WSS vs. MOSS - Platform Comparison

WSS MOSS

LDAP pluggable authentication provider

WSS MOSS

Single Sign-On (SSO)
Permits a person to enter one name and password to use a variety of back-end applications. SSO is used for integrating back-office systems and line-of-business applications that require separate credentials databases. Take advantage of single sign on to authenticate users and leverage this to pre-populate InfoPath forms.

WSS MOSS

Alert Filtering
Filters are supported to highlight the more relevant alerts.

WSS MOSS

Alert Customization
Additional platform features are provided for custom formatting, events, and alerts.

WSS MOSS

RSS feeds
By integrating RSS feeds for each SharePoint list, Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 provides an efficient mechanism for end users to retrieve the information using RSS-enabled programs such as Windows Internet Explorer 7 and Office Outlook 2007.

WSS MOSS

Rights Trimmed User Interface
Users are only allowed to see the features that they have the rights to use. Previously, Windows SharePoint Services 2.0 Service Pack 2 did not inform a user they were not allowed to perform a function until they clicked its link.

WSS MOSS

Notification Service
Extensible platform sends customizable email alerts to users. Users participating in a workflow automatically receive email alerts without subscribing in advance. Improved filtering conditions now trigger more relevant alerts to all users.

WSS MOSS

Support for ASP.NET 2.0+
Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 leverages the reliability, scalability, and functionality of ASP.NET version 2.0. This includes support for the ASP.NET version 2.0 Web Part Model (with added backward compatibility support for Windows SharePoint Services 2.0 SP2 Web Parts). Building on ASP.NET not only provides a deep technical foundation for Windows SharePoint Services, but also allows Windows SharePoint Services to leverage the Visual Studio development environment for application development.

WSS MOSS

Richer Alert Information
More information about the item that has changed is included in the alert.

WSS MOSS

Task notifications
Task notifications are now sent automatically when a user is assigned a task. There is no need for the user to subscribe to the notification in advance.

WSS MOSS

Consistent User Experience
Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 implements many new and enhanced features that make the Windows SharePoint Services user interface more uniform� ” providing a consistent user experience.

WSS MOSS

Automatic Breadcrumb Nav
Provides immediate navigational context for the user ” creating a greater sense of “place” within a SharePoint site.

WSS MOSS

Improved Site Navigation
Top navigation and Quick Launch navigation are available on all pages and is easily customizable.

WSS MOSS

View improvements
Ability to page forward and backward in addition to improved user interface for sorting and filtering.

WSS MOSS

Descriptive Menu Actions
Ability to page forward and backward in addition to improved user interface for sorting and filtering.

