Contents
Overview 1
Introducing Digital Dashboard Technology 2
Default Dashboards 6
SharePoint Portal Server Discussions 14
SharePoint Portal Server Subscriptions 19
Customizing the Dashboard Site 33
Lab A: Using the SharePoint Portal Server
Discussion and Subscription Features 43
Lab B: Customizing the SharePoint Portal
Server Dashboard Site 52
Review 56

Module 8: Using the
SharePoint Portal
Server Dashboard Site Information in this document is subject to change without notice. The names of companies,
products, people, characters, and/or data mentioned herein are fictitious and are in no way intended
to represent any real individual, company, product, or event, unless otherwise noted. Complying
with all applicable copyright laws is the responsibility of the user. No part of this document may
be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, for any
purpose, without the express written permission of Microsoft Corporation. If, however, your only
means of access is electronic, permission to print one copy is hereby granted.


®
SharePoint
™
Portal Server 2001, and describe the functionality
that is provided by each dashboard.

Administer discussions.

Administer subscriptions.

Customize a dashboard site.

Materials and Preparation
This section provides the materials and preparation tasks that you need to teach
this module.
Required Materials
To teach this module, you need Microsoft PowerPoint
®
file 2095a_08.ppt.
Preparation Tasks
To prepare for this module, you should:

Read all of the materials for this module.

Complete the lab.

Presentation:
105 Minutes

Labs:

15. At the end of the Advanced Settings section, click Save.
16. On the Content in “Home” page, click Save.
17. Explain the results.

Module 8: Using the SharePoint Portal Server Dashboard Site v Module Strategy
Use the following strategy to present this module:

Introducing Digital Dashboard Technology
Define digital dashboard, dashboard site, and Web Part. Next, describe the
benefits of dashboard technology, and discuss the functions of the
SharePoint Portal Server dashboard site.

Default Dashboards
Describe the seven SharePoint Portal Server default dashboards: Home,
Categories, Document Library, Management, Search, Subscriptions, and
Document Inspection.

SharePoint Portal Server Discussions
Explain that SharePoint Portal Server Discussion features allow users to
collaborate on documents internal and external to the workspace by sharing
ideas with one another. Discuss the two ways of accessing the discussion
topics: using the SharePoint Portal Server dashboard site, and by using the
Collaboration toolbar available in Microsoft Office 2000 or later products.
Describe the various options for administering and managing discussions.

SharePoint Portal Server Subscriptions
Provide an overview of subscriptions. Discuss how they are implemented

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After completing this module, you will be able to:

Define dashboard site, digital dashboard, and Web Part.

Name the default dashboard site dashboards that are included with
Microsoft
®
SharePoint
™
Portal Server 2001, and describe the functionality
that is provided by each dashboard.

Administer discussions.

Administer subscriptions.

Customize a dashboard site.

Topic Objective
To provide an overview of
the module topics and
objectives.
Lead-in
In this module, you will learn
about Microsoft Digital
Dashboard technology, how
to use discussions and

it is useful to know the terminology, components, and benefits of this
technology.
Topic Objective
To outline this topic.
Lead-in
Microsoft SharePoint Portal
Server uses digital
dashboard technology.
Module 8: Using the SharePoint Portal Server Dashboard Site 3 Digital Dashboard Terminology
SharePoint Portal Server
Dashboard Site
Dashboard Site
Dashboard Site
Digital Dashboard
Digital Dashboard
Digital Dashboard
Web Part
Web Part
Web Part
Dashboard Factory
Dashboard Factory
Dashboard Factory
Client Browser

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Part in the context of
Microsoft Digital Dashboard
technology.
Lead-in
Before we discuss digital
dashboard sites, it may be
helpful to define dashboard
site, dashboard, Web Part,
and dashboard factory.
4 Module 8: Using the SharePoint Portal Server Dashboard Site

Benefits of Digital Dashboard Technology
Reusable Web Parts
Reusable Web Parts
Customize the
Dashboard site
Customize the
Dashboard site

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Digital dashboard technology supports multiple underlying file systems,
Microsoft SQL Server

Search
Documents
Status:
Approval:
Author
Checked in
Subscriptions

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A dashboard site is automatically created for the workspace during the
SharePoint Portal Server setup process. Dashboard sites are organized around
workspaces, and there may be multiple dashboard sites in a single organization.
Function of the SharePoint Portal Server Dashboard Site
The SharePoint Portal Server dashboard site enables users to:

Search for content.

