Sharepoint Performance

Five Ways to Save Your IT Cost Using Sharepoint

2010-03-01T19:18:00.000-08:00

In today's uncertain economic climates, decision makers are challenged to manage the resources and at the same time provide exemplary service to customers. Many organizations focus on cost cutting to keep up with this uncertainty, but while doing that sometimes trade dangerously on loss of productivity and efficiency of the operations. Organizations that have to stay nimble but also maintain a high degree of control during the slowdown, and come out winner during the recovery would need to consider taking help of IT.

As a leader who has to focus on success, how would you keep productivity and efficiency growing? What are the ways to manage unstructured, inconsistent and insufficient information within your business processes?

We have found Microsoft's SharePoint platform based customized Products and Technologies useful to optimize efficiencies, reduce operational costs and show rapid return on investment (ROI). Microsoft Office SharePoint Portal Server offers a cost effective solution for intelligently connecting people, teams and information. SharePoint Portal Server provides a central place for your employees or clients to access, manage, share and interact with relevant information, documents, applications and interact with people. It enables quicker and better decisions, more effective sharing across teams and more streamlined business processes.

The primary goal of SharePoint Portal Server is to bring together, in a relevant way, all of the diverse sources of internal knowledge and disparate information available inside and outside of your organization. This will connect resources, customers, teams and projects while sharing a common data backend repository that is central to your organization. The solutions based on SharePoint platform share the information and data while making it easy to find, retrieve and re-use.

5 Ways to Save IT implementation and ongoing Costs:

We are encouraging to adopt SharePoint platform based Products and Technologies in your organization, so you can:

1. Reduce IT costs and complexity, by centralizing multiple product investments into a single enterprise solution, service and support a single solution, and License a single solution, rather than several rarely visited implementations.

2. Reduce development costs, by using well designed out-of-the-box components, by adopting built-in integration with the Microsoft Office 2007 suite, and there by reducing the learning curves and development time.

3. Simplify application management and on-going training, by providing very easy-to-use interface for end users and for IT administration and governance.

4. Improve employee productivity, by implementing collaboration workspaces, self directed web publishing, social computing features, and business process workflow and forms.

5. Make your customer service more effective, by sorting critical information from across the enterprise and by providing rapid, easy access to information.

SharePoint - An Internal Communicators Guide

2010-02-15T19:21:00.000-08:00

Microsoft SharePoint enables important documents and business processes to be stored in a central information hub. It can also be a powerful communication and collaboration tool. However, a SharePoint implementation can also have a disruptive and resource intensive impact on an organization if it is not managed effectively. During times of recession, it is all the more important to find ways to work smarter with less resource.

Follows these tips to maximize the value gained from your SharePoint implementation:

Think of SharePoint as a development platform...not a product

It is a common mistake for people to assume that SharePoint will give them what they want without customization. As a sophisticated software application, SharePoint has many different features and plug-ins which can be confusing. Deployments easily can go wrong if IT teams just turn on additional modules without considering the business case, requirements, and training needed to make them part of an ongoing business process.

The more comprehensive functionality available from SharePoint has to be built by an IT team (or a third party vendor) using SharePoint's .NET development tools. Hence it is more appropriate to view SharePoint as a 'development platform' rather than an 'out of the box' product.
Representatives from various parts of the business will need to work together with the IT team from the very start of the project. The project team needs to clarify the business requirements and all technical and functional needs of the SharePoint implementation before starting the project.

Try these tips:

Use low cost, plug and play discussion forum tools to enable project teams to share and capture ideas as they crop up prior to, and during, a SharePoint implementation. External discussion forum channels can be simple to deploy, secure, low cost and available on a short term license basis.

Utilise company wide surveys to assess what's working and what's not with the existing Intranet and to gather information regarding the tools and resources people would like to see included on the new SharePoint Intranet. Consider using survey tools that can be pushed directly onto employee computer screens so do not get buried in email in boxes. Built in survey reminders can help drive participation which can ensure that all views are represented in the research...including the important but often 'silent majority' who perhaps do not have extreme views or agendas and would ordinarily be less motivated to participate.

