Integrating Microsoft Business Solutions Business Portal with Microsoft Office SharePoint Portal Server: A Natural Fit

White Paper

Published: March 2004

Introduction

Organizations increasingly rely on portal technologies to boost productivity, increase collaboration, track performance, and enhance their bottom line.

Microsoft Business Solutions Business Portal provides a role-based portal solution for delivering access to business information and applications, with out-of-the-box integration to Microsoft Great Plains and Microsoft Solomon. Because it is built on Microsoft® Windows® SharePoint Services, Microsoft Business Portal also can deliver the rich document and team collaboration capabilities, easy Web page construction, and other team-based activities inherent in Microsoft Windows SharePoint Services.

Microsoft Office SharePoint Portal Server 2003 enables businesses to develop an intelligent portal that seamlessly connects users, teams, and knowledge so that people can take advantage of relevant information across business processes to help them work more efficiently. Also built on Windows SharePoint Services, SharePoint Portal Server’s strength lies in its out-of-the-box aggregation, personalization, and search functionality.

This shared core component—Windows SharePoint Services—makes the two solutions easy to integrate. Using SharePoint Portal Server as the corporate portal linking Microsoft Business Portal centers and information pages, you can connect users who need to access both Microsoft Business Portal information and other Web-based sites, data sources, applications, and Web services. Many such environments can benefit from integrating Microsoft Business Portal into the richer environment of SharePoint Portal Server 2003, which offers additional aggregation, personalization, searching, and browsing capabilities.

The more sites, data sources, and applications you want to manage, and the more you want your users to be able to customize their interactions with the system, the more it makes sense to use Microsoft Business Portal and SharePoint Portal Server together.

This paper provides a brief overview of the situations where you can benefit most from using Microsoft Business Portal and SharePoint Portal Server together. It also provides detailed direction on how the two solutions may be installed and integrated to maximize the value of both.

Microsoft Business Portal and SharePoint Portal Server: Better Together

In most integration scenarios, Microsoft Business Portal functions as a collection of specific portals that increase productivity by providing access to business information in Great Plains and Solomon applications. Access is provided through Employee or Manager HR centers, as well as Sales, Finance, Purchasing, and other areas where individuals or teams need to centralize and track information. All of these centers are accessed according to the users’ designated roles. However, many organizations have additional data sources, applications, and sites, as well as personalization needs that can best be accessed alongside Microsoft Business Portal centers through the aggregation and search capabilities of SharePoint Portal Server.

Examples of situations where organizations could benefit from integrating the two solutions include:

· You use a large number of Microsoft Business Portal centers in addition to specific SharePoint Portal Server topic areas. You want to present aggregated information within a portal, including content managed in Microsoft Business Portal, as well as content on Windows SharePoint Services sites, topic sites created by experts within the company, and other Internet or intranet sites.

· You want to organize and provision your Windows SharePoint Services sites within the SharePoint Portal Server site directory. Sites can be sorted, filtered, and grouped, making them much easier to find and manage.

· You want to be able to search your Microsoft Business Portal sites as well as other Windows SharePoint Services sites, Web sites, and network files (such as Exchange Public Folders and Lotus Notes) by using SharePoint Portal Server.

· You want to draw on SharePoint Portal Server’s ability to send alerts to users when specific search criteria are met.

· You are using Microsoft Business Portal, but you also want each of your users to have their own personalized “My Site,” which allows them to aggregate and access the content, applications, and Web services they use every day, such as their Calendar, Inbox, key documents, and personally relevant links and news. You can also publish information, documents, and best practices to your organization on the public view of My Site.

· You want to be able to submit Microsoft Business Portal information pages both to SharePoint Portal Server Topic Areas and to the My Site area. For example, you want benefits information permanently listed on a Human Resource topic area page, but you also want to highlight it on the My Site area as an announcement during your open enrollment dates.

When Microsoft Business Portal and SharePoint Portal Server are used together, SharePoint Portal Server can become the corporate portal through which you can aggregate your Microsoft Business Portal sites and lists, as well as provide personally relevant access to multiple data sources outside the portal. Integrating the two solutions can save your organization time and resources.

If you have determined that an integration scenario is the best option for your organization, you will find that there are three key areas where the two systems can be integrated: navigation, search, and My Site. These integration opportunities and the best practices for implementing them are discussed below. First, however, Microsoft Business Portal and SharePoint Portal Server must be properly installed and configured to work together.

