Two questions people often ask when first confronted with SharePoint are, “What is it?” and ”What does it do?”
If you read the blurb about SharePoint on the Microsoft site it’s full of marketing-speak and talks about the
“Integrated suite of server capabilities for enterprise search, content management, business process facilitation, simplified information sharing, and enhanced business insight”
SharePoint home page on Microsoft site
which really tells you nothing at all about what SharePoint is or does.
If you persevere and learn a bit more, your next question is likely to be, “What does it do that I can’t do now?”
Strangely enough, it’s the wrong question. What you really need to ask is, “How can SharePoint help me to do my work better, or more easily?”. But let’s answer the other question.
What can I do with SharePoint that I can’t do now?
The answer is … not much.
You can, however, do things differently—and that difference can save you a lot of time and work.
Let me explain using a non-SharePoint example.
‘Sandy’ is a friend of mine. She’s a bookkeeping wiz, and loves the work. She toyed briefly with the idea of going into business with ‘Richard’, providing bookkeeping services for a small business clients. The problem was, Richard was an old-fashioned guy who had not had much exposure to computers throughout his working life. His idea of bookkeeping was the old-fashioned ledger book.
He refused to consider one of the dedicated accounting programs such as QuickBooks or MYOB, although he did agree that maybe they could use a spreadsheet—provided they wrote it into the ledger first, and then transferred that to the spreadsheet.
“No way,” said Sandy. “That’s far too much work, and double-dipping, besides.”
Richard refused to budge. The only way he would contemplate recording the data was was via pen and paper.
As you can imagine, their partnership foundered, then and there.
And that’s how I look at SharePoint. I have talked about this on another site, how I believe that SharePoint’s biggest competitor is its own product siblings in the Microsoft Office suite. Nowadays not many people want to go back to pen and paper ledger books, but most people find that Excel, Word and Outlook, along with Windows file manager, are more than adequate for them to do their day-to-day work. They know these products, they have processes in place for working with documents. Processes that have been tweaked over the years so that they really work well. Why should they change?
First up, you don’t change the tools. SharePoint is not called the Microsoft Office SharePoint Server for nothing. The Office products are integrated so seamlessly it’s almost impossible to tell where SharePoint starts and Word or Excel or any of the other Office products end. If you write business reports you are still going to write them in Word. If you create financial spreadsheets you’re still going to create them in Excel. What does change is how you store and share those documents, and how you report on issues and other things.
But you do have to change your way of thinking to get the best out of SharePoint, and if you don’t change, then you will never understand just how much SharePoint can do for you.
Remember, it’s not about “What does SharePoint do that I can’t do now?”. It’s about, “How can SharePoint help me do my work better or more easily”.
32 responses so far ↓
1 Peter Benton // Oct 2, 2008 at 11:30 pm
Please contact me via e-mail. We are a small company located in Mn. We work with small businesses who all are on ths MS Small bus server platform, which includes sharepoint. Alot of our customers want it and I need to learn it, Where do I start? I have attended several seminars but they only apply to high-end enterprise solutions.
Thanks Peter
2 Mosslady // Oct 6, 2008 at 8:29 pm
Peter
I think you are going to find this a lot with SharePoint. Lots of people have it, lots of people use it, but all you really get for information is either Microsoft sales talk or developers writing custom code for it.
I’m a SharePoint user like you. It’s probably best to ask questions and maybe I can answer some things for you, based on my own experience. SharePoint is a big product, and it’s hard to say definitively “what it does” because everyone’s experience is different.
One of the biggest problems I had when I started was that I didn’t even know what SharePoint was. We made some major mistakes first time around because I (and all of us at work) had no idea. It’s more than just a fancy file system with added features, but seriously, that’s all we used it for to start with. And for our intranet.
Ask me any question, no matter how trivial it seems, and I’ll try to answer it. If I just try and explain it though, I’ll end up sounding like Microsoft. [A sales pitch for what isn’t a bad system really, but not giving you any real information.]
That goes for anyone. Ask questions. I have been there, absolute beginner, and felt that I was drowning in technical and sales talk that told me absolutely nothing. There is no such thing as a dumb question.
Another site, if you haven’t already come across it, is http://www.endusersharepoint.com, one of the few sites dedicated to end users of SharePoint, rather than developers, although it does presume you know a little about the product.
