Sharing Files using Sharepoint

[baronne]

Hi,

We are a school and we currently make our "My Documents" and Departmental Shared Documents available via our school extranet. We are looking to improve this as the current method uses a Linux appliance server/firewall/proxy which just looks cr*p. So... enter Sharepoint. I've had little experience with Sharepoint during which I haven't noticed any way of actually sharing existing files on our file servers without copying them into the SQL server database. Can sharepoint simply make files available which reside on a file server? So for example, say I logon to Sharepoint, can it show my files via a web interface located on \\fileserver\mydocuments as well as \\fileserver\shareddocs

cheers

baronne

:: baronne
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"lekker, shot bru

 

[Thomas2000]

Hello,

SharePoint has a pageviewer webpart which you can use to display contents from for example a folder on a file server.

Depending on if you use Windows SharePoint Services (WSS) or SharePoint Portal Server you will have som different scenarios when it comes to displaying "personal" folders such as My Documents. In WSS that will be quite hard to achive since the webparts you apply to a site is shown to everyone with the same configuration, so it would not be possible to point it to different locations depending on the users that is logged in (atleast not by default).

With SharePoint Portal Server you can allow your users to create what is called "My Site". There the user will get a personal site and can apply these webparts in a much more personalized way. So on a My Site it would be possible to use a pageviewer webpart that displays a users own "personal" fileshare.

Best Regards,
Thomas

 

[baronne]

how would this pageviewer webpart resolve the URL to the files if I am viewing the intranet from outside the network, ie over the internet?

:: baronne
------------------
"lekker, shot bru

 

[Thomas2000]

Hello,

Well, that depends on how you connect. Are you connecting directly from the internet (without VPN or RAS)?
How are you authenticating your users to sharepoint when they access the site from Internet?

How did you have it when you did not use sharepoint? if users were accessing from the outside how were they given access to the files?

Best Regards,
Thomas