Sharepoint and Content Management
Organisations have found the right product for sharing knowledge and make collaboration happening. Part of this 'knowledge' is content that is stored in documents, email and other sources outside Sharepoint. The question I often hear is in what way Sharepoint provides as a content management system for sharing content on an orgnisations intranet.
There is a built-in solution for Sharepoint, called the Content webpart which basically is a kind of 'rich' HTML editor. Content is stored as a property in the webpart. Where this webpart could be usefull for small amounts of text to enable a more richer content on the Sharepoint page, there cleary is a need for a more advanced tool to manage content in Sharepoint.
MCMS and Content Management
For content management, Microsoft has developed a product called Content Management Server which current version, 2002, is fully .Net enabled. There is a object model which developers can use to programatically manage content. MCMS 2002 includes an advanced rights architecture, workflow and office integration which provides all the things that make a good CMS. Together with a new licencing model, MCMS becomes more and more attractive for online content management.
Microsoft Content Connector for Sharepoint (a.k.a. SPARK)
Ofcourse, Microsoft has noticed the need for advanced content management in Sharepoint. Therefore, they created a content connector that connects MCMS 2002 with Sharepoint. It provides some webparts that can show postings and content in Sharepoint and likewise Sharepoint documents in CMS postings. Besides that, there are some search enhancements that Sharepoint can use for giving the right search results in Sharepoint.
A very usefull step, but there are some issues. For example, SPS and MCMS must be installed on the same server. This for retrieving the right context and using the object model. So, basically when using a big server farm on wich both MCMS and SPS are installed on different servers, SPARK becomes useless. Another issue is that the search enhancements could be improved.
Webservices
Then, when I was doing a project like described above, we had to find a way to integrate SPS and MCMS without using the content connector. Basically, what the solution looked like, was a SPS enviroment with a navigation structure. At a certain point in the stucture, users should be able te manage content. At this point the Sharepoint Area's would become CMS Channels. Deeper into the Channels, the Sharepoint Area's should still be available in the navigation menu. How should we cope with that?
Webservices is the answer. Sharepoint uses the custom build CMS webservice to retrieve Channels and Postings from MCMS as DataSets in the servers context. This way, the navigation could be expanded with CMS Channels. Likewise, the CMS Postings use the SPS webservices to retrieve area information and search scopes. Besides the navigaton, CMS content had to be viewed in SPS Area's. A webpart that connects to a webservice and returns a CMS Posting is developed to make this happen.
What's Next?
Ofcourse the integration between MCMS and SPS is a challenge and a nice job for a developer. However, Microsoft wouldn't be Microsoft if they didn't find a way to make this easier and more advanced. The next version of Sharepoint probably has a much more improved CMS built-in. I wouldn't be surprised if MCMS would become a part of Sharepoint for content management. The search/indexing problem MCMS has today (there isn't any) would be solved with that integration too. But untill that point, which isn't before 2006, we have to innovate and be creative when using CMS within Sharepoint.