Regards
3 Carol Woolman // Dec 11, 2008 at 10:11 am
Someone told me they thought SharePoint could do what I needed. Can you tell me honestly if SharePoint does these things and if so, does it do it “Out of the Box” or will I have to customize?
The three things I need to do are:
1) Gather information (from the field, Marketing Divsions and resellers into some sort of database)
2) Share information (share certain pieces of collected information with others to approve, and collect additional information)
3) Workflow (come up with a workflow that triggers the correct set of sequenced events/tasks)
I need people to be working in the same spreadsheet or database at the same time.
Thanks,
4 Mosslady // Dec 12, 2008 at 6:18 pm
Carol
Yes, SharePoint can do this. In fact, it’s designed for things like this.
You need to remember however, that out-of-the-box doesn’t mean you just install it and it’s ready to go. There is still quite a bit of work to do, to set up your lists and your workflows. It’s a fairly steep learning curve. It’s going to take time to put together.
You also need to change your thinking about how you do things. Start with the SharePoint lists rather than the spreadsheets for example. And don’t expect things to work exactly as they do with Excel.
I am assuming here that your marketing database isn’t so huge (e.g. tens of thousands of records) that it needs its own dedicated system.
Regards
5 Peter Thomas // Dec 30, 2008 at 12:30 am
I am the IT Director for a large Mental Health Hospital in London, England. I need to understand more about what SharePpoint can do for us. The main thngs we need to do are:
1)Publish reports containing data from our SQL Server 2005 Data Warehouse of clinical and management information on our Intranet and Extranet.
2) Develop a new Intranet. Will SharePoint act as a Content Management system/Development tool for this or are there better products out there e.g. DreamWeaver, RedDot etc?
6 Mosslady // Dec 30, 2008 at 9:20 pm
Peter
Addressing point 1 first: Getting data from other databases.
If you want to get data from another (non-SharePoint) database, you need to be sure to get the right version of SharePoint. You need MOSS 2007 Enterprise edition, because this functionality is the Business Data Catalog.
Do a search on MOSS and Business Data Catalog to find out more. Some places to start looking may be:
These articles can be confusing and they assume you know SharePoint. Persevere, and dig around to find better information.
Don’t expect it to be simple though. Unless you’re doing very basic linking you are going to need someone with database and xml skills to set it up for you.
Point 2: Using SharePoint as an intranet or use another content management system (CMS) or web editor
We use SharePoint as an intranet at work and I have to say that I would never want to go back to static web pages (a la Dreamweaver) again. I’m not even sure we could go back, because our intranet has evolved so much.
The change has taken some of the load off the intranet administrators and put it back onto the user. The users do most of the work—uploading documents, changing text and so on. As the intranet admistrator I no longer care when a process document changes, because the people in charge of that particular process document are responsible for it. I no longer care when our OH&S wardens change, because the people in charge of OH&S look after that.
But it does make for more work keeping the intranet manageable (because you have less control) and consistent (everyone likes to do their own thing).
There’s also a lot more training. It’s easy enough to learn how to upload a document but to really use SharePoint properly you have to show people more than that.
A lot of our file management has moved over from LAN directories onto SharePoint too. It has become our central repository for document information, rather than just an intranet.
I haven’t used content management systems like RedDot, although I do know it has capability to work with SharePoint. The last non-SharePoint content management system I worked with (a few years ago now) created static web pages. I ended up ditching it as soon as the contract ran out and reverting back to DreamWeaver because the CMS complicated things unnecessarily. (But remember, too, that I am quite technical, and am very comfortable digging about in the code, which many people who use CMSs are not.)
If I had the choice, would I choose SharePoint over, say, Dreamweaver or another content management system (i.e. a non-SharePoint CMS)? Most definitely, unless the web site was tiny. (SharePoint is not a cheap product, particularly when you take associated costs e.g. database and servers into account). But there is a steep learning curve. Very, very steep. And to get the best out of it, you might need extras like development, or at least someone who’s good with XML (and a few other things).
I say now that I would definitely use SharePoint every time. But if you had asked me the same question three years ago, when I was totally confused about the product and really didn’t know what I was doing I would probably have said the opposite.
7 Conrad // Feb 10, 2009 at 12:23 am
Hi,
i would like to know if it is possible to stream live videos from web cams so that multiple people in the company can have video chats with each othe ron the sharepoint site
thank you,
8 Mosslady // Feb 10, 2009 at 7:51 pm
Conrad
I must say I don’t know much about live video streaming, so I am sorry that I can’t answer this one at all. I can’t even think of anyone who might be able to answer this for you.