Target staff surveys to specific groups of employees, for example, managers and heads of departments. Such individuals can be asked questions such as "what specific business value does / could your department derive from an effective Intranet?", "How might this be quantified?" For example, a sales manager may say it is the number of accurate proposals that sales people are able to produce. This research will provide an important perspective to help you make the SharePoint implementation effective and also help you quantify its value at a later stage.

Start simply and take an iterative approach

Companies that get the SharePoint implementation right, often start simply, with many of the features disabled. Break a SharePoint implementation up into stages and leave the 'bells-and-whistles' until last.

For example:

1. Start by simply replacing the existing Intranet.
2. Add document management
3. Add forms management.
4. Add business process and workflow management
5. Start sharing business intelligence dashboards and enterprise reports
6. And so on.

Keep in mind your short term and long term objectives and work with IT while they download SharePoint. Clarify what is required of SharePoint now, what possible extras might be useful and what may be required in the future.

Try these tips

One of the keys to the successful implementation a new technology is to drive user adoption and regularly gather feedback to evaluate progress.

* Staff Polls, surveys and discussion forums provide effective ways to gather qualitative and quantitative feedback from staff. Communicating the successive stages of an iterative SharePoint implementation needs to stay interesting for staff, so adopting an engaging and innovative communications campaign is essential.
* Promote your evolving SharePoint implementation through multiple channels and monitor readership to make sure you're hitting the mark
* Short 'news' articles in Staff E-Mags can inform readers of new information and the availability of new tools, as well as allowing readers to click directly through to specific SharePoint pages.
* For project 'wins' that you want to profile with more impact, try using digital signage on screensavers. An image is worth a thousand words. For example, an image of a deck chair on the beach with relevant text and a click through link is a powerful and engaging way to notify staff that leave forms are now available via SharePoint.
* For messages that need high cut through, consider using Desktop Alerts or Scrolling News feeds on staff computer screens

Fill gaps in functionality

By taking what comes bundled in SharePoint, companies can end up compromising on critical functions compared with best-of-breed tools. Light-weight web 2.0 tools such as wikis and blogs appear to be late addition 'throw-ins' with functionality that appears to be considerably less than you might expect.

SharePoint does not provide any 'push communications' channels. The closest it gets is 'e-mail alerts', that are auto generated and can be easily become buried in inboxes, and RSS feeds, that require staff to opt in. Often due to high work loads or a lack of interest, emails have low cut through and staff fail to subscribe to RSS feeds meaning that important updates may never reach them.

Push Communications channels form an important part of an internal communications strategy. This is particularly the case for urgent or important messages that need high cut through.

Try these tips

Augment SharePoint with other functionality:

* Use plug and play' social media channels specifically built for secure employee communications. Select channels that are low cost, easy to use and require very little IT resource to deploy, customize and implement. Some web 2.0 channels can send automated desktop alerts to moderators which will achieve significantly higher cut through (and faster response) than SharePoint's email alerts.
* Use RSS tools that allows administrators to push out existing RSS feed sources, via an on screen news ticker (or news aggregator), to targeted staff groups. Hence for important RSS feeds you can remove the step within SharePoint requiring users to opt in. • Snap Desktop Alert provides a means to push out urgent or important communications to targeted staff groups. This desktop alert format bypasses email and pushes content directly onto employee's computer screens with configurable persistence and recurrence options and helpful reporting features.

Clarify Governance

It is important to clarify the roles and responsibilities for managing a SharePoint site. For example; what are the respective roles of Corporate Communications and IT? Who should 'own' the site? Who should be empowered to manage the site? A content management strategy should be developed by a team of representatives from key business areas and cover areas such as:

* The metrics for content creation
* Policies regarding when to use, and when not to use, SharePoint
* The balance be between user generated content, and general 'corporate' content
* Who will manage what content? How?
* Levels of moderation for different parts of the site
* How will cross-functional content be managed and monitored?
* How much time should staff spend surfing and posting SharePoint content?

