface to
Microsoft Exchange Server 2007. You might not realize, though, that other Microsoft
Office products are also designed to integrate easily with Exchange Server.
The best example is Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 (MOSS 2007), the workplace
collaboration and content management platform. When you configure MOSS 2007 to work
with Exchange 2007, the users in your organization will be able to easily share documents
over a corporate intranet.
Quick Introduction to MOSS 2007
MOSS lets you create an internal Web site
(an intranet site) for use by your company’s
employees. An intranet site can be used
to display corporate announcements and
provide access to the corporate directory,
but you can set up such sites manually
without using MOSS. MOSS’s true value is
in letting you establish a document library
on your intranet site that allows users to
check out, modify, and return documents.
Using MOSS permissions, you can control
which users are able to read or modify a
document.
MOSS also lets users create additional
Web sites very easily. For example, a group of
employees working together on a project can
create an intranet site dedicated to that project,
then use that site to share project-related
documents, post a calendar of project-related
milestones, and provide contact information
for those involved in the project.
As you can imagine, MOSS is a fairly
complex product, but it’s surprisingly intuitive.
After all, it was designed so that even end
users can create complex sites.
A Few Prerequisites
Before I show you how MOSS interacts with
Exchange Server and what this combination
can do for your organization, I need to share
some assumptions that I make in this article. I
assume that you’re running Exchange Server
2007 and that you have at least one client
access server deployed. I also assume that
your client access server is configured to act
as a front end to your Exchange organization
and that the client access server role is not
installed directly on a mailbox server.
Another prerequisite is that you need to
install MOSS on a dedicated server within
your perimeter network. The MOSS server
must be able to communicate with your
mailbox servers, but for performance and
security reasons, you shouldn’t install MOSS
on a server running Exchange.
And finally, I’m assuming that you have
an established Exchange organization, that
you’ve just installed MOSS, and that you’re
starting from scratch.
Creating a SharePoint Web Site
Now that the prerequisites are
taken care of, it’s time to create
a SharePoint Web site that
interacts with Exchange Server.
First you need to open the
default SharePoint site by starting
Microsoft Internet Explorer
(IE) and entering the URL http://
your_server/pages/default.aspx,
where your_server is the NetBIOS
name of your SharePoint server.
Upon entering this URL, you’ll
see the default SharePoint Web
site displayed in IE, shown in
Figure 1. Although the default site
has nothing to do with Exchange
Server, you can integrate Share-
Point Server and Microsoft Outlook
Web Access (OWA) into a
SharePoint site. This allows you
to take advantage of one-stop
shopping. You don’t have use a
separate Web site to access your
Exchange mailbox; you can do it
directly through the SharePoint
site.
Let’s add a user’s Inbox and
Calendar to the default Share-
Point site. Under Site and Content
Management, click the Create
new pages, sites, and lists link.
You’ll see a screen like the one in
Figure 2, which lets you work with
Web Parts to create a SharePoint
Web site. Because the average
user doesn’t know how to write
ASP.NET or HTML code, MOSS
includes dozens of predefined
Web Parts, which are blocks of
code that accomplish a specific
task. You plug Web Parts into predefined
templates to create Web
pages—the entire process can be
completed in a matter of minutes.
You can also develop your own
Web Parts. For more information on MOSS and Web Parts, see the
Learning Path on page 57.
On the Create Page page,
enter a title and a description for
the page you want to create. From
the list box on the right-hand side
of the page, select a template for
the page layout. Because we’ll be
adding Web Parts to the page, I’ve
selected the Blank Web Part Page
template. Make a note of the URL
assigned to the page.
Next, click Create, and you’ll
see the screen shown in Figure
3. This template contains several
links that you can click to
add a Web Part to a part of the
screen, such as Header, Footer,
Left, Right, or Center.
Click the Add a Web Part
link beneath the screen section
labeled Top Left, and you’ll see
the list of OWA-related Web Parts.
Scroll through this list, select the
check box next to the My Inbox
Web Part, then click Add. Repeat
the process to add the My Calendar
Web Part to the Center portion
of the Web page. (You can
add other Web Parts if you wish.)
The template screen should now
look like Figure 4.
Continue on Page 2
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