My gut feel is that I don’t think SharePoint would do this well. We’re talking huge files and large amounts of continuous data here.
If anyone else has tried this, please let us know.
9 Conrad // Feb 10, 2009 at 9:37 pm
Mosslady thank your for taking the time to read my qeustion. I f it is not possible in that way can you help me find any other alternatives. I need to make a conference video chat system en try to incoparate it into sharepoint. I know with C# it is possible to get e live stream from a web cam i just need to know how i can make this into a webpart and put in on the sharepoint site.
Thanks you for your time..any tips or help is welcome
Conrad
10 Mosslady // Feb 11, 2009 at 6:17 pm
Conrad
I can only say what I would do in your situation.
First, I would check the sites that talked about live streaming and web cams and see if any of them have done it on SharePoint.
If I was going to write my own code for the web part I would start at Microsoft’s MSDN site (maybe start around http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb931737.aspx) and some of the C# developer’s forums.
I would also maybe ask a very general question over over at http://www.endusersharepoint.com/ — do they know of anyone who has done it?
Regards
11 Art C. // May 16, 2009 at 2:53 am
The truth is that SharePoint does nothing useful. It is Microsoft’s attempt to create even more platform lock-in, which no one is really asking for. It’s an intranet portal program (and not a very good one, at that).
Nearly every organization considering SharePoint would be better served by mainstream intranet tools such as wikis and blogs.
12 Mosslady // May 18, 2009 at 7:40 am
I have to say I would disagree that SharePoint does nothing useful. As an intranet portal tool I love it, and would hate to go back to a static site.
And as for wikis and blogs — each has their place, yes, and sometimes that place is inside SharePoint, by the way — the problem starts with the scalability of it all. One tool (wiki for example) is okay when only one group is using it, but when you start to get multiple groups who insist on using multiple tools, then they become a nightmare to manage.
13 Art C. // May 18, 2009 at 9:16 am
Mosslady is completely wrong. SharePoint, without question, does nothing useful. The “multiple groups who insist on using multiple tools” is a strawman argument. Agreeing on a single toolset does not mean you have to use Microsoft’s toolset. In fact, “make the job fit the tool” is how many organizations got stuck with abominations like Exchange in the first place. Do you really want to make that mistake *again* ??
Around here our mantra is “always choose an open tool; if one is not available, at least choose a non-Microsoft tool.” Microsoft builds software designed to lock you into its world. Solving your problems is secondary.
14 mross01 // Aug 11, 2009 at 6:53 am
When a competitor posts something like this it really makes you question intent as well as how non-bias can you be.
SharePoint actually is a very useful tool for many things, things that no other tool on the market has in a single solution. Lotus Notes (IBM) is the closest to it and it falls short as well as doesn’t work that well.
As far as video streaming, yes you can do that in SharePoint. Anything you can do in .NET you can do in SharePoint, it’s just not out of the box. Creating a WebPart to provide the feature is all you have to do.
Posts like above should be deleted from the board because they serve no purpose other than flame a war, which is the only purpose I can see a post like that would be made, any other reason and its merits are questionable.
15 nhuygen74 // Aug 11, 2009 at 7:27 am
What “competitor” is being advocated here? I agree with the post you are criticizing — Microsoft products are designed to lock the customer into more Microsoft products. I for one applaud the efforts of those who advocate openness.
Your suggestion of deleting posts from the board is scary; it suggests that you, like Microsoft, enjoy playing on a non-level field.
SharePoint is indeed a redundant product. It accomplishes nothing of value unless you are Microsoft and on the receiving end of those large licensing fees.
16 mross01 // Aug 11, 2009 at 7:44 am
Click on the links.
Trying to start a flame war on a site is cause for deletion. Of course MS products are to try to lock you in, all products are or they would not survive. But this is not a debate on open source or MS, its about SharePoint and what it does, which is a complete product that does more than any other competing product on the market.
I have use and implemented several competing products and nothing compares to SharePoint in freatures. TCO is fairly low compared to others in an enterprise solution. Quality is very good for an Enterprise Solution from MS.
17 mross01 // Aug 11, 2009 at 7:44 am
Wish I could correct spelling and grammar but I can’t so please ignore those.
