Back to SharePoint 2007 Index To SharePoint 2007 Default Features To 6 Things To Do With Your Team Site
Where to Start with SharePoint 2007
As a beginner ...
Best win, find a mentor - someone who knows SharePoint to come and sit with you and teach you. Lets Collaborate offers a one of a kind in the industry Mentorship Program.
Don’t rush out as a brand new user to SharePoint and try to do the 5060, 5061 or SharePoint Designer courses - they are extremely technical you are not going to have any idea what they are talking about and you are going to waste your money. Unless you have a strong IT background, can pick up new concepts easily and need to install and manage the SharePoint servers, these courses are going to be meaningless. If your IT department has chosen SharePoint without speaking to business and are planning to roll it out to them, there are all kinds of other challenges on their way and those courses are not going to help you with that.
If you have been given access to Central Admin and SSP (the management consoles), don’t make any changes to any settings until you are absolutely sure you know what you are doing! You need specialized training first.
Attend a comprehensive end user course. There is no Microsoft certification path for business end users on SharePoint.
Get books; Essential SharePoint teaches you why, The Definitive Guide teaches you how. Read every day.
Subscribe to blogs of SharePoint experts. Pentalogic and Mission Critical Systems for example, they speak “business” and “end user”. Start reading every single day. Start finding your own favourite experts to follow.
Check out helpful SharePoint sites for future help.
Join your local SharePoint user group (Information Worker is the South African one), and start attending the monthly forums.
Understand the business problem you are trying to solve before you try and understand how SharePoint can solve it or how it works.
Don’t be afraid to ask, that’s what we are here for. Check out the error repository if you get stuck and tips and tricks for daily help.
Don’t crack open SharePoint Designer and start making changes to your site, you are looking for trouble. SharePoint Designer is a developers tool.