My last post introduced you to Wiki’s in Sharepoint 2007 ( MOSS 2007 ).  I was a little apprehensive about the wiki feature for the simple reason that being part of the Sharepoint platform might have encouraged over-engineering. However aside for the rich text editor ( which makes the process of adding content that much easier ) the basic layout and functionality of the wiki hasn’t changed. So if you are a contributor on Wikipedia you needn’t worry.

The major benefit for corporates of having Wiki as a part of the new Sharepoint Portal is two-fold. The first obviously is that now they have the ability to tap into and facilitate the creation of information by leveraging collaboration.  The second is making use of Sharepoint features like security controls allows them to impose a greater level of control that doesn’t exist in wiki’s like Wikipedia ( a thought that scares them half to death i am sure ).

So what does Sharepoint allow you to do with the wiki?

  • Wiki pages can be created under any group or library , if for example you have a particularly interesting post on your Blog ( Another new feature of MOSS 2007 ) you could spin this off into a Wiki and have other people collaborate on it.
  • Permissions can be set at a page level, which means you can restrict which pages other users have access to within the wiki structure ( something i haven’t heard off in most other wiki’s )
  • You can also add Meta-data to your wiki pages, as with any other document library. So you can showcase pictures ( for eg ).
  • You can also set e-mail alerts on your Wiki pages.

It also offers other features than we’ve come to expect from all Wiki’s :

  • Interlinking / Creating new pages using double brackets ( [[ ]] ).
  • History tracking of the document. The added advantage here is that being incorporated on the Sharepoint platform you can actually pull the persons contact information of the exchange server.
  • Lastly, visioning and reverts of wiki pages.