Try these tips

Use hosted discussion forums as a quick and easy way to discuss and evolve the governance of SharePoint.

Manage Content

For a successful SharePoint implementation, good site administration and content management are essential. A site administrator needs to manage content, carry out periodic evaluations and act as a facilitator in sustaining participation. An administrator will also need to decommission parts of the site that are no longer required.

SharePoint has relatively light-weight content management capability, additionally, collaboration tools within SharePoint can add user generated content to the chaos. A proliferation of 'team spaces' can also serve to create too many silos. The search interface of SharePoint is also considered by some to be weak.

Try these tips

Not all content needs to be delivered by SharePoint. This is particularly the case for content that may have a short 'shelf life' due, for example, to it being associated with a specific campaign or project. Prioritize content and think about its 'shelf life' and purpose. Does it really need to be on SharePoint or will it simply add to the chaos?

By eliminating non essential content or content with a short shelf life, the search results from SharePoint are more likely to return useful information.

* Emags are an excellent way to distribute short shelf life content (e.g. news and admin updates). Chose a format that allows users cato submit their own articles
* Desktop Alerts and News Tickers can provide message cut through for urgent business updates.

Provide good training and support

Some internal communicators describe SharePoint as 'clunky and not intuitive'. To ensure you maximize the value derived from SharePoint, it is important to provide adequate training and support to staff. Training for the IT team and administrators can be expensive and time consuming (probably at least a one week 'boot camp'). Selected 'power user' staff will also require 2 to 3 days of training. Even at the departmental level it is useful to get a few people trained in how to use web parts. Once SharePoint becomes available to the wider staff population, they will also need training on how to use the various features that have been enabled on SharePoint. Think twice about launching a site if you can't provide this sort of effort and resource in terms of training and support.

Try these tips

Implement a discussion forum as quick and easy means for people to ask questions in an appropriate online 'helpdesk'. If the format allows it, nominate moderators for each 'helpdesk' and set them up to receive desktop alert notifications when new questions are posted (note that SharePoint content alerts are email based which can have low cut through rates and associated response times). Moderators can answer questions directly or point the person to information sources where an answer can be found. Each specific question should be tagged and searchable, meaning that past questions and answers can be easily located in an evolving repository of knowledge.

Use Staff Quizzes as a means to run a SharePoint education program. Business and product focused quizzes can contain links to the Intranet allowing users to research each question before they answer.

Drive adoption and usage

Employees don't typically seem to like using SharePoint. It's not intuitive and not particularly exciting. SharePoint pages are often dull and boring. There are some options for making pages more exciting, but pages tend to end up looking similar regardless of customization. In addition, due to SharePoint's sheer complexity, an implementation can seem to go on forever and users can start to believe that glitches will never be ironed out.

Effective communication is key to acceptance, adoption and effective usage of SharePoint's features by staff. Changing how people work takes effort. Employees need to be engaged in order for them to use SharePoint effectively.

Try these tips

Liven up the perception of SharePoint by using a range of dynamic ways to promote the site and drive participation:

* Digital sigage on screensavers can raise awareness of new information on SharePoint by turning employee screensavers into dynamic interactive bill boards. An image is worth a thousand words. For example, an image of a graduation cap with some relevant text and a click through link is a powerful and engaging way to notify staff that online, self-paced training programs are now available on the Intranet.
* Staff E-Mags can deliver news updates in a readable and engaging format which include hyperlinks back to SharePoint content (or other information rsources)
* Ensure any electronic communications channels contain click-through hyperlinks links and therefore act as promotional tools to stimulate interest and drive the usage and value of SharePoint. News feeds, desktop alerts, interactive staff quizzes and surveys can be engaging ways to drive traffic to SharePoint content.