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Simplified Web Part user interface Simplified user interface for browsing, selecting, and adding Web Parts to a Web Part page. The Web Part catalog is presented as a scrollable list; no more paging forward and backward through the Web Part catalog.
Accessibility Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 is Section 508 and W3C compliant.
Recycle bin Enables a user to easily restore an item that was deleted accidentally. Administration tools are also available to manage the lifecycle of deleted items in the recycle bin.
Keep Reading
Backup/restore support for Volume Shadow Copy Service (VSS) Windows SharePoint Services backup and restore functionality is enhanced with the support for VSS a feature of Windows Server 2008.
Document libraries Improvement to SharePoint document libraries include:
  • Checking out documents locally
  • Offline document library support in Office Outlook 2007
  • Major and minor version numbering and tracking
  • Support for multiple content type
  • Policy, auditing, and workflow
  • Tree view support
Large-list and cross-list indexing The performance of large-lists and cross-lists can be improved through the use of indexes on specific list column properties. This significantly increases the capacity and performance of a Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 list compared to 2.0.
Metadata Users can extend document libraries and lists with custom column properties.
The practical number of column properties that a list or document library may have has been significantly increased due to performance and scalability improvements in Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 Lists.
Content types Content types are reusable definitions of document types across your organization. A single document library can store content with multiple document types. A content type is used to define a group of documents that share a common set of attributes; including:
  • Document templates
  • What’s on the “New”� button
  • Metadata specific to the content type
  • Shared column property templates
  • Custom InfoPath forms in 2007 Microsoft® Office system applications
  • Enterprise defined policies
  • Common workflows
Content types are different from traditional file types (which map to physical file formats like Word documents or Excel spreadsheets). Content types are used to define and implement business documents such as functional specifications, budget planning spreadsheets, or new product concept presentation.
Application templates While standard workspaces in Windows SharePoint Services are easy to implement, organizations seeking a more customized deployment can get started quickly with application templates for addressing specific business processes or sets of tasks.
A new set of application templates will be available for Windows SharePoint Services 3.0. They will highlight aspects of task coordination and will offer some pre-configured workflows. The application templates provide customers with a baseline for deploying Windows SharePoint Services in context of business processes and set of tasks. A rich ecosystem of solution providers use the application templates as the basis for deeper horizontal and vertical solutions.
Workflow Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 hosts Windows Workflow Foundation (WF) to enable customized creation of workflow solutions and use of structured workflows on document library and list items. Office SharePoint Designer 2007 can be used to design and configure custom workflow solutions with the support for WF in Windows SharePoint Services 3.0.
Ready-to-use workflow templates are available with Office SharePoint Server 2007 as well as a new set of application solutions for Windows SharePoint Services downloadable from the Microsoft® TechNet Website.
Tree view Tree view controls are now supported for navigating document libraries in a manner similar to the file system.
Append-only and multi-value lookup fields Append-only fields enable a user to append text to a field without being able to modify the existing content of the field. This is useful for logging and tracking applications. Multi-valued lookup fields enable multiple values to be selected from another list field.
Extensible site and list templates In Windows SharePoint Services 3.0, site and list templates can be edited in Office SharePoint Designer 2007.
Sub-site promotion An existing sub-site can be promoted (repositioned) within the logical hierarchy of SharePoint sites (SharePoint site collection) to which it belongs.
Performance caching
Object model All object model changes in Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 are highly backward-compatible with Windows SharePoint Services 2.0 SP2. However, you should be aware that your old code, although it will compile, may not behave as expected in the new object-model hierarchy. The Administration object model (Microsoft® .SharePoint.Administration) has been completely re-factored to allow for greater extensibility. There is now a hierarchical object store.
Field types Extensible field types allow you to use enterprise data structures within Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 by creating your own controls, which are exposed as simple fields within a list or document library by Windows SharePoint Services 3.0.
Site columns Site columns provide a central, reusable model for column definition. When you create a site column, each list that uses this column has the same definition, and you do not have to do the tedious work of reproducing the column in each list.
Content type settings Content types are a core concept used throughout Windows SharePoint Services 3.0. Content types are designed to help users organize their SharePoint content in a more meaningful way. A content type is a reusable collection of settings you want to apply to a certain category of content. Content types enable you to centrally manage and reuse the metadata and behaviors of a document or item type.
Folders in lists Folders, a popular feature in Windows SharePoint Services 2.0 SP2 document libraries, are now also available in lists. Folders allow further segregation of content within a single list, adding another level of versatility.
Folder metadata Users and developers can now assign metadata to a folder. This creates a rich content holder that contains child content, while appearing as more than a container. Essentially, this allows the folder to function as a separate, but fully functional, item type.
List indexing By allowing a column to be indexed, and stored as a simple name/value pair in a separate database, access to specific items in large lists is significantly improved. These kinds of performance improvements allow SharePoint lists to become true data stores, capable of supporting external applications as well as simple team sites.
Cross-list queries Cross-list queries allow you to use the SPQuery object to query all the lists within a Web or site collection. Previously, you had to enumerate through the parent objects to obtain a collection of SPLists, query the list to return the items, and then build your own collection of list items from the multiple lists.
List items Several new enhancements related to list items have been introduced in Windows SharePoint Services 3.0:
  • Per-item and per-folder security
  • Versioning
  • Required checkout
Property Bags Property Bags are now supported on several major objects: SPWeb, SPFile, SPFolder, and SPListItem.
Web services Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 expands several existing Web services, increasing the number of methods provided through the Lists, SiteData, UserGroup, WebPartPagesWebService, and Webs services.
Change logs The change log is a repository storage feature in Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 that provides item change tracking services that are useful, for example, for data synchronization between Windows SharePoint Services and external applications.
Office Outlook 2007 is an example of an external application that uses the change log to synchronize documents and list items for offline access.
Event receivers Events fall into two major categories:
  • List events. Core events, including changes, additions, and removals of list items and list columns (schema changes)
  • Simple site events. Deletion of sites and site collections Events are either synchronous “before”� events, denoted by the “XYZing”� name format, or asynchronous “after”� events, denoted by the “ABCed”� name format.
Job service The Job service in Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 provides facilities for setting up a timed job that executes:
  • After a definable time interval.
  • During a certain time period in the hour, day, week, month, or year.
The Job service also provides a facility for distributing work amongst servers in a farm; for example, based on a request to create a site (which originates on a Web front end), a one-time job may run as soon as is reasonable on an indexing server.
Feature framework Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 contains a new structure called a feature. A feature is an end-user-oriented container of one or more elements. An element is an atomic Windows SharePoint Services concept. The feature is defined in an XML format, similar to other existing SharePoint structures. Each feature definition is a set of XML files. Many items that were previously contained within a site definition in Windows SharePoint Services 2.0 SP2 are now able to fit as an element. In Windows SharePoint Services 3.0, a SharePoint site definition is transformed into a list of features plus a layout page and a master page. This enables any template site to be transformed using any other site template.
Solution Deployment Model Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 also introduces a new deployment mechanism called a solution. A solution is similar to Web Part packages from Windows SharePoint Services 2.0 in that it is an aggregated CAB file containing XML instructions and files that need to be deployed on each front-end Web server. But solutions go beyond Web part packages to support the deployment of features, site definitions, and related assemblies used for event handlers and workflows. Solutions also assist in pushing deployment files to each Web server in a farm. An administrator adds a solution to a Windows SharePoint Services farm, which then copies the solution CAB file into the configuration database. When the administrator runs the command to deploy the solution, Windows SharePoint Services starts a timer job to push the solution CAB file to each front end web server to install it.
Version history Changes to the item are shown in the version history. In addition, support is provided for “append-only”� comment fields.
Major and minor version tracking Tracking of both major version numbers and minor version numbers are supported in Windows SharePoint Services 3.0.
Folder-level and item-level access controls Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 extends group or role-based access controls from sites, document libraries, and lists to individual folders, documents, and list items.
Virtual server security policies An authentication zone is identified with a SharePoint (IIS) virtual server. The same content (document libraries and lists) can be made available to multiple zones (for example, intranet and extranet). Access control lists (ACLs) can have a mixture of users from different authentication providers.
Pluggable authentication Each authentication zone can have a pluggable, custom authentication provider in addition to the default support for Windows Basic, Digest, NTLM, Forms, and Kerberos authentication methods.
Common search technology and infrastructure Provides a single indexing and search infrastructure that scales from the desktop, through team sites and divisional portal sites, to the largest corporate intranets, extranets, and Internet sites.
Inteoperability and integration
  • XML support
  • SOAP support
  • Web services
  • Open API and Object Model
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