Collaboration is a core component of SharePoint. 
Project and Team Sites can be created with just a few clicks and enhance collaboration across groups, departments and teams. Teams are able to post news, edit documents with access to previous versions, and add discussion boards. Employees can also post answers to Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) or contribute to wikis to capture a wide range of tacit knowledge.
Collaborative Workspaces
Team effectiveness can be improved with easy-to-use collaborative tools that come as standard. These allow users to create team workspaces, co-ordinate calendars, organise documents, and receive important updates through announcements and alerts. Features include:
Discussions
A discussion provides a forum for teams to discuss current projects where previous responses can be easily accessed. Discussions can be viewed by discussion thread.
Calendars
A calendar provides a centralised place for team members to see when team events are occurring.
Document libraries
A document library provides a central repository for team documents. This is an alternative to storing files in shared folders and helps eliminate unergualted C: drives and shared drives.
Contacts
Teams can centrally store contacts in a SharePoint 2007 site. These contacts are available through Microsoft Office Outlook.
Blogs
A blog provides an informal way for team members to document and discuss team issues.
Wikis
A Wiki is a user-maintained knowledge base that teams can use to capture and retain information. They are great ways of capturing group knowledge, building documentation and creating ‘living’, branching documents.
Extending the collaboration model
The features that SharePoint provides are extensive, but there remains room for more…
Office Communication Server (OCS) can be fully integrated with SharePoint to provide real time collaboration through telephony, messaging and video conferencing. It also provides Presence – which lets you see whether colleagues are online and able to be contacted with questions or tasks.
Groove provides near real time collaboration for much broader groups, including those who are not part of the organisations (social services, partner companies etc.) or who are mostly field based or remote workers. Groove can be integrated into the SharePoint 2007 solution and can now be used for clinical applications running over N3 through our partnerships with ioko and D2i.
My Sites
Each user is given a customisable My Site that allows access to stored documents, news, links, applications, and other lists of relevant information. Your My Site also has a public view to enable colleagues to share information about themselves and their work. This functionality enables greater collaboration and reduces work duplication.