Allocate sufficient budget...and watch the hidden costs

Costs can easily expand with a SharePoint implementation so beware of what you are getting into. There are three levels of SharePoint:

1. Basic version of SharePoint which comes free with Windows server, allowing organizations 'try before they buy'
2. Paid version (License fees vary depending on the type and size of an organization)
3. Premium version designed to deliver features such as search.

You may end up paying more than you initially anticipate due to confusion about what features reside within the different SharePoint versions and license fee bands. Additionally you may need to buy SharePoint add-ons which were not previously considered or budgeted for.
Other things that can blow out overall project pricing include:

* Implementation costs
* Customization costs
* Systems integration costs

Try these tips

You can augment SharePoint with inexpensive tools that do not require IT resource for them to be set up and managed. This allows you to try concepts out, test uptake and evolve the approach without the need for 'big project' budget, resource or timeframes.

Sarah Perry is a Director of Snap Communications, http://www.snapcomms.com, a company which provides specialist Internal Communications Solutions.

SharePoint 2007 New Feature Overview

2010-02-01T19:16:00.000-08:00

Sharepoint 2007 is in Beta 2 now and is projected to be released at the beginning of the year
but now is the time to start looking at the new features that SharePoint 2007 and WSS V3.0 will contain.
Below are some of the highlights of the new features that SharePoint 2007 and WSS V3.0 will contain.

Site columns provide a central, reusable model for column definition.
When you create a site column, each list that uses this column has the same
definition, and you do not have to do the tedious work of reproducing the column
in each list. Additionally, site columns provide you with the simplicity of a single
maintenance point. For instance, you can create a status site column, which may contain
multiple choices of an enterprise's specific statuses, and implement the column in
dozens of project master lists across the site collection. If you add a new status,
you can modify the site column instead of having to modify each list that contains
a status column.

Content types are a core concept used throughout the functionality and services
offered in Microsoft Windows SharePoint Services (version 3) and are designed to help
users organize their SharePoint content in a more meaningful way. A content type is a
reusable collection of settings you want to apply to a certain category of content.
Content types enable you to manage the metadata and behaviors of a document or item
type in a centralized, reusable way. For example, consider the following two types
of documents: software specifications and legal contracts. You might want to store
documents of those two types in the same SharePoint document library. However, the
metadata you would want to gather and store about each of these document types
would be quite different. In addition, you would likely want to assign different
workflows and retention policies to the two types of documents. Content types
enable you to store multiple types of content in the same SharePoint library or
list. In the preceding example, you could define two content types, named Specification
and Contract. Each content type would include different columns for gathering and
storing item metadata and would have different workflows and policies. Yet items of both
content types could be stored in the same SharePoint document library.

Recycle bins, or undelete functionality, is another important improvement that has
been added in Microsoft Windows SharePoint Services (version 3). This functionality is available
in both lists and document libraries. Deleting an item from a list triggers a multilevel series
of events. First, the item is sent to a Web-level recycling bin. From here, the item can be
undeleted by any individual who has been given appropriate rights. When the item is deleted
from this bin, the item is sent to a second recycling bin, controlled by the site administrator.
Among the design features of this bin are timers that allow you to automate the removal of
old documents. For example, an administrator may decide that the vast majority of requests
for item restores happen within the first 90 days. In this scenario, the administrator may
set the timer such that items older than 90 days are permanently deleted.

RSS has become a standard way of aggregating content from the Web. For more information
on RSS in Microsoft Windows Code Name "Longhorn," see the technical article RSS Support in
Longhorn on Microsoft Developer Network (MSDN). By integrating RSS feeds for each SharePoint
list, Microsoft Windows SharePoint Services (version 3) provides a push mechanism for forwarding
information to end users.