18 Sats // Aug 17, 2009 at 8:04 pm
Hi Mosslady
I love SharePoint. SharePoint gives everything whatever end user is required. Remember we need to do something better job to understand How SharePoint works
Thanks
Sats
19 Mosslady // Aug 18, 2009 at 9:29 pm
Thanks mross1. It’s always a difficult question as to when to censor and when to not.
Sats. It is a good product.
I’m currently talking to a group of project managers. They love their Excel reports but they want automated reports that they can customize for various audiences. Dashboards to the Executive, more detail for the line managers, and so on. Right now they have to manually extract that data from the spreadsheet. It’s tasks like this where SharePoint comes into its own.
20 Diablorick // Sep 18, 2009 at 4:54 am
I just have one question for the people putting down Microsofts products. If it is so bad, why do the majority of computer users, worldwide, use it instead of Linux? Maybe the answer is that it works. It does exactly what people need it to do at a reasonable price. I think it is people like you (Art C.) that lock people in to what you want. You use free software because it is so complicated that it will mean the company can never get rid of you therefore lining your pockets! If you were really good at your job, you could use Microsoft products and still keep your job. Linux administrators, for the most part, are proffessional blackmail artists who install all of this impossible to manage “freeware” and then tell you if you fire them, you won’t be able to find anyone else to run it.
I think there is a place for everything. I have 10 Debian Linux boxes that serv web pages and forms, and I also have 12 Microsoft boxes that control our domain and internal stuff.
Everything has a purpose, stop being so 1 sided and judgemental!
BTW, I am setting up our first Sharepoint server now, I will let you know how it goes.
21 SteveM // Sep 25, 2009 at 2:16 am
Quotes like “always choose an open tool; if one is not available, at least choose a non-Microsoft tool”, from Art C. are based on emotion and not logic. I’ve heard similar rantings from others almost foaming at the mouth as they decry Bill Gates as the leader of the “dark side”. C’mon Art, can you really say with a straight face that Sharepoint “without question, serves no useful purpose”. Gimme’ a break!
It may be frustrating to you that Microsoft is everywhere, and that some of their tools are less than perfect (ok, maybe some of them suck), but at least they make an attempt at interoperability, which is what most of us mortal humans want.
22 Mackie // Sep 30, 2009 at 1:37 am
I don’t know what your experiences have been, but mine seem to be more closely aligned with nhuygen74 and Art C. Our IT department tolerated a “rogue deployment” of SharePoint for about six months, because a department head wanted it. Eventually we had to put our foot down and replace it with software that knows how to “play well with others.” I suppose SharePoint would be useful if your environment is 100 percent Microsoft across the board, but we found it cumbersome to maintain, difficult to interact with, and impossible to integrate into a heterogenous environment.
Also, as has been pointed out here, SharePoint really does appear to be yet another Microsoft “me too” product that adds nothing of value over more readily available, more flexible, and less expensive (often free) tools.
As for the idea of IT architects designing systems that only they can understand as a means of implementing some paranoid form of job security … well, I’m afraid that it is possible to do this with proprietary software just as easily as it can be done with open source software. Regardless of what software you are running, it is the implementor’s responsibility to document everything. When something new is implemented around here, I don’t consider the job to be complete until it is documented.
23 Mosslady // Sep 30, 2009 at 9:02 pm
My introduction to SharePoint was similar — a department head wanted it — but different in that the department head controlled IT spending and implementation at the time, so she said, “We’re buying SharePoint and everyone will use it.” Full stop. Next thing we know the product is purchased, installed and we have to support it. It was a very steep learning curve and we made lots of mistakes before we could really say we knew what we were doing. I think (I know) that acceptance suffered because of this.
Talking about Microsoft in general, my experience here has been that Microsoft pretty much has the business market cornered. It’s a rare business that doesn’t use the Office suite, so it’s not really a stretch to go for one more Microsoft product, particularly one so well integrated with Office.
How SharePoint is implemented initially in your company makes a big difference to how you feel about it ongoing.
And a side note here. In my experience, I find that people often get better value out of MOSS than they do out of just WSS. They are more accepting of SharePoint when they use MOSS than when they start with straight WSS. Which is logical I suppose, in so many ways that it hardly needs to be pointed out (features, cost–which means more people in the company have a vested interest in seeing it succeed, and so on). The rogue deployments Mackie talks about above are usually WSS sites.
