Philipp Heltewig

We are currently experiencing a lot of interest from the Sharepoint community. The basic story is always the same...

A company is using Sharepoint for their Intranet. They love it! They do collaboration, store documents and much more. But when it comes to building an external facing website, they realize that MOSS may not be the way to go. Sharepoint's inflexibility when it comes to website designs, combined with challenging device and language support (you need to copy your content), as well as its non-compliance with accessibility standards (WCAG) rules it out for many organizations. Not to talk about the price...

This is where a lot of companies turn towards Sitecore. With Sitecore CMS they know they can build world-class websites without any restrictions on design, languages and devices (PDA, Printer, ...). Sitecore allows companies to build true WCAG-compliant websites through the use of inbuilt accessibility validators that check content during the content creation process. And there is so much more to it, but you all know the nice features of Sitecore. Summarized one can say that Sitecore is a true WCMS, whereas MOSS is an intranet and collaboration system with some basic WCMS functionality.

So how can we make use of both MOSS' and Sitecore's strength? Let's say we want to use MOSS or WSS (which is basically a free version of MOSS with less features) to maintain a library of product manuals and a list of office locations on our intranet, but we want to use the manuals and the information from the list on our website. This is where the Sitecore Sharepoint Connector comes into the picture.

The Sitecore Sharepoint Connector connects Sitecore to the Sharepoint database and lets us reuse document libraries and list on our website. The steps you have to do are quite simple:

1. Create a new user in Sharepoint (you don't have to, but you should)
2. Open the Sharepoint Connector Configuration in Sitecore and configure the Connector to use the Sharepoint login
3. Create a Sitecore Data Template with all the fields you need
4. Select document libraries/lists and create mappings between the Sharepoint columns and the Sitecore Template fields
5. Create a proxy item and use the Sharepoint content wherever you like on your page

Because of the way the Sharepoint Connector works, the Sharepoint content will look like native Sitecore to the end-user and can be used in the same way. Link from Sitecore items to documents, use information from lists, just as if it would be information that is stored in Sitecore rather than Sharepoint. If the content changes in Sharepoint, it automatically changes in Sitecore and you have the option to make it a 2-way connection (changing info in Sitecore will change it in Sharepoint). There is also an option to actually copy the content into Sitecore and not reference the actual Sharepoint content (staging).

The Sitecore Sharepoint Connector is a very powerful tool, which allows companies to leverage their current investment in MOSS, while having a professional Web Content Management System like Sitecore for their external website.

I will soon record a video demo of the Sharepoint Connector, so stay tuned for that...

• Fully integrated What You See Is What You Get (WYSIWYG) forms editing
• Multilungual forms
• ASCX export
• Full Sitecore-like unlimited flexibility for form actions
• Results can be stored in database, as Sitecore items, emails, ...
• .NET-style instant form validation
• Full control over CSS
• ...

But lets have a look...

High Res Hosted Version: http://www.sitecoreaustralia.com.au/webforms/
Low Res Youtube Version: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QkBGobrOtKY