Microsoft SharePoint 2010 Power User Cookbook Book Review

This book is great for the SharePoint end user. I kind of think of it like the top 70 FAQs about SharePoint found all in one place. Although this book is a little out of context for the books I usually read about SharePoint, I was looking for a book to recommend to the user's of the SharePoint 2010 environments I working. I am currently upgrading a 2007 environment to 2010, so the users are going to need a good reference for common tasks. This book fits the bill. The book is broken down into different topics by chapter. The chapters are listed below. Chapter 1: Getting Started—SharePoint Essentials Chapter 2: Working Together—Using SharePoint to Collaborate Chapter 3: SharePoint as the Data Hub—Storing and Integrating Data Chapter 4: SharePoint Document Management Deep Dive Chapter 5: Getting the Message Out—Using SharePoint to Communicate Chapter 6: Where's My Stuff?—Finding Things with SharePoint Chapter 7: Gaining Insights—Using SharePoint for Business Intelligence Chapter 8: Automating Business Processes—Recipes for Electronic Forms and Workflows Appendix: Joining the Dots—Creating Composite Applications The individual topics are far too many to list but to give you an idea of what the chapters look like I have listed two of them below. Chapter 2: Working Together—Using SharePoint to Collaborate ◦Introduction ◦Creating a Team Site ◦Adding users to a Team Site ◦Adding a new page to a Team Site ◦Adding a link to the Top link bar of a Team Site ◦Adding a slide library to share PowerPoint slides ◦Adding a slide to a presentation from a SharePoint slide library ◦Creating and tracking a discussion item ◦Managing a Team Site Calendar with Outlook 2010 ◦Creating a task and assigning it to another user ◦Using the datasheet to bulk-edit tasks in a task list ◦Managing a SharePoint task list in Outlook 2010 ◦Creating a SharePoint contact list and connecting it to Outlook 2010 Chapter 4: SharePoint Document Management Deep Dive ◦Introduction ◦Uploading an existing document to a document library ◦Uploading multiple documents to a document library ◦Creating a new document in your My Site ◦E-mailing a link to a document in SharePoint ◦Downloading a copy of a document ◦Creating an alert on a document to be notified when it is updated ◦Requiring users to check out a document before they can edit it ◦Enabling versioning on a document library ◦Publishing a major version of a document ◦Restoring a previous version of a document ◦Enabling content approval on a document library ◦Take SharePoint documents offline using Outlook 2010 ◦Co-authoring an important document ◦Use content types to store different types of document in the same document library Each topic begins with a Getting Ready section that tells you which SharePoint version the task can be done on. It then has a How to do it section that explains how to accomplish the task at hand. This section not only contains written instructions but also usually includes detailed screenshots. Then there is a How it works section that explains how the steps taken work behind the scenes. There is then a There's more section and a See also sections that provide more information about the topic and other resources to read. The book does a really good job of combining the right amount of written instructions, screenshots, and background on each topic. Some books go way overboard with screenshots, or do not provide enough of them. This book has just the right amount. The author's writing style makes for an easy read. They do a good job of making the topics understandable. All in all I highly recommend this book to SharePoint end users.  You can get it on Amazon here, or read more about it on the Packt site here.

Microsoft SharePoint 2010 Power User Cookbook