24 Diablorick // Sep 30, 2009 at 11:26 pm
When I posted my original comment, 12 days ago, I was just getting ready to setup my first sharepoint server. I was delayed a few days in preperation for other events so I actually installed it 2 days ago. This morning it is online and serving over 300 documents company wide, to 50 users , in 4 groups. Before this install I knew absolutely NOTHING about MOSS and in 2 days had a completely functioning, and secure, server.
In contrast, the first Linux server I setup took 3 weeks just to get it running. I had to re-install it 7 times, and even after it was setup, every time I wanted to do anything with it I had to spend days on the internet searching for the commands that actually worked. I finally went out and bought several books on it and spent weeks reading and trying until I finally got them running properly. So in the end, this “free” software, cost me over $200 in books and cost my company thousands in paying me to figure it out. We found out the hard way that NOTHING is free!
I guess the gist of what I’m saying is, if you already know everything about Linux and are a complete expert, then use it. For you it will be free and easy. If you are a beginner or even a knowledgeable windows admin, you better be prepaired to spend MANY hours going “back to school” if you are going to use these free programs. In other words, for the average admin, you can setup a MOSS server and have it functional and useful in a couple days with very little knowledge of any programming languages.
I am now getting ready make it look good and that involves a little learning curve. I have found that, so far, it is easier to use SP designer than to try and use the web interface for mods. I will let you know how it works out.
25 Art C. // Oct 1, 2009 at 3:41 am
@Diablorick
My my, such hostility coming from the Microsoft camp. It seems that you are saying “Linux is hard to use” when you really should be saying “I don’t understand Linux.” The fact is, both free and proprietary software have a learning curve. The fact that MOSS more closely matched your existing skill set, and as a result was easier for you to get up to speed on, is a coincidence. This comparison could be made for any two technologies.
@Mosslady
That’s exactly the problem. You chose MOSS because it integrates with Office, which you already have. This is by design — lots and lots of lock-in via proprietary and difficult-to-separate integration. You add one more piece after another, and soon you are paying thousands of dollars each year in Microsoft licensing fees. If you are ok with being indentured to a single vendor in that way … well, it’s your money. Far better to use software which integrates using open protocols and standards. That doesn’t necessarily mean you have to use open source software exclusively — there are plenty of software vendors out there who are happy to work with open standards. Microsoft isn’t one of them. This is why, as I mentioned earlier in this thread, that in our data center we always choose a non-Microsoft product if possible (a rule that was in place long before I got here, btw).
And yes, I still maintain that SharePoint does nothing useful.
26 TomD // Oct 23, 2009 at 5:22 am
This is a little frustrating and probably embarassing, but i have been reading for two days and cannot tell you what Sharepoint does.
Is it Exchange public folders? Is it a project sharing explorer when files are stored across a WAN? If someone could please explian to me what Sharepoint is, what it does for me, and a list of common tasks that it solves/automates, etc that would be very helpful.
Thank you in advance for your help
27 Mosslady // Oct 24, 2009 at 6:29 am
This is a question I have never seen a really good answer for, so if anyone can point to a good explanation of what SharePoint is, please do.
At its most basic it is a combination of files in folders (libraries), tables of data (lists) and a website. Each of these has added functionality.
Files, for example—and they can be created through SharePoint itself or through other programs—allow you to keep versions, to check-out (which write protects them and hides the changes you are making to a document until you check it back in), and to add workflow.
The tables of data sound simplistic but you can do a lot with simple rows and columns. Microsoft have created some basic lists for you — task lists, issue lists, surveys, calendars, announcement lists.
You can add extra information (metadata) to (almost) everything. For example, you may wish to add a business unit column to your process documents so that you know whose business process it is.
You can display your documents or your lists pretty much any way you want to. You can display them in the basic folder structure. You can use metadata—e.g. display by business unit. You can display user-specific information—show me only those documents I created. Or time—show me the tasks due today. Or by a combination—show me tasks assigned to me that are due today.
You also control who sees information. Want everyone to see the sales brochures but only the Sales team itself to see prices—you can do this.
As for web sites. Think something like iGoogle, where you add gadgets to the page (sort of). Some of them can be standard, some can be personalised. Your files and lists make up part of that website.
The whole thing is integrated with Microsoft Office, so it’s part of programs like Word and Excel and Outlook (sort of again, I’m being very simplistic here). You can work in, say, Excel or Outlook calendars and make this information available on your SharePoint site.