Access document management tools.

Participate in Web discussions.

Use subscriptions.

site home page shown on
the slide to explain how
functions such as searching,
subscriptions, and
document management
tools, are represented in the
dashboard site home page.
6 Module 8: Using the SharePoint Portal Server Dashboard Site



 Default Dashboards

The Home Dashboard

The Categories Dashboard

The Document Library Dashboard

The Management Dashboard

The Search Dashboard
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The Subscriptions Dashboard
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The Document Inspection Dashboard

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The Home page of the dashboard site is the default dashboard of the Share
Point Portal Server dashboard site. The home page contains Web Parts and
links, exposed as tabs, to the other dashboards, with the exception of the
document inspection Web Part. The home page contains the following Web
Parts:
Web Part Description

Simple search interface Use this Web Part to enter a query, along with a link to
the advanced search interface, which resides hidden in
the Search Web Part.
Category This Web Part displays the top-level categories in the
workspace, rendered as hyperlinks. Clicking a hyperlink
will display the category in the Categories dashboard.
News, Announcements
and Quick Links
These are Web Parts that coordinators can use to display
company information, news, and links to important
documents or Web sites.
Subscription Summary This link displays the latest subscription results for the
logged-in user.

Topic Objective
To present the default Home
dashboard included in the
SharePoint Portal Server
dashboard site.
Lead-in
The Home Dashboard
contains Web Parts and

date. For local workspace documents, the document status,
approval status, and version are displayed. Each result also
contains links for discussing, subscribing, and showing
actions.

Topic Objective
To present the Categories
dashboard information.
Lead-in
The Categories dashboard
displays Web Parts with
Category information and
the Category Items Web
Part.
Module 8: Using the SharePoint Portal Server Dashboard Site 9 The Document Library Dashboard

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The Document Library dashboard displays the Folder Information Web Part
and the Folder Item Web Part. The simple search interface Web Part is always

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The Management dashboard, displayed only to the workspace coordinator,
provides a link to the Managing Discussions Web Part. From the Managing
Discussions Web Part you can remove the discussions associated with
documents internal and external to the workspace. Discussions are listed in
alphabetical order for easier administration.
The Management dashboard allows workspace coordinators to manage
individual user subscriptions. You can type in the name of the user using the
DOMAIN\username naming convention. This will display the Subscription
dashboard for that particular user.
The dashboard can cache the content of a Web Part on the server for better
performance. For example, a company calendar embedded in a Web Part can be
cached on the server so SharePoint Portal Server does not need to calculate how
to render the view for every user that navigates to the Web Part. The
Management dashboard provides the Flush application level cache link to
refresh the memory cache.
Topic Objective
To present the Management
dashboard information.
Lead-in
The Management
dashboard provides a link to

Best Bets Displays Best Bet matches for a query, the search results
that are designated as most relevant to the user.
Matching Documents Displays the results of a query, in groups of 20 per page,
with paging controls for multiple pages. For each document
result, an icon representing the file type is displayed as well
as the title, path and file name, author and last modified
date. For local workspace documents, the document status,
approval status and version are displayed. Each result also
contains links for discussing, subscribing, and showing
actions.

