101 Things I would love to do for your SharePoint End Users
Why
Because SharePoint is software that makes things easier
Idea – Promote Don Mikler as a hiring opportunity. CV @ www.asapdotnet.com - ASK ME ? -
Want - Join an IT Department with expected results to drive productivity and support top-line growth while creating cost efficiencies
Want - Make widespread use of SharePoint- Design and build utilities for SharePoint that will make it an enjoyable experience…
Why - Capitalize on the SharePoint opportunities in the Public Sector to promote efficient and sustainable government.
So, what makes for a successful SharePoint initiative? MOE! & MORE
MOE is the right mix of hardware, software and people, short for: Materials, Operator and Equipment. Or – 3 qualifiers: education, experience and certification.
- 80% of SharePoint is proper upfront planning (The System & Information Architecture) See MOSS Architecture
- Look at the big picture and developing a SharePoint Roadmap for your organization. (6, 12, 18 months)
- Executive Sponsorship/Executive Buy in critical along the way.
- Enterprise SharePoint Governance: planning and enforcement
- Development of a rock-solid environment with a corresponding disaster recovery plan so you do not ever lose you users’ confidence or their content.
- Developing a core set of Metadata/Content Type standards’ in the initial stages of you initiatives
- Finding and achieving quick wins to “wow” your users. Relying on 'build it and they will come' is a farse.
Top 10 Core Concepts of Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007
1. Lists – are similar to a database table. A list is a collection of information that is stored in rows and columns that can be shared with other team members. Some of the default lists I can make are: Surveys, Link Lists, Contacts, Calendar items with web and Outlook. Tasks and Assignments, Document Libraries, custom views of lists. Custom lists and data entry forms.
2. Libraries – are locations on a site where you can create, collect, update and manage files. I can manage versions and alerts. Track, manage, update and even set approval workflows on all libraries as well as setting security settings to keep items public or private or top secret.
3. Web Parts- are user interface elements that support both customization and personalization. While there are many ‘out of the box’ web parts. I have been working for years in C#, .Net and Sql Server to develop features and deploy custom solutions in the form of web parts for MOSS. Modular components that can be added reconfigured and removed from a web page.
4. Web Part Pages – are container of Web Part Zones and other ASP.Net elements stored in a page, accessible through a web browser.
5. Sites – A SharePoint site is a Web site that provides a central storage and collaboration space for documents, information and ideas. A Share Point site is a tool for collaboration, to help communities of people share information
6. Site Columns- Sometimes you will have information that you will want to use in multiple lists across the portal. This information can be added to a special list called a site column. Re-use of the column as frequently as you need.
7. Alerts- To help users stay in touch with changes on a site, SharePoint includes a feature called Alerts, an e-mail notification service. When documents, lists, or items in a list on a server are created, modified, or deleted, users who sign up for alerts receive messages informing them that changes have been made.
8. Templates – Both Sites and Lists are created from templates. SharePoint provides an interface that allow for the creation of custom template for both lists and sites.
9. Security- Whenever multiple people work in one environment everyone shouldn’t have full access to everything, but people should have access to everything they need. As a SharePoint Security expert I’ll show you administrators how to manages who has access to what resource.
10.Web 2.0- Blogs, Wikis can be used by individuals or teams to publish web pages in their own voice. SharePoint lists and libraries now provide support for RSS (Relly Simple Syndication)
11.Workflows- are business process that can be attached to any list item. Multiple steps can be configured and each step can have multiple conditions and subsequent actions applied to it.
I know, and would be glad to show you!
Managing Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 is doable, managing SharePoint 2010 is one giant step forward for mankind.
1. Integration of Office 2007 and Office 2010 to make collaboration and social networking that much easier for the end user.
2. Metadata Mashup - Microsoft Office 2010 client applications like Excel, can easily use metadata that’s stored in SharePoint Lists.
3. Streamline document management – Document and records management is streamlined in SharePoint 2010 with rules that determine where documents are stored.
4. Find people FAST – With the Search product in SharePoint, employees can find colleagues by title, interest, and other criteria. Search a site or all sites. Highly configurable and tunable for pin point accuracy.
