An inter-company challenge has come up at work for creating an Active Directory based SharePoint server with focus on the best "office collaboration" setup (including msg boards, document repository, other addons, etc).  I was wondering if anyone has experience with SharePoint and what addons/setup they found most functional for their environment.

Addons? What do you need that's not there?

I find your question doesn't make sense. Sharepoint has modules for message boards, calendars, document repositories, and work flows that can be structured. Each site/subsite is unique based upon client/department/personal. "Office collaboration" just sounds like buzz to me.

I find your question doesn't make sense. Sharepoint has modules for message boards, calendars, document repositories, and work flows that can be structured. Each site/subsite is unique based upon client/department/personal. "Office collaboration" just sounds like buzz to me.

Sorry, but, uh, QFT. Everything you mention is built into the standard Windows Sharepoint Services 3.0 install. There are no add-ons (aka, WebParts) needed to accomplish those things.

Beyond that, however, there are a lot of things out there. On our regional sharepoint site that I've been working with since this past spring, I've added a few web parts to have the "Daily Dilbert" comic strip automagically be included on our IT site, a weather web part that shows weather conditions for the areas you specify, and a few other minor things to just enhance the features that are already there. One solution we are currently looking at is a Charts and Gauges tool that lets you have pretty neat graphical representations of data that exists in either an Excel spreadsheet or a database (http://dundas.com/).

Oh, and I took it upon myself to get familiar with the Google Maps API to code an inter-office driving direction page so the folks who travel to different offices can easily get the directions they need without having to know the address of where they're going. But that's just putting some regular HTML/JavaScript into the Content Editor web part that is part of the default install of WSS 3.0.

Is that what you're after?

I'm new to and just warming up to Sharepoint myself and just leaning some of the ins and outs after I installed the trail version at work, nice trail btw as it's the full version and good for 180days. My boss wants to have an intranet for the company but I'm too lazy and don't have the time to get one looking good and keeping up with it so I put up this sharepoint server because it's easy and has the look and feel the boss may like. Of course the licensing and initial cost will have him whining but you can't have your cake and eat it too Sorry Petch, I'm no help with add-ons but I thought I'd just say that it's worth checking out and if I come up with anything kewl I'll give ya a heads up. 

Of course the licensing and initial cost will have him whining but you can't have your cake and eat it too

WSS (what SharePoint Portal server is built upon) is absolutely free. There are of course, some limitations and things that Portal Server can do that the basic WSS can't do, but it will work for an intranet site. That's what we're using it for.

Its no Joke, and needs to be managed/backedup appropriately, because if you think losing a file server is a bad thing, wait until sharepoint goes down.

Now you're just scaring me. I think we're doing it right (using CommVault for backup), but I'm not sure now that you say things like that 

AvePoint seems to be nice for item level backups. It's just that if you completely damage the DB it's ALL gone.

You need to back it up from 2 approaches..  Item Level (for easy restores) and Database Level (for Structural Restores) Like mentioned above, keeping the structure available and online is key, especially if you start doing workflows (similar to documentum)  You can back up the entire site from within sharepoint, I would do that, and sweep the backup files with a traditional Legato/Tivoli/Symantec/Whatever backup client that you have. Also learn some sql administration as well.

not meaning to scare you, but dont turn sharepoint into another file server, or else it will spiral out of control on you rather quickly.

AvePoint seems to be nice for item level backups. It's just that if you completely damage the DB it's ALL gone.

I only mention "seems" because that is all I have used and it fits my needs. I maintain two SP Servers, versions 2 and 3, would love to have a MOSS 2007 but that is just cost prohibitive.