Installing and Configuring Microsoft Business Portal and SharePoint Portal Server

Depending on the recommendations from the capacity planning guidelines (found in the Administrator’s Guide for each product), you can install Microsoft Business Portal and SharePoint Portal Server either on the same server, or on different servers. Following are guidelines for installing them on the same server. If you will be installing them on separate servers, consult each product’s Administrator’s Guide.

Installing Microsoft Business Portal and SharePoint Portal Server on the same server

1. Begin the installation with SharePoint Portal Server. The installation process automatically installs and extends the Windows SharePoint Services virtual servers.

Note The SharePoint installation provides the option to install “With Database Engine” or “Without Database Engine.” The “With Database” option will install the Microsoft® SQL Server™ Desktop Engine database, which is typically for single use, test, and small environments. Choosing the “Without Database Engine” option will allow you to choose which SQL Server database you would like to connect the portal to. Please refer to the SharePoint Portal Server and Windows SharePoint Services product documentation to determine the best installation scenario for your needs.

2. On another port, create a new Web site, which you may want to call Business Portal.

3. Using SharePoint Portal Server’s Central Administration, extend the Microsoft Business Portal Web site created in Step 2. Please refer to the “Extending Virtual Servers” section of the SharePoint Portal Server Administration Guide to complete this task. For each virtual server, it is recommended that you create an individual application pool to ensure that each server runs in a separate process.

4. Referring to your Microsoft Business Portal installation guidelines, install Microsoft Business Portal to the Web site you designated in Step 2 above.

Next, you need to configure the Microsoft Business Portal connection to the portal server.

Configuring Microsoft Business Portal and SharePoint Portal Server

Configuring the connection allows Microsoft Business Portal pages to be submitted as listings to SharePoint Portal Server topic areas, which is the first step in the integration process. Whether Microsoft Business Portal and SharePoint Portal Server are installed on the same or separate servers, the process outlined below applies.

1. In Microsoft Business Portal, select Site Settings, and then on the General Settings menu, click Configure Connection to Portal Site.

2. In the Portal Configuration area, make sure that the Connect to Portal Site radio button is selected.

3. On the Configure Connection to Portal Site page, enter the URL to your SharePoint Portal Server and a user-friendly portal Name in the indicated fields.

Now you are ready to begin the integration process

Integrating Microsoft Business Portal with SharePoint Portal Server: A Natural Fit

Thanks to the shared core component of Windows SharePoint Services, Microsoft Business Portal can be an excellent fit with SharePoint Portal Server. SharePoint Portal Server becomes the corporate portal through which you will locate and access your Microsoft Business Portal centers and other content areas.

There are three main functional areas where SharePoint Portal Server can be linked to Microsoft Business Portal:

· Links to the Microsoft Business Portal centers become part of SharePoint Portal Server’s site directory and can be accessed through SharePoint Portal Server’s role-based personalization capabilities and other rich navigation elements.

· SharePoint Portal Server’s search engine will index and aggregate multiple Microsoft Business Portal centers and content sources. The relevancy ranking and best-bet technology in SharePoint will ensure that Microsoft Business Portal content and pages are discovered quickly and efficiently.

· SharePoint Portal Server’s My Site area, which provides personalized points of access for employees, can also be used as a window into Microsoft Business Portal announcements and other time-critical information.

Incorporating Microsoft Business Portal navigation within SharePoint Portal Server

SharePoint Portal Server’s navigation hierarchy, a collection of portal site areas, is the first point of integration for the two systems. In SharePoint Portal Server, portal site areas provide intuitive navigation for finding and browsing all types of content, from documents to people to any site. When implemented as the corporate portal, SharePoint Portal Server can also supply the framework for accessing Microsoft Business Portal centers and information pages. You can choose the extent to which Microsoft Business Portal’s centers and information pages are linked to SharePoint Portal Server’s site areas.

Two main SharePoint Portal Server site areas are the site directory and topic areas, which provide the overall framework for organizing the pages and data sources you want to reach through the corporate portal. The site directory provides a central location from which to view and access related sites, while topic areas provide access to pages and content organized by subject.

