This book covers what SharePoint administrators, site owners, and SharePoint developers need to know. SharePoint administrator is an emerging job title that covers a wide range of experience. I’ve met administrative assistants, tech writers, programmers, and others who wear that hat. Basically, SharePoint administrators organize, customize, maintain, and support a SharePoint portal. Site owners are the people that create and maintain parts of the portal—usually there is one site owner for each department, and the site owner organizes the content and appearance of his department’s site. SharePoint developers extend SharePoint and integrate it with other business systems. These developers need to know more than a programming language—they also need to understand what SharePoint provides out-of-the-box so they can extend it using the simplest approach.

I combine these audiences in one book because they have overlapping needs. First, they must understand what SharePoint can do for their businesses; next, they must know how it is used with the Microsoft Office applications; and finally, they need a framework for instructing others how to use what they have created.