Before you can use a SharePoint team site to collaborate on documents with colleagues, you might need to create the team site (in other cases, your SharePoint administrator might create the team site for you). For those responsible for creating their own team site, this section examines several methods you can use to create your team site.
You can create a SharePoint team site directly from Word 2003. When you create a team site from Word, you need to start with an existing document. Even though this might not be the only document you want to place on your team site, choose a document you want to place on your team site. To create a team site for the Network Infrastructure Upgrade Project, use the following steps:
Open the first document you want to place on your team site.
Select Shared Workspace from the Tools menu to display the task pane shown in Figure 27.1. The Shared Workspace task pane contains six tabs. We'll go through each of these tabs in detail later in this chapter.
The Members tab is shown by default. You can choose a name for your shared workspace. When you first launch the Shared Workspace task pane, the name of the workspace defaults to the name of the current document. You can change the workspace name to reflect the entire project, such as Network Infrastructure Upgrade.
Choose a location for your shared workspace. If you have accessed a SharePoint Team Services Web site or a SharePoint Portal Server from this computer before, you'll be able to choose either site from the drop-down list. If you haven't, or if you want to specify a new site never accessed before, choose (Type a New URL) and enter the site's URL.
Click Create to create your shared workspace on the server.
Your task pane then changes to look similar to that shown in Figure 27.2.
After you've created your workspace, you can add members to the workspace directly from the task pane. Just click on the Add New Members link on the bottom of the task pane to display the dialog shown in Figure 27.3.
Enter the email address or domain/username for the new user in the box provided. You'll need to specify a role for the new user. You can choose from the following roles for your new user:
Reader? Has read-only access to the site.
Contributor? Can add content to existing document libraries and lists.
Web Designer? Can create lists and document libraries and customize pages in the Web site.
Administrator? Has full control of the Web site.
Click Next to modify the email address or display name for your new user. You might not be able to edit all of this information. If you've entered a user in Active Directory, all of this information will be prefilled and read-only. Click Finish to add the user to your workspace. You'll receive a message asking whether you want to send an email to the user informing the user of the workspace. Choosing to do so displays an email message similar to that shown in Figure 27.4.
When your new user receives the invitation email, he can click the link provided to log on to the workspace site.
You can create a team site from an Outlook 2003 meeting request to serve as the central collaboration tool for your upcoming meeting. One of the common uses for a SharePoint Team Services site is for a series of recurring meetings. Perhaps you have weekly meetings for the Network Infrastructure Upgrade project. You can send a link to the team site within the meeting request so that all of your attendees can access the agenda, project updates, and shared tasks in preparation for the meeting. Creating a team site for your meeting request allows you to store shared information for the meeting in a central location. You can upload agenda items to the SharePoint site, and add tasks, to-do lists, and documents for attendees to access at any time. This can often save precious time emailing documents back and forth between attendees, as well as preventing version conflicts when two attendees both update their own copies of a document.
To create a team site from an Outlook 2003 Meeting Request, use the following steps:
Click the Calendar banner in the Navigation pane to display Outlook 2003's calendar.
Click the New button on the toolbar to create a new appointment.
Click the Invite Attendees button to turn your appointment into a meeting request.
Click the To button to select other attendees from your Global Address List or Contacts folders. Add the required and optional attendees and any resources (such as a conference room or projector).
Click OK to return to your meeting request. At this point, all you have is a standard meeting request. The next steps add the link to the shared meeting workspace.
Click the Meeting Workspace button on the meeting request to display the Meeting Workspace task pane. If you've previously created a Meeting Workspace on this computer, the workspace you create for this meeting request will default to the previously used server. If you want to alter the server used, click Change Settings to specify a new SharePoint Team Services site.
Click the Create button to create the shared meeting workspace from your meeting request. When the process is completed, your meeting request will look similar to what's shown in Figure 27.5.
When the meeting attendees receive the meeting request, they can click on the link to the shared meeting workspace and upload or edit documents related to the meeting.
The last way to create a team site is directly from the SharePoint Web site. Navigate to the home page for your SharePoint Team Services site, as shown in Figure 27.6.
To create a new, shared workspace, use the following steps:
Click Create from the banner at the top of your SharePoint site.
Scroll down to the bottom of the page and click Sites and Workspaces to display the screen shown in Figure 27.7.
Enter a title and description for your shared workspace.
You'll need to enter a URL for your shared workspace. The first part of the URL is the base site address for your SharePoint site. You can choose the site name for your shared workspace.
Click Create to display the screen shown in Figure 27.8.
Choose a template to use as the basis for your site. Click OK to apply the template and display the screen shown in Figure 27.9.
Now that we've listed the various ways to create a SharePoint shared workspace, we'll examine how to work with your SharePoint site and how to share documents with your SharePoint site.