5. InfoPath/SharePoint integration – Integration with Office 2010, including the InfoPath application, lets users design forms that make entering date into SharePoint lists easier.
6. Gain insights with My Sites – New social features of SharePoint include My Sites with greatly expanded profiles that aid in locating expertise within an organization.
7. The SharePoint/Outlook connection – Microsoft Outlook 2010 has many connection points with SharePoint, including calendars, document workspaces and libraries
8. Term Store - The Term Store Management Tool enables administrators to create standard lists of metadata that can be used through-out SharePoint and Office applications to aid in searches.
9. The Visio connection – Integration with Microsoft Vision 2010 lets users create a Visio Chart, tie in SharePoint or other enterprise data, and publish the composite chare on a SharePoint site.
10.Follow the blue ribbon – Much improved usability in SharePoint 2010 starts with the Ribbon tool bar, which enables fast page editing and advanced customized such as adding Web Parts to pages. Ah just like the Microsoft Applications were all so familiar with.
11.Facebook – like friend features – SharePoint helps users connect with others who share common interests by suggesting colleagues based on your e-mail and instant communications
12.Video Views - SharePoint 2010 includes new Media and Content Web Parts including a Silverlight video viewer.
13.Better backups - New backup and restore capabilities let you select which components to backup
14.Health Checks - The Central Administration site has been redesigned for better usability and includes new features for monitoring the health of SharePoint servers
15.Easier blogs, wikis - You can now format blogs and wikis using advanced editing features though the Office Ribbon.
16.Excel excellence Excel Web Access lets you embed live Excel charts and data within SharePoint 2010 sites
17.The blue ribbon - The Microsoft Office ribbon user interface pervades SharePoint 2010, allowing end users to easily edit Web sites.
18.Previews of coming attractions - A new tool in the document library lets you preview videos and other multimedia assets.
19.Super search - The improved SharePoint 2010 search function provides very relevant results, which are organized according to various criteria or taxonomies.
20.Social swirl - New social functions let users follow colleagues' activities, tag content of interest, and see a dynamic organization chart.
21.Workflow visualization - Approval workflows are shown visually, and can be easily edited in Microsoft Visio.
22.Admin additions - A new administration feature lets IT staff control the number of resources allocated to sites, thereby keeping server farms running efficiently.
I have been an early adopter running SharePoint 2010 since December 2009.
Think about this. A recent study for that 52% of people don’t have confidence in the information they rely on to do their job. IBM. Why the old ways of working aren’t’ working.
Technology has made us more connected, but not necessarily more productive. In fact, employees spend up to 25% of their time just look for information that should be readily available to them.
How about working with people far outside the company walls: partners, suppliers, customers and remote employees? Are you leveraging new SharePoint tools like wikis, blogs, team sits and my site to make presence awareness throughout the agency to make it easy for people to reach beyond their physical boundaries?
75% of managers believe that certifications are important to team performance
IDC Whitepaper sponsored by Microsoft, Value of Certification: Team Certification and Organizational Performance, Doc #204360, Nov 2006
Take 5 -- Should of, would of, could of built a SharePoint portal versus a .Net web site.
Customer communication and prototyping – usually much more than a typical .NET custom development project.
Plenty of attention to the hardware side, where you decide logical and physical layouts of your servers, networks, and your site collections. Custom development .NET projects are usually simpler to setup and plan.
A significant effort in branding – usually greater than your typical .NET project, simply because the master pages and CSS and JS of SharePoint are much more complex.
Focus on scalability, when balancing between requirements, and best practices, and experience!
Writing some code or lots of code.
Establishing roles within your team, which is different from the nature of the SharePoint project. Usually this is more involved in an SP project than a custom .NET development project, simply because there is a higher overlap between a IT Professional and Developer in the case of SharePoint.
Training required – your business users will need training on the project ~ again, usually more significant than a simple .NET custom development project.
Architecture, and functionality bargaining per RUP for COTS – where there are many ways of achieving a goal, and the way picked is a delicate balance between budget, demands, and technology
So it all boils down to, what are the characteristics of a project that help you identify, which projects, the investment/cost to reduce the cost of change, is lesser than the cost of change itself.
I know - been there & done that
As Always,
Mik Jr.