Topic Objective
To present the Search
dashboard information.
Lead-in
The Search dashboard
displays the user’s search
results.
12 Module 8: Using the SharePoint Portal Server Dashboard Site

The Subscriptions Dashboard

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document, and the Item Actions Web Part displays any available actions on the
document such as publish and approve. The document inspection dashboard is
not shown as a tab on the home page of the dashboard site. It is a hidden
dashboard with two Web Parts that is displayed when a user clicks Show
Actions next to a document on the Document Library dashboard or in the
Search Results section.
Topic Objective
To present the Document
Inspection Web part
information.
Lead-in
The Document Inspection
Web Part displays metadata
for the document, and is a
hidden dashboard accessed
from the Document Library
dashboard.
14 Module 8: Using the SharePoint Portal Server Dashboard Site

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

SharePoint Portal Server Discussions

Using Discussions

Administering Discussions

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Discussions allow authors and readers to share ideas without actually modifying
the document itself. Users who do not have authoring privileges can still
contribute to the discussions of a document. For example, discussions can
facilitate the document approval process by enabling discussions of content,
which allows approvers who do not have author rights to a document to add
comments inside the document, where the document author can easily view
them.
Discussions can be inserted in the body of a document. For example, you can
insert a discussion topic regarding a specific section following a paragraph and
an icon will appear at that point that provides access to the discussion topic
when anyone views the document.
Discussion topics are stored separately from documents and you cannot migrate
discussions from one workspace to another. For example, if you move a
document that has discussions from one workspace to another, the discussions
will no longer exist.
Using the SharePoint Portal Sever Dashboard Site
Documents that appear in dashboards from actions, such as issuing search
queries or browsing categories contain a “Discuss” link. The link provides users
with an interface within the SharePoint Portal Server dashboard site to access
discussion topics. This method is enabled by Active Server Pages that run on
the SharePoint Portal server and render the HTML view of discussion topics to
client browsers. Any client with a compatible browser can access discussion
topics using this method.

In standard folders, there are no drafts or versions, so the Uniform Resource
Locator (URL) of a document is consistent throughout its life. However, in
enhanced folders, the URL of a document refers to the last approved version
(LAV) of the document. Every time the document is checked out, a new
unapproved version with a new URL is created.
SharePoint Portal Server maintains a single discussions storage area for all
versions of a document. This means that discussions created while looking at
the LAV of a document will be visible while looking at the checked out copy
and vice versa.
Inline discussions validate their location within a document using internal
document markup symbols. If the document has been modified to such an
extent that the discussion server does not know where to place an inline
discussion, it changes the inline discussion thread to an “About the Document”
discussion thread. In this way, inline discussions deal with changes to the
document over time.
Language Support
The Collaboration toolbar matches the language selected for the Office
applications on the client (no SharePoint Portal Server code is involved). The
protocol communicates discussion data between the client, whether it is through
a browser or an Office application. The server is language-independent and
handles encoding of international characters. The Collaboration toolbar within
Office applications and the discussion interface exposed by the SharePoint
Portal Server supports mixed-language interfaces for all languages that
SharePoint Portal Server supports.
Module 8: Using the SharePoint Portal Server Dashboard Site 17 Administering Discussions

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This check box is available on the Subscriptions/Discussions tab of the
workspace properties page of the SharePoint Portal Server MMC and the
Workspace Settings page of the Web folder view of a workspace. Use this
check box to enable searching over discussions items for a workspace. This
check box is disabled by default, because supporting discussion items are
not secured. When searching is enabled, the folder containing discussions
for the workspace is marked as indexable in the schema and re-crawled.
When searching is disabled, the folder is also re-crawled.

Topic Objective
To present how to
administer and manage
discussions.
Lead-in
The Office Collaboration
feature provides numerous
options for the
administration of the site.
18 Module 8: Using the SharePoint Portal Server Dashboard Site

If discussions are disabled on the workspace hosting the document being
discussed, or discussions have been restricted to internal content and the
document being discussed is not in any of the server workspaces, the
Collaboration toolbar prompts the user with “Web Discussions are not
available on this server.”

If discussions are not restricted to content within the workspaces (the
default), and a user browses to an external site after discussing a workspace
document, leaving the toolbar open, the sites they access will be logged in the
SharePoint Portal Server server's Internet Information Services (IIS) logs. If this


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SharePoint Portal Server Subscriptions

Types of Subscriptions

Using Subscriptions with the Dashboard Site

Using Subscriptions with the Office Collaboration
Toolbar

Notifications

PQS and Subscriptions

Administering Subscriptions

External Content Subscriptions

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