Can SharePoint be used for websites?
Guest Author: Dave Coleman
SharePointEduTech
We still get asked, on a regular basis, if SharePoint can be used for websites. Well the answer is a very big yes. We have created lots of SharePoint websites for other organizations and we have our own sixth form site http://www.twynham6thform.com/Pages/default.aspx
And our main school site http://www.twynhamschool.com is based on SharePoint.
I think for us it was one of those no brainer decisions. I am sure, like many others, you get asked on a regular basis to put content on your website. But the beauty of SharePoint is that is exactly what it does. It gives the end user the ability to place content on the site themselves. The latest news section on the 6th form site is a great example of empowering the end user. Under the hood this is just a rendered SharePoint list, as you can see from the illustration below, making it a breeze for your users to add new content. Mike Herrity wrote a series of posts on how we did it on Mark Millers End User SharePoint blog http://www.endusersharepoint.com/2009/11/23/how-we-did-it-twynham-6th-form-internet-facing-website-using-sharepoint-2007-part-1/
So the next time you get asked that question “Can SharePoint be used for websites?” you know the answer, YES. If you think it would be worth writing a series of posts on the nuts and bolts of how to achieve this please comment or email me and I will put together a how to series.
Dave
Guest Author: Dave Coleman
SharePointEduTech
Dave Coleman has spent 19 years working in the IT industry with 12 of those working in the education sector. He has worked with many versions of Windows server, Exchange, SQL Server. Over the last few years Dave has specialized in SharePoint starting with SharePoint team services through SharePoint portal server 2003, SharePoint 2007 and now SharePoint 2010 after introducing SharePoint into Twynham and making it a key component of their IT strategy. You can follow Dave on his Blog at http://sharepointedutech.com and on Twitter at @davecoleman146
I have to agree that SharePoint of course can be used for websites. SharePoint 2010 has made this even easier and the inline design tools mean that you can delegate control of certain facets to people with no real ‘web deisgn’ skills. thats exactly the reason we moved our School website to SP2010 last summer.
http://www.westhatch.essex.sch.uk
There are a lot of web sites set up using SharePoint. Check out Top SharePoint Sites (http://www.topsharepoint.com/?r_sortby=highest_rated&r_orderby=desc) that list the entire top sites built using SharePoint. The military is transitioning to SharePoint for both the internet and intranet sites. I’ve been using SharePoint Designer 2007 for our sites and it makes it easy to make changes. So to answer the question, “Yes, itcan be used for websites.”
I agree Frank but a lot of confusion still exists on the subject. I think as SharePoint has become a more mature project this opinion is slowly changing, but i think it would help if Microsoft featured their own set of top SharePoint websites it may help get the message across and stop people thinking that it is only for intranets.
G’day Dave, I am currently in the process of re designing out school’s site that will be based on sharepoint that we host internally.
I have another couple of clients that I would like to use sharepoint with but they do not have the facility to host themselves. Just wondering if you or any of the readers have any good options for sharepoint hosting>
Cheers
Daniel
Hi Daniel
Love to be able to answer with one of those “And the best hosting company is…….” We have spoken with Rackspace who are good guys and worth talking to.
Sorry i cannot give an answer but maybe a head to head? who knows
Dave
Daniel,
There are two companies that support the SharePoint Community in everything we are doing. Take a look at each to see which is appropriate:
RackSpace.com
fpWeb.net
Regards, Mark
Don’t forget the extremely cool demo site at http://www.wssdemo.com/livepivot/.
It not only shows off some excellent SharePoint-based web sites, it also shows off Microsoft’s Live Pivot data visualization tool and lets you select subsets of the sample sites by geo, industry, version of SharePoint, etc.
Hi Mike
I could not agree more they have come a long way since the early days and wssdemo does now seem to be the one stop shop for finding SharePoint websites. And long may it continue.
Dave
I still find the licensing costs to be a surprise to many that are considering integrating their intranet and public site into one system.
SP2010 is better, but still when they realize it’s the server license, plus internet license, plus customization costs… it all adds up fairly quickly.
What do you guys think?
Very good point John i wrote a post earlier this year http://www.sharepointedutech.com/2010/05/19/licencing-sharepoint-2010-for-education-in-the-uk/
Which i hoped would help and i did run this past Microsoft UK prior to publication but shortly after publishing they contacted me saying it may be wrong!! (Surprise) and i am still waiting for the definate answer.
Dave
If you look at the long-term cost / benefit of allowing for distributed management of your internet site by using SharePoint, it may reduce your overall impressions of the licensing costs. You need to look at the weighted cost over 2 to 3 years, and what you will save through many of SharePoint’s out of the box features and overall extensibility.
Having said that, I think there’s still room for licensing changes for the SMB.
Dave, Bjorn Furuknap has some interesting comments on his blog about security flaws with anonymous access. I haven’t looked into it myself, but based on his findings I wouldn’t call it a no brainer.
Hi Christophe
I do agree with yourself and Bjorn that is can be dangerous but i think the key is if you set up correctly then all should be good. I think this is the same for any application that you expose to the outside world.
Dave
Dave,
The question is hardly wheter a piece of software can be used, but whether it should. Sure, you can use a screwdriver as your only tool for building a house. It’s incredibly stupid and using more suitable tools, you can get the job done a lot faster and cheaper, but in theory, you _can_ use a scredriver as a chissel to cut planks, as a hammer to secure nails, as a mixing tool for concrete…
.b
Dave, here is an example. A standard practice on websites is to offer a contact form, where visitors can leave feedback or questions (I am talking about the real stuff, not a mailto link!). I have spent days testing various methods, and I haven’t found a clean way to do it.
Hi Christophe
I can show you various examples of a contact us feature on our websites and other SharePoint webnsites that we have made example one:-
http://www.twynham6thform.com/admin/Lists/Applications/NewForm.aspx
This is for students that wish to apply to our Sixth form college
Example two:-
http://www.twynham6thform.com/Pages/OpenMorning.aspx
This is for open morning that we run for parents
Example Three:-
http://www.twynham6thform.com/Pages/RequestProspectus.aspx
This is a simple Prospectus request
We use this a lot all over our site we also have others from our website but some are closed at the moment ie Our options process where parents can contact a head of subject with questions.
Would it be a good idea to blog about how we did this? if it will help others i will arrange this.
Dave
Dave, it would definitely be useful to blog about the contact form. I am curious to lean how you did it, and I am not the only one to be interested, this is a topic we discussed in our “SharePoint User Managed Solutions” group.
I insist that my comment was about a clean way to do it. I have no doubt it can be done, and I have done it myself (for example with workflows), but it leaves security holes.