External Collaboration Toolkit for SharePoint Now Released

About Solution Accelerators

Solution Accelerators are authoritative resources that help IT pros plan, deploy, and operate IT systems that address real-world scenarios. Solution Accelerators provide free, prescriptive guidance and automation to accelerate cross-product integration, core infrastructure development, and other enhancements.

About This Accelerator

Welcome to the External Collaboration Toolkit for SharePoint.

Every day, organizations collaborate on key projects with external business partners across the Internet. These project teams regularly share important documents that might contain intellectual property or other information that should be kept secure. Unfortunately, for many organizations the only option is to collaborate using e-mail, which can be both inefficient and is often not a secure method for collaboration.

The External Collaboration Toolkit for SharePoint is intended to help address this situation. It consists of software and guidance that will help you to deploy a customizable solution built on Microsoft® Windows® SharePoint® Services 3.0 or Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 that teams can use to collaborate securely with partners outside the firewall. The toolkit’s familiar SharePoint interface makes the solution easy for project team members to understand and use.

This Solution Accelerator includes the following components:

External Collaboration Toolkit for SharePoint. This software helps administrators quickly deploy a SharePoint-based solution for collaborating across the Internet.

Choosing an External Collaboration Solution. This document examines various external collaboration scenarios and provides recommendations for addressing them using Microsoft technologies.

Planning for External Collaboration with SharePoint. This document describes the planning process for deploying the solution in a small or mid-sized environment.

Deployment and Operations Guide. This guide explains how to install and configure the solution, provides guidance for users, and describes how to deploy the solution in larger environments.

Informational Materials. These include supplementary materials that explain how the guidance and tools in this Solution Accelerator can benefit your organization.