Folders, one of the popular features from document libraries in Microsoft Windows
SharePoint Services (version 2), is now also available in lists. Folders allow further segregation
of content within a single list, adding another level of versatility. One of the interesting
features of folders is the ability to assign metadata to a folder. This creates a rich content
holder that contains child content, while appearing as more than a container. Essentially, this
allows the folder to function as a separate, but fully functional, item type. An example of this
can be seen in Windows SharePoint Services discussion boards. Each top-level discussion is, in fact,
a folder with metadata, containing one to n child objects. By modifying the appearance of the
folder, an end user can visualize the folder as another list item rather than as a container. You
can use this model in custom lists to create a dynamic parent/child list. Many business applications
require rich container objects, for which a parent object has both important data concerning
itself, and one to n children with similar data. Normally, you deal with this challenge by using
lists in which a parent, or master, list selection drives the display of a child, or detail, list.
Because you can now assign metadata to folders in a SharePoint list, you can achieve similar
functionality with a single list.

Consider an Orders list, for example. You could provision a folder as an order, and then assign
metadata to it, such as order number, customer, and shipment method. By doing so, you can make the
folder mimic the master list functionality. You can then fill the folder with order items list items,
each with its own metadata, such as item number, description, and price. Now you have the rich
functionality of a master/detail list within a single list.

List Indexing. Integral to the idea of using Microsoft Windows SharePoint Services as
a platform is the ability to use its storage containers, specifically lists and document libraries,
for application storage. However, a number of limitations restricted the true use of these
containers in Microsoft Windows SharePoint Services (version 2). One of the problems was the
inability to handle large lists. As lists began to grow, both in metadata and list items, the
mechanisms built into lists became clunky and inefficient.

A key goal within Microsoft Windows SharePoint Services (version 3) was to fix these restrictions
and create a rich storage model with performance capable of supporting applications, both external
and those built upon the Windows SharePoint Services platform. One of the key ways that Microsoft Windows
SharePoint Services (version 3) solves this issue is to include indexing on columns. By allowing a
column to be indexed, and stored as a simple name/value pair in a separate database, access to specific
items in large lists is significantly improved. These kinds of performance improvements allow SharePoint
lists to become true data stores, capable of supporting external applications as well as simple team
sites.For example, with an Orders list, you could provision a folder as an order and then assign metadata
to it, such as order number, customer, and shipment method. Consider that by indexing the order number
column, access to specific items in the list by an external request becomes significantly cheaper.

Another scenario is an external application with hundreds of thousands of records. Previously, your
Web application could not use a SharePoint list as a storage device. With the inclusion of indexing on
columns, performance increases allow this architecture. By using Windows SharePoint Services storage,
the standard features of the platform, such as views, alerts, and RSS, can now be used as a data store
explorer for internal use in simple team sites.

Cross-List Queries - Another improvement made with the idea of using Microsoft Windows
SharePoint Services storage more effectively is cross-list queries. Cross-list queries allow you to
use the SPQuery object to query all the lists within a Web or site collection. Previously, you had to
iterate through the parent objects to obtain a collection of SPList objects, query the list to return
the items, and then build your own collection of list items from the multiple lists. This exercise was
not only tedious and redundant but expensive. Cross-list queries allow you to take advantage of the
efficiencies built into the SPQuery functionality in a number of additional scenarios. Cross-list
queries provide a rich querying capability, similar to SQL queries, within SharePoint. Among the many
possible scenarios this functionality allows is the numerous aggregation scenarios commonly requested
by end users.

List Items. Several improvements in Microsoft Windows SharePoint Services (version 3) are
implemented on the item level rather than on the entire list. The following is a list of several
important new features.

