A free but unsupported integration pack is available to organizations that want to link SharePoint Portal Server 2001 to Web sites managed by Content Management Server (CMS) 2001. CMS is Microsoft's product for hosting and managing publication of content to complex Internet or intranet Web sites. Depending on the particular need, either SPS or CMS could form the basis for an organization’s intranet site, but Microsoft feels that they have complementary roles and work well together. Microsoft’s own intranet uses both—CMS hosts the main site and provides links to various SPS portals. Its companywide search feature also uses SPS. (See the discussion of the roles of the two products in "Corporate Portal Strategy in Flux" on page 3 of the Nov. 2001 Update.)

The CMS-SPS integration pack makes it easier for organizations to integrate the two products. Specifically, it allows organizations using both products to

• Publish documents that were created in SPS on a CMS Web site and automatically update changes
• Use the SPS search engine to index and search the contents of a CMS Web site so that SPS users can search on CMS-published content
• Integrate CMS approval processes with an SPS Web Part so that CMS approvers can publish SPS documents to the CMS Web site from within SPS.

The pack links the security models of the two products, so SPS users can only retrieve authorized CMS content, and SPS content will not be published to CMS unless accepted by an authorized CMS approver.

One particularly useful scenario supported by this pack is when organizations want to use SPS document management and workflow features to develop documents internally, approve them through CMS, and post them on a CMS-hosted Internet site.

The pack consists of installable code, a sample site, and documentation and can be downloaded from msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?url=/library/en-us/dncip/html/cip.asp.

For more information on CMS, see "Microsoft to Acquire NCompass Labs" on page 3 of the July 2001 Update.

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