The goal of this 3 day, instructor-led training course is to provide students with the knowledge and skills necessary to implement SharePoint 2007 as an extranet being used to facilitate collaboration with users inside and outside the organization. During the class the many options for deploying an extranet will be presented.  In addition, extranet best practices and security will be explored along with other technologies related to deploying extranets.

Student learning will be facilitated through a combination of instructor presentations and hands-on lab exercises.  A sample company will be used in the labs to teach students how to integrate these technologies to deploy an extranet.

This course teaches the technical aspects of how to configure a SharePoint extranet and is not intended for those who are primarily interested in using a SharePoint extranet.  The course is intended for:

• SharePoint Server Administrators who have been tasked with deploying MOSS or WSS on the extranet
• IT Pros and Developers who are interested in learning about the options available when configuring extranets

The typical environments that these professionals work in are medium–to-large organizations that desire to use WSS 3.0 or MOSS to extend SharePoint to an extranet deployment. 

After completing this course, students will be able to:

• Identify and compare the common options available when deploying a SharePoint Extranet
• Use the Microsoft Extranet Deployment Toolkit to deploy an extranet
• Discuss the security and infrastructure issues related to deploying SharePoint extranets
• Utilize the Publishing features in MOSS 2007 to build extranet pages
• Configure an extranet to have anonymous access and authenticated areas
• Configure an extranet using SharePoint Solutions’ Extranet Collaboration Manager Product

Ideally, students will have previously completed the  SharePoint 2007 Jumpstart class and will have  2 or more years of SharePoint Administration experience.  These students will be well-prepared for this class.

Students who cannot attend  SharePoint 2007 Jumpstart first, at a minimum should already be familiar with Central Administration, creating site collections, and general SharePoint Administration. It is critical that students have a solid administrative knowledge of SharePoint 2007 before attending this course.

(Note: This Course Outline is subject to minor changes and refinements based on student feedback and instructor experience.)

Module 1: Initial Steps to the Extranet (w/ Student Lab)

There are several different methods that can be used to extend SharePoint to the extranet.  There are also several concepts and tools that must be considered, no matter which method your organization uses.  In this module, students will learn those basic tools and concepts.  We will also do a high-level comparison of the three different methods available for extending MOSS to the extranet, which will each be covered separately in later modules.  Students will learn:

• What basic networking needs to be done?
• How do I require SSL for external users, but not internal ones?
• Alternate Access Mappings – why and how?
• Anonymous Access – why and how?
• How does deploying MOSS vs. WSS on the extranet affect my licensing costs?  Is it worth the difference in cost?  How do I decide?
• What is Forms Based Authentication, and why would I want it?
• How do I keep my external user accounts separate from my internal ones?What are the high-level pros and cons of each of the configuration options?

Module 2: EXTRANET OPTION A – Using Microsoft ISA Server 2006 (w/ Instructor Demo of Process)

Opening up your SharePoint environment to the Internet brings additional risk to your environment. During this module we will cover concepts and best practices that can be used to secure your SharePoint extranet.  In this module, students will learn:

• What are the primary security concerns that need to be considered?
• Does my network infrastructure need to be different for my extranet?
• How can ISA Server increase my security and simplify my setup?
• What’s the difference between ISA’s Forms Based Authentication, and SharePoint’s native Forms Based Authentication?

Module 3: EXTRANET OPTION B – Using the Microsoft External Collaboration Toolkit (w/ Student Lab)

Microsoft provides an External Collaboration Toolkit to help organizations configure and maintain extranets using SharePoint 2007. In this module, students will learn step-by-step how to configure an extranet using Microsoft’s tool and how to use the tool in the extranet environment. Topics to be covered include:

• How does the Microsoft’s Extranet Collaboration Toolkit work, and what are its limitations?
• What is ADAM, and how is it used?
• What options are available when configuring Forms Based Authentication?
• Step-by-step instruction on setting up an extranet using the Toolkit.
• How can the toolkit help manage an extranet?

Module 4: EXTRANET OPTION C – Using SharePoint Solution’s Extranet Collaboration Manager (w/ Student Lab)

When implementing an extranet, system administrators are often overwhelmed with many administrative tasks, such as creating user accounts, managing permissions, and creating new sites.

• The features that ExCM provides to ease system administration
• What are the differences between the various membership providers?
• Are any features or functionality different depending on the membership provider I choose?
• How can ExCM help automate external user creation and management?

Module 5: After the Hand-Off:  On-going Extranet Management

The extranet is implemented and rolled out to your external users, now what? Module 6 takes a look at the on-going management of an extranet. Students will learn:

• How do I handle the long-term management of external users?
• How do I best manage the creation of new sites in the extranet?
• How do I manage search in the extranet?

Module 6: Publishing Features and Office Integration in your Extranet

MOSS 2007 (but not WSS 3.0) includes many publishing features that make it a great solution for web content management. In this module students will learn how these can be leveraged for the extranet.  Students will learn the answers to these questions:

• How can I use publishing pages to build my extranet pages? How do we configure Anonymous Access to allow some anonymous content and some private content?
• Can the login page that is accessed anonymously be branded?
• Can I change the setup to allow only users with access to the site to appear in people lookups?
• Do the Office client applications work over the extranet the same as the do on the Intranet?
• Can I use a SharePoint Designer workflow to approve content deployment on my extranet?