1. Per-Item Security Item-level security is certain to be a popular new feature in Microsoft Windows SharePoint Services (version 3). List and document libraries now feature the ability to set roles on each item, rather than simply at the lists level. In a developer scenario, if you combine per-item security with other features, such as list events or extensible field types, you could use per-item security to change who has access to an item, based upon an entry in another field. For example, a change to the status of an item could trigger a change in who has the ability to edit the item.
2. Versioning In Windows SharePoint Services (version 2), only document libraries allowed versioning, and then only a major version would be created. This basic functionality did not match the workflow normally associated with documents; namely, the creation and edit process when a document is in draft version, and then the publishing of a document to public status. Microsoft Windows SharePoint Services (version 3) offers a new, richer versioning model. This model includes both major and minor versions, and versioning within lists as well as document libraries. In addition, major and minor versions can have different security, allowing separate draft and public version workflows. In a developer scenario, versions are associated with a rich event model that allows numerous scenarios, including custom workflows, item validation, and information propagation.
3. Required Checkout In Windows SharePoint Services V2, users could modify documents without checking those documents out from a document library. This allowed multiple users to edit the same document, and left a complicated, poorly understood merge/overwrite scenario. In Microsoft Windows SharePoint Services (version 3), document edits are allowed only when the document has been checked out. This forced checkout defines a clear owner model and simplifies merging of changes.

Workflows In Microsoft Windows SharePoint Services (version 3), a workflow allows you to attach a
business process to items in SharePoint Products and Technologies. This process can control almost any
aspect of an item in SharePoint Products and Technologies, including the lifecycle of that item. For
example, you could create a simple workflow that routes a document to a series of users for approval.
Workflows can be as simple or complex as your business processes require. You can create workflows that
the user initiates, or workflows that SharePoint Products and Technologies automatically initiate based
on some event, such as when an item is created or changed. In addition, your workflows can interact
directly with the user through workflow forms. Workflow forms enable you to gather information from the
user at each stage of the workflow. You can create your workflow to interact with the user through the
standard SharePoint Products and Technologies browser-based interface, through workflow forms in
Microsoft Office client applications such as Microsoft Word and Microsoft Excel, or even through your
own custom applications. Workflows are available to end users at the list or document library level.
Workflows can also be added to content types. Multiple workflows may be available for an item. In
addition, multiple workflows can run simultaneously on the same item, but only one instance of a specific
workflow type can run on a specific item at any given time. For example, you might have two workflows,
"SpecReview" and "LegalReview," available for a specific content type, "Specification." Although both
workflows can run simultaneously on a specific item of the "Specification" content type, you can't have
two instances of the "LegalReview" workflow running on the same item at the same time.

Events are key to transforming Microsoft Windows SharePoint Services into a true developer platform.
Events enable first and third parties to hook into Windows SharePoint Services behaviors and override
default behaviors. Events fall into two major categories:

1. List events Core events, including changes, additions, and removals of list items and list columns (schema changes)
2. Simple site events Deletion of sites and site collections

Events are either synchronous "before" events, denoted by the "XYZing" name format, or asynchronous “after”
events, denoted by the "ABCed" name format. Event receivers can be registered, through the "Features"
feature, with an Item, a List, a Web, or a Content Type. For example, an event receiver that ensures a
document always has a copyright in the footer can be associated with a central Content Type and pushed
down to all document libraries associated with that type. As they do in Microsoft Windows SharePoint
Services (version 2), developers can override and extend the event handler method. A new sequence number
parameter allows for control of the firing order of multiple events.

Features - Microsoft Windows SharePoint Services (version 3) contains a new structure called a
"feature." A "feature" is an end-user-oriented container of one or more elements. An element is an atomic
Windows SharePoint Services concept. The "feature" is defined in an XML format, similar to other existing
SharePoint structures. Each “feature” definition is a set of XML files. Many items that were previously
contained within a site definition in Windows SharePoint Services (version 2) are now able to fit as an
element. In Windows SharePoint Services (version 3), a SharePoint site definition is transformed into a
list of "features" plus a layout page and a master page. The goal is that any templated SharePoint site
can be transformed into another templated SharePoint site simply by having the administrator toggle
features on the site and possibly switch the layout page or master page. Upgrading a Windows SharePoint
Services V2 site definition to a Windows SharePoint Services V3 site is a process of breaking the XML
files (such as ONET.XML) into small chunks, componentizing them into arbitrary components, and then
packaging them as a Windows SharePoint Services V3 "feature" and creating a workspace template that uses
those "features."

