Introduction
According to Microsoft, "Microsoft® Content Management Server (MCMS) 2002 Connector for SharePoint™ Technologies enables you to integrate Microsoft Office SharePoint Portal Server 2003 and Microsoft Windows® SharePoint Services 2.0 with MCMS 2002 to create an end-to-end solution for document publishing".
Let's first check the prominent features of the technologies we have mentioned above.
SharePoint Portal Server 2003 provides the following functionalities:
- It allows Collaboration on documents, projects, and other efforts. People can share information without any technical obstructions.
- It allows Personalization of Content and facilitates the use of specific applications based on users functional groups and organizational roles.
- SPS provides an easily customizable search. One can also create other indexes to allow searching a non-SharePoint resource (like a content site).
Windows SharePoint Services provides a place where your team can:
- Communicate
- Share documents
- Work together on projects
MCMS 2002 offers the following Web content management features:
- CMS Page Architecture is Template based. Each template has an Authoring and presentation modes.
- Content creation workflow that is easily extendable. Page publish scheduling is also possible.
- Dynamic page assembly that assists you in building, authoring, and deploying Web sites.
The functionality of the MCMS Connector for SharePoint Technologies can be classified into three broad categories:
- Publishing MCMS content on SharePoint sites.
- Publishing document or form library content from Windows SharePoint Services or SharePoint Portal Server to MCMS sites, and scheduling automatic updates so that the MCMS sites match the library content.
- Using the search engine in SharePoint Portal Server to crawl and search the contents of an MCMS Web site for inclusion in a content index.
CMS Template
MCMS provides a Template-based web publishing method. This kind of architecture eliminates webmaster bottleneck and also makes it a lot easier to enforce standards when required.
Following are the distinct features of the CMS Templates:
- Design/Layout of a CMS Template is defined in an ASP.NET - WebForm.
- Variety of placeholders are available to cater to the needs of different types of content like HTML, XML, images etc.
- Navigation Bars implemented as dynamic Web Controls.
- Pages are generated dynamically and placeholder content is added during the creation of a page.
SharePoint Placeholder Control
Microsoft Content Management Server (MCMS) Connector for SharePoint Technologies includes a SharePoint library placeholder control that retrieves a SharePoint library file such as a Word document or spreadsheet, an image, or an InfoPath form. The placeholder stores a copy of this file and its properties in the MCMS database.
The main features of the SharePoint Placeholder Control are to:
- Retrieve SharePoint library content and metadata and store it in CMS SharePoint placeholder
- Documents (e.g. Word, PDF)
- Images (e.g. .jpg, .gif)
- XML files (InfoPath and Word ML docs)
- Provide user interface for locating and accessing SharePoint content in authoring mode of the CMS Template
- Render document and properties based on style sheets at run-time
- Attachments
- Inline display (for images)
- HTML (for Word ML and InfoPath-produced XML files)
Adding SharePoint Library Files To MCMS Pages
The diagram below describes the steps involved in adding SharePoint documents to a CMS page:
- Author creates a new page based on a template with a SharePoint library placeholder. In Edit mode on the MCMS page Author clicks 'Select SharePoint Library' on the SharePoint library placeholder.
- Author selects a SharePoint Library file to include in the page
- MCMS retrieves the SharePoint Library file
- Author submits the page for publication
SharePoint Library file is included on the new page.
Conclusion
This article demonstrates the process of adding SharePoint Library documents to a CMS page. It also describes the salient features of SharePoint Portal Server, Windows SharePoint Services and Microsoft Content Management Server 2002. This article lists the advantages of implementing the MCMS Connector for SharePoint Technologies.
For additional information on the discussed products, check the following websites:
Praveen is a techie with sound experience in implementing project using Microsoft Content Management Server 2002 and SharePoint Portal Server 2003.