In the following sections, I describe the various components of SharePoint, how the terms that define functionality fit together, and what they mean.
Branding
The term branding refers to the way a SharePoint site looks and behaves to users. Branding includes things like the colors, fonts, images, logos, and layout of the various components on a site. Branding your SharePoint site is covered in Chapter 18.
The term branding is not specific to SharePoint; it is borrowed from the marketing industry in which an organization will brand its product. For example, Coca-Cola has a very strong brand. In the software world, branding refers to the look and feel of a piece of software or website.
Business intelligence (BI)
The term business intelligence is definitely not new. An article was published in the October 1958 edition of the IBM Journal by H. P. Luhn called “A Business Intelligence System.” The article describes how an organization can process documents in order to make business decisions. Business intelligence has continued to evolve over the years and has morphed into something of a catch-all phrase for using data to drive business.
In the Microsoft realm, business intelligence (BI, pronounced bee-eye) consists of a number of different technologies. In fact, we wrote an entire sister book on the subject — Microsoft Business Intelligence For Dummies by Ken Withee. As SharePoint has become a central and nearly ubiquitous application, it has also become a prime place to show the data that decision makers need to make decisions. In other words, SharePoint is a perfect display case for all those fancy charts, graphs, performance indicators, and other data.
Unfortunately, business intelligence has a fairly steep learning curve in SharePoint. Tools such as Report Builder, Dashboard Designer, and PowerPivot unleash endless possibilities, but figuring out how to use them all takes time. One thing you will find with business intelligence in SharePoint is that there are often many ways to achieve the same result. And therein lies the learning curve.
At the basic level, if you can create a chart in Excel, you can plunk it into a SharePoint library and embed it on a page using a Web Part (which is a component that shows data on the page). Ta-da! You just achieved business intelligence in SharePoint. The consumers of the data might never even know how easy it was to put that data in Excel and embed it in a SharePoint web page. And that is the point. These things shouldn’t be difficult to get started.
At the other end of the spectrum, however, you might need to create a data cube (a specialized database in the big data world) with millions or billions of records, and then use a specialized tool such as Dashboard Designer to create an interactive graph with clickthrough capabilities. Whew! That sounds complicated, and trust me, it is.
You need serious expertise when diving into the depths of business intelligence, but that doesn’t mean you can’t understand it at a high level. Many different tools and features make up business intelligence in SharePoint, and Chapter 24 covers one of the latest business intelligence services from Microsoft called Power BI. In that chapter, we discuss Power BI and also walk you through the other SharePoint business intelligence features at a high level. We try to provide you with insights into techniques you can use to get started right away.
eDiscovery
The term eDiscovery relates to the legal world of business. In particular, the word derives from electronic discovery in litigation. If you have ever watched the TV program Law & Order, you understand that critical evidence can make or break a case. In the high-tech world of digital information, it’s a rather tricky endeavor to discover and hold electronic documents.
SharePoint has a number of features specifically designed for eDiscovery. This is great news if you’re a decision maker looking to comply with legal requirements, or you’re a lawyer. If neither applies to you, then just knowing SharePoint handles eDiscovery is good enough.
Identity management
Frankly, modern technology can often be a real pain. It seems that there are gazillions of systems in any organization, and each requires its own username and password. I have so many usernames and passwords on various websites across the Internet that my mind just tries to block it out. Of course, then I forget my password and have to go through the tiring process of resetting it each time I want to log in to a particular system. On the other side, when a user logs in to a system, that system also needs to know what the user can access.
Microsoft has made great strides in simplifying identity management. SharePoint uses claims-based authentication in conjunction with an open authentication standard called Open Authorization (OAuth for short) in order to play nicely with other systems. What this means for you is that you shouldn’t have to remember yet another username and password when working with SharePoint. If only the rest of the Internet could be so thoughtful!
Mobile
The computing world has become mobile. People are more likely to have their computing device be their phone and tablet than any other type of computer. Microsoft recognized this and created the SharePoint Mobile App and also created a tool called PowerApps that allows you to create mobile SharePoint apps without needing to be a programmer. We cover the SharePoint Mobile App throughout the book and we cover PowerApps in Chapter 17.
Records management and compliance
In the world of information work, you often hear about records management and compliance. Depending on how much of a rebel you are, you might think of these terms as keeping people and processes in line or as an invitation to break some rules.
Every organization has a different set of rules around managing records and keeping processes compliant with company policy. This line of thinking is not specific to SharePoint, and, depending on your organization and industry, could be buttoned-up strict, as in the banking industry, or open to the world and free loving, as in many technology startup companies.
In SharePoint, a number of features are specifically designed to keep records organized and easily managed. In addition, SharePoint has compliance features that even the stodgiest of stodgy big banks will adore. And as someone who has done consulting work for the banking industry, let me tell you, there are some really strict compliance rules out there. (Considering that they’re keeping track of our money, that’s a good thing.)
Search
If you have ever used Google, Bing, or Duckduckgo.com, then you’re familiar with search engines. These search engines for the Internet are amazingly powerful and eerily comprehensive. SharePoint does a bang-up job of managing content, and the next logical step in managing content is finding content when you need it. As an organization grows, the need for search grows too. Search is covered in more detail in Chapter 23.