Adding Microsoft Business Portal centers to the SharePoint Portal Server site directory

At a minimum, you should add Microsoft Business Portal centers to the SharePoint Portal Server site directory, which also allows you to subsequently add them as listings to relevant topic areas. This gives users the option of finding Microsoft Business Portal centers through both the site directory and topic areas. It also enables automatic searching of site links and area listings, rendering top-level Microsoft Business Portal centers as part of a search results listing that might also include other content sources. Microsoft Business Portal still provides the portal areas for specific topics such as Human Resources or Sales, but these are now discovered through the corporate portal.

It is easy to add Microsoft Business Portal centers as links in the site directory, and as topic area listings. Below is a summary of the basic steps involved. For additional information, please refer to SharePoint Portal Server’s online Help documentation at http://www.microsoft.com/technet/prodtechnol/office/sps2003/default.mspx.

1. In SharePoint Portal Server, click the Sites tab.

2. In the Actions list, click Add Link to Site. The Add Link to Site page appears.

3. In the Site Link section, complete the required Title and URL fields. You can add descriptive and owner information if you choose.

4. In the Search Results section, be sure that Include in Search Results is selected.

5. In the Areas section, click Change Location.

6. In the Change location dialog box, associate the site with a Topic Area.

7. Click OK to submit the site to the site directory as a site link.

Figure 1: Microsoft Business Portal centers added to site directory

8. Verify that your site has been added to the SharePoint Portal Server site directory by clicking All Items in the Select a View list.

9. Verify that your site has been added as a SharePoint Portal Server topic area by clicking the Topics site area and browsing to the site sub-area under which you categorized it.

Figure 2: Microsoft Business Portal centers also added as a portal site area listing

Adding Microsoft Business Portal information pages to SharePoint Portal Server topic areas

While the above steps describe how to achieve the minimum level of integration between Microsoft Business Portal and SharePoint Portal Server, users with additional needs can easily link specific Microsoft Business Portal information pages to topic areas as well. Microsoft Business Portal centers serve as portal areas linking related information pages, which in turn are made up of query Web Parts. For example, the Microsoft Business Portal Sales center brings together information pages such as Customers and Prospects. The specific pages can be listed under relevant SharePoint Portal Server topic areas, which enables them to be individually called out in topic areas and retrieved in searches.

There are two main ways to link information pages to topic areas. You can manually add each information page through the Add Listing feature in SharePoint Portal Server, or you can work directly from the Windows SharePoint Services document library, where the Microsoft Business Portal information pages are saved.

Using the Document Library

If you have a number of information pages and portals to add, you might find it more efficient to use the hidden Windows SharePoint Server document library, which stores all Microsoft Business Portal centers and information pages. It is accessible only through its URL.

1. Go to http://ServerName/Sites/BusinessPortal/bppagelibrary/.

Figure 3: Using the document library to submit an information page to a SharePoint Portal Server portal site area

2. Hold the pointer over the listing for the relevant information page, and then click the Submit to Portal Area option in the drop-down list. The Add Listing page appears, with the appropriate site URL already entered in the Source field.

3. Click OK to submit the page to the portal area.

4. Verify that the information page has been added to the SharePoint Portal Server topic area by clicking Topics at the top of the page and browsing to the specific site sub-area under which you categorized it.

Figure 4: Microsoft Business Portal information pages added to a SharePoint Portal Server portal site area

Using the Add Listing page

You can also choose to manually connect information pages to the SharePoint Portal Server navigation through the Add Listing page.

1. From any site area in SharePoint Portal Server, click Add Listing in the Actions list.

2. In the Title and Description section, type he Title of the information page, such as Customers, and then add a Description of the page.

Note It is important to name such listings consistently, using a convention such as “Business Portal: Customers.”

3. In the Content section, enter the Source and then enter the appropriate URL.

Note You can also associate graphics files with this listing or change its location by clicking the Change Location link. For further information, please refer to SharePoint Portal Service’s online Help documentation at http://www.microsoft.com/technet/prodtechnol/office/sps2003/default.mspx. Choose “Working with Areas,” then “Working with Listings.”

4. Verify that the Microsoft Business Portal information page has been added to the SharePoint Portal Server topic area by clicking the Topics site area and browsing to the specific site area under which you categorized it.