Everything, even documents, are stored in a table. You use a browser to access it.
There are lots of things I haven’t talked about and I have made it sound pretty terrible, but the whole thing comes together well and it makes an impressive whole.
As for what it can do. If you have the bandwidth I would recommend that you download the Office SharePoint Server 2007 Training pack—the standalone edition—and watch the videos (just the videos). This will give you a much better idea of what SharePoint does. Beware — it is 140MB.
28 Michelle Cox // Nov 12, 2009 at 7:35 am
Hello,
First let me just say I am not an IT person at all… I have no idea what half of the stuff is you guys are talking about, but I’m trying to look into SharePoint as well and am happy I found this site because I’ll take any help I can get!
The project I am working on is to author policies, procedures and work instructions for the company I work for. Sounds simple, but my boss is looking for a policy and procedure handbook that can be viewed and maintained in a central repository on an intranet. He also wants it to be able to handle tasks and for department heads to be able to report out on their daily goals with it. I know all of this can be done manually and I also have found software that can do bits and pieces of each of these things, but I have heard that SharePoint is used in companies for projects like this. We already have what I understand to be “enterprise” software, we already have software that takes care of our internet site and our IT department already maintains our intranet site with something else.
So I guess my question is; is Microsoft SharePoint way to big and advanced for what we want, and if so does anyone have any ideas on what we should look at?
Thanks in advance!
Michelle
29 shelleyg // Nov 18, 2009 at 11:19 am
Ditto to Michelle’s comments. I’m also not an IT person and although we’ve been using WSS for about 18 mths I’ve had to learn it all on my own as we go along. I find it very useful however the OOTB options are now limiting us.
After reading Mosslady’s initial comments I’m not sure that moving to MOSS 2007 is going to be much help but then again staying with WSS isn’t going to achieve what we want. I find it frustrating that whenever I ask questions in various forums the response (and rarely there is one!) is usually try a third party product.
Initially I’d just like to know if MOSS allows greater sharing of lists (incl task lists) and web parts across sites. As an eg, have one contacts list on home page containing all data but a team can view just their applicable contacts on their own team site.
Also I haven’t yet found a site that gives more detailed examples of how to use various web parts etc. I’m keen to do some sort of training course in Oz but those that are available tend to be more along technical lines, which is beyond me. Any help or direction would be appreciated.
Michelle
30 Art C. // Nov 24, 2009 at 6:26 am
Michelle Cox:
Sharepoint is overkill for what you’re trying to do. A simple wiki would get the job done far more efficiently.
31 Mosslady // Dec 6, 2009 at 4:58 pm
Michelle
Sorry I took so long to reply to this. Life has been frantic both at work and home and blog questions kind of got lost in quagmire somewhere.
I would say, no, SharePoint is not too big for this, and would be ideal. You don’t need the full power of MOSS, however. You need a simple Windows SharePoint Services (WSS) site.
From there you would set up
Given that you have a lot of enterprise software I would assume that you are probably running on Microsoft operating systems already so it should also be relatively easy to set up, and WSS shouldn’t cost you anything. (MOSS costs, WSS comes with Windows Server (or as an add-on)). You will need the help of your IT department though, because it has to be set up on a Windows Server operating system.
In my experience, I have found that a lot of smaller sites like this are far more successful than the bigger sites.
And sorry, Art C., but I totally disagree that a wiki would be a better option. These type of documents (policies, procedures and work instructions) are controlled documents. You can’t have everyone who reads them updating them (but you can get feedback). SharePoint works perfectly for these types of documents for a number of reasons.
32 mosslady // Dec 6, 2009 at 6:51 pm
Shelley
Upgrading to MOSS would give you the Content Query web part, which does exactly what you want. It takes items from any list in your site and displays them elsewhere. Google Content Query web part to find out more. A good place to start is with an old article from the Microsoft ECM blog. It gets a bit technical at the end, if you read down to the end of step 2 you should get an idea of how it works.
Eric Kraus came up with a way to display lists in WSS using RSS feeds, but it requires an understanding of xlst to set up.
[I just want to give credit here for one of my favourite web parts ever. Back when I was using SPS2003/WSS2.0 Carlos Segura’s cseg rollup was an absolute life-saver. It worked similar to the content query web part and I used it everywhere.]
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