Jason Fortner is co-founder of Total Productivity Solutions. Total Productivity Solutions is an Atlanta based company that provides custom SharePoint, webpart and .NET development; and solutions to common software development issues are also provided on the site.

Sharepoint sites, Sharepoint webparts and .NET Development

http://www.totalproductivitysolutions.com

Sharepoint Tools

2010-01-17T19:14:00.000-08:00

The week starts off like any other week, your Monday is riddled with back to back meetings in and out of the office, your staff is telling you how much time they don't have to do the tasks you are assigning them and your boss has a new report that is due out the door by close of business today. This is pretty much the norm as far as Mondays go. There is one exception to this day that is different than the other days. This is the Monday that your Human Resources team has released its latest results of the company wide employee satisfaction surveys conducted last quarter. The survey identifies the need to improve internal data sharing and communication.

As you start pondering on what you can do to resolve this issue, a bell goes off in your memory. Last month you remember an article that you read on a plane trip to New York to visit clients. The article was all about Sharepoint server hosting. To this point in your career you never had to seek resources outside the organization that you have worked for. This has now come to an end. Your company has frozen all technological budgets and there is little or no chance of freeing up large amounts of funding for new hardware and new software. There is a budget that has some money to support technological need and innovation provided the correct business case is made by the requester. The section of the article that you remember reading "Sharepoint hosting 2007" seems to list out all of the advantages of this product and most importantly it highlighted that fact that centralized Sharepoint server hosting may be an invaluable tool that can aid managers of all businesses in improving staff productivity and moral.

This article also referenced that fact that this technology can be available in Windows Sharepoint Services (WSS) or Microsoft Office Sharepoint Server (MOSS). It compared the two and from your initial review it looked as though a Sharepoint MOSS dedicated server may be your immediate solution. This epiphany could not have come soon enough because as soon as you were done thinking the phone rings and it is your boss asking about your plans to improve communications in the office.

Sharepoint Development is Evolving a Great Tool For E-learning

2010-01-02T18:49:00.000-08:00

Sharepoint is evolving at a rapid pace in the area of E-learning. Many companies and organizations are installing Microsoft based Sharepoint. They have employed many consultants to get more from this powerful application. Training is a area where sharepoint can excel well and that is what all corporate and public sector organizations need.

Purchase Order system people will always need training. E-Learning is going to be the latest buzz in training. Microsoft sees SharePoint as the ideal platform for E-Learning and have worked with a number of Partners to try to fill this gap. They developed the SLK (SharePoint Learning Kit), but even the most skilled SharePoint Performance Engineers would find it difficult to turn this into a working E-Learning system.

PC, internet connections and flash animated courses have made the E-Learning more appealing proposition, but still many companies have not taken the step forward. The reason for this Is mainly the cost as they need to buy expensive Information Management platforms like Knowledgebridge from Websoft. Sharing of information without interpreting with sensitive issues can be made possible by using Sharepoint software solution. Interactive with Microsoft Office Excel spreadsheet directly from a Web browser through Excel services which are running on Office SharePoint 2007.

One of the greatest advantages of using Sharepoint software is connectivity. The software provides a solid platform for people to come and connect with each other in order to transfer information and data respectively.

Without implementing any kind of coding, users can use electronic forms that enable them to collect information and data pertaining to business requirements from customers, suppliers, partners via a web browser. This particular feature helps in overcoming redundancy and eliminates errors from the manual setup.

Sharing of information without interpreting with sensitive issues can be made possible by using Sharepoint software solution. Interactive with Microsoft Office Excel spreadsheet directly from a Web browser through Excel services which are running on Office SharePoint 2007.

Building Powerful Intranets With SharePoint

2009-12-30T18:47:00.000-08:00

Organizational intranets are evolving from being an employee collaboration and document sharing platform to be a more powerful platform that incorporates the best of breed features of new generation technologies and solutions. The concepts of mash up applications with web 2.0 technologies are being brought into the intranets to provide a single source of truth to the entire organization in a self service manner, with users given the primary focus as the contributors to the content of the intranet through collaboration tools and business solutions.

For a continuously successful intranet implementation, a clear strategy and plan needs to be created with dedicated teams to manage the intranet environment. This will allow your organization to easily identify the corporate intranet needs and implement the same in a structured and phased manner, aid in marketing the intranet as a business tool to the users, and allow them to gracefully accept the intranet in an efficient way.

The success of an intranet is totally dependent on the users as well as the ease of management of the infrastructure. It is very critical that the every piece of information from within or outside the organization must reside on the intranet which can be easily accessed by users and centrally managed. SharePoint is a ideal platform with capabilities like integrated document management, content management, extensible search, self service approach based interface and capabilities to extend the platform with the use of development frameworks which can be utilized to configure the intranet as a single source of truth for all the user communities across the organization.

Implementing an intranet and configuring it to deliver information must be the beginning of a phased approach that will transform the intranet to be a business tool for the organization. Applications and utilities should be implemented that would promote individual level, team level, departmental level and organizational level process automation. Moreover, Extranets should work together with the Intranets to provide and extended Enterprise which reaches out to the customers, partners etc. SharePoint can be a single platform that can be extended to provide collaboration and business applications that can not only cater to the employee requirements, but also to the collaboration requirements of customers, partners etc. via an extranet.

To support the informational, collaboration and business requirements of users located in offices that are sprawled across the globe, the intranet must be capable of delivering content with multi-lingual support, and truly integrate the teams across the world to seamlessly work together. SharePoint with its multi lingual capabilities and site variations provides a centralized management console with regional and localization settings, which can be easily used to deliver information to the audiences across the globe.

We believe that Microsoft SharePoint provides such an infrastructure and collaboration capabilities with innate extension and integration features, and can be effectively used as a platform to bring together distributed teams by providing centralized collaboration and process management capabilities with contextual information delivery.

OptimusBT, a Microsoft Gold Certified Partner is a global leader in providing Business solutions that are primarily sharepoint based and utilize existing client infrastructure. For over 5 years, OptimusBT has paved the road when implementing complex, global solutions in the areas of Sales, Finance, Procurement, Manufacturing, Human Resources, and others across industry segments around the world.

Social Networking With SharePoint

2009-12-17T18:42:00.000-08:00

With the advent of Web 2.0, the concept of Social Networking has experienced a great deal of visibility as a means to increase productivity, through shared knowledge amongst groups of people or communities. And with this concept really taking off on the Internet, there is acknowledgment, within organizations, of the fact that the community concept really is a means of developing, harnessing and maintaining long term organizational memory, and communities are in fact an effective way for organizations to capture unstructured data, and to share knowledge outside of the traditional structural boundaries.

It has been further observed that Social Networking within enterprises can also assist in the extinction of Information and capability silos by identifying subject matter experts and resources. The fact that now it could be possible to discover and identify people, teams and information related to their specific initiatives and efforts, through an understanding of the web model, has information workers wanting these social networking applications at their disposal more than ever. And even Organizations have started to realize the potential of these applications and as a mechanism to unlock and surface unstructured data and valuable information.

Having said that, it is absolutely essential for organizations to invest in, and choose the right kind of application to host these solutions. And we are going to discuss, in this article, about how SharePoint's inherent Social Networking capabilities, along with its robust platform could just be the right application for you.

Some of the Social Networking Components of SharePoint

User Profile: This is the Profile information of a user, where users store their personal information.
My Sites: These are