Adding listing groups

You have just published a Microsoft Business Portal information page as a listing in a topic area. Within topic areas, area listings are organized within a grouping. There are default groups labeled General, Highlights, and Experts to which you can assign content, but you can also create new groups to best suit your organizational needs. For example, you might create a site sub-area labeled Human Resources. Under Human Resources, you might in turn create groups labeled Benefits and Payroll. If you have a lot of site listings, groupings can help you manage your hierarchies. Creating an effective portal site structure requires planning and some understanding of how others might organize the content.

To add groups, refer to the instructions in your SharePoint Portal Server online Help documentation at http://www.microsoft.com/technet/prodtechnol/office/sps2003/default.mspx. Choose “Working with Areas,” then “Working with Listings,” then “Add a listing group.”

Adding Microsoft Business Portal document libraries and lists to SharePoint Portal Server topic areas

Because you will have a number of Microsoft Business Portal document libraries and lists, you may want to link these to their relevant SharePoint Portal Server topic areas as well. This will also allow links to the document library or lists to be retrieved in SharePoint Portal Server search results, rather than requiring users to go to the Microsoft Business Portal site first to find the documents and lists. For example, to add an announcement list to a SharePoint Portal Server topic area, complete the following steps:

1. In Microsoft Business Portal, click Sales at the top of the page. The Sales center opens.

2. In the Sales Announcements Web Part header, click the Sales Announcements link.

3. On the Sales Announcements page, click Modify settings and columns in the Actions list.

4. On the Customize Sales Announcements page, in the General Settings area, click Select a portal area for this list. The Add Listing page appears.

5. Follow the steps in the Adding Microsoft Business Portal information pages to SharePoint Portal Server topic areas section above to add Sales Announcements as a topic area.

Integrating Microsoft Business Portal content with SharePoint Portal Server search

Making Microsoft Business Portal centers, information pages, document libraries, and lists searchable from within SharePoint Portal Server is critical to getting the most value from using the two solutions together. Because you have already established these Microsoft Business Portal elements as SharePoint Portal Server site links and topic listings, your work in this area is nearly done. All site links and topic area listings are automatically included in SharePoint Portal Server searches. However, to make content within Microsoft Business Portal document libraries and lists searchable, you first need to establish them as SharePoint Portal Server content sources.

Establishing Microsoft Business Portal document libraries and lists as content sources

To establish Microsoft Business Portal documents and lists as SharePoint Portal Server content sources, complete the following steps:

1. In any SharePoint Portal Server portal site area, click the Site Settings tab in the upper-right corner of the page. The Site Settings page appears.

2. In the Search Settings and Indexed Content section, click Configure search and indexing.

3. On the Configure Search and Indexing page, in the Other Content Sources section, click Add content source.

4. On the Add Content Source page, select Web page or Web site and click Next.

5. In the Address and Description section, enter the URL of the main document libraries and lists page: http://ServerName/Sites/BusinessPortal/_layouts/1033/viewlsts.aspx.

6. In the Description field, enter a description.

7. In the Crawl Configuration section, complete the following steps:

a. Click Custom – specify page depth and site hops:.

b. Click to select the Limit page depth check box, and then type 2. This specifies that only this page and the pages to which it is linked will be indexed.

c. Click to select the Limit site hops: check box, and then type 1. This specifies that only one site in addition to this site will be indexed.

d. To include this content source in adaptive updates, click to select the Participate in adaptive updates check box.

8. Click Finish.

Note Because of security considerations, adding Microsoft Business Portal information pages as content sources is not recommended. The search crawler would have access based on the account specified for the search crawler, and it might display search results summaries that some users are not authorized to view. Although the summary and the link to the page would be visible, unauthorized users still would not be able to access the data on the Microsoft Business Portal page itself.

Specifying a search scope

You also need to establish a search scope for the Microsoft Business Portal document libraries and lists page. This action adds the search scope to the drop-down list box next to the Search field, allowing for more tightly targeted searches. For example, if you wanted to search for a particular keyword, but only within Microsoft Business Portal sites, you would specify “Business Portal Documents and Lists” as your search scope.

1. In any SharePoint Portal Server portal site area, click the Site Settings tab at the top of the page. The Site Settings page appears.

2. In the Search Settings and Indexed Content section, click Manage search scopes.

3. On the Manage Search Scopes page, click New Search Scopes.

4. On the Add Search Scopes page, in the Name section, enter the scope name in the Name field.

5. In the Topics and Areas section, click to select the Include no topic or area in this scope radio button.

6. In the Content Source Groups section, click to select the Limit the scope to the following groups of content sources: radio button, and then click the check box for the content source name you defined.

7. Click OK.

Figure 5: Microsoft Business Portal lists and information page returned in SharePoint Portal Server search

Publishing Microsoft Business Portal information to My Site

In SharePoint Portal Server, users can create personalized sites—called My Site—that provide a place to save and share your own work, a way to find other people in your organization and see their work, and a way for other people in your organization to find you and see your work. My Site is a SharePoint site created in the portal site that provides you with personalized and customized information, and enables you to customize the information you use or present to other people in your organization. You access My Site by clicking My Site at the top of any SharePoint Portal Server site area. On My Site, users can view all of the information targeted to their audience memberships. This information appears in two Web Parts on each site, Links for You and News for You.

Linking Microsoft Business Portal information pages to My Site can help you target specific Microsoft Business Portal content to personal sites. In turn, My Site users can rapidly identify time-critical information. For example, you might always want benefits information listed as a Human Resources topic area within SharePoint Portal Server, but you might also want to highlight the link to this page on users’ personal sites during open enrollment periods. You can specify different publication or expiration dates for the two listings.

To include links within My Site for Microsoft Business Portal information pages, complete the following steps:

1. In any SharePoint Portal Server portal site area, click Site Settings at the top of the page. The Site Settings page appears.

2. In the Portal Site Content section, click Manage targeted links on My Site.

3. On the Targeted Links on My Site page, click Add Listing. The Add Listing page appears.

4. In the Title and Description section, enter a Title and Description of the Microsoft Business Portal information page in the appropriate fields.

5. In the Content section, click Existing listing, and then type the URL for the Microsoft Business Portal information page.

6. Click OK to submit the item to My Site.

7. Verify that the Microsoft Business Portal item has been added to My Site by clicking My Site at the top of the page.

By default, targeted links added to My Site do not display descriptions. If you want users to see descriptions, complete the following steps:

1. Go to My Site, click Modify My Page at the top of the page, and then click Shared View.

2. Click the arrow for the Links for You Web Part, and then click Modify Shared Web Part. You can also click Modify Shared Page at the top of the page, select Modify Shared Web Parts, and then click the Links for You Web Part. The page opens in design mode with the selected Web Part outlined with a dotted yellow line. The properties for the Links for You Web Part are displayed in a page that opens on the right side of the page.

3. Change the Display Template property from Minimum to Normal and click OK.

For more information, please refer to SharePoint Portal Server’s online Help documentation at http://www.microsoft.com/technet/prodtechnol/office/sps2003/default.mspx. Choose “Personalizing the Portal Site,” then choose “Modify pages on My Site.”

For more information on targeting links and audiences on My Site, please refer to “Working with Content in Areas,” then “Working with News Items,” then “About News.”

Figure 6: My Site containing Microsoft Business Portal listings

Conclusion

This paper provides guidelines for integrating Microsoft Business Portal with SharePoint Portal Server. While Microsoft Business Portal gives you the insight to make more profitable business decisions, SharePoint Portal Server streamlines access to information located both within and outside Microsoft Business Portal. When SharePoint Portal Server serves as the corporate portal linking to Microsoft Business Portal centers, information pages, and document libraries and lists, users have immediate access to relevant, real-time data. They can search across multiple content sources, including Microsoft Business Portal sources as well as legacy data, network files, other Windows SharePoint Services sites, Exchange Public Folders, Lotus Notes, and any Web-based content.

Because Microsoft Business Portal and Windows SharePoint Portal Server are both built atop Windows SharePoint Services, a simple three-point integration protocol is all it takes to join the two solutions. Once you have followed the steps to link Microsoft Business Portal centers, information pages, and document libraries and lists into SharePoint Portal Server’s site directory and topic areas, you can ensure that users can discover these areas through the main SharePoint portal. Then, you need only establish Microsoft Business Portal documents and lists as part of SharePoint Portal Server’s content sources and search content, to make sure these elements can be located by using SharePoint Portal Server’s powerful search capabilities. You can further streamline user access by targeting Microsoft Business Portal information to My Site users.

The added value from SharePoint Portal Server’s powerful aggregation, personalization, and search capabilities on top of both solutions’ rich collaboration functions becomes readily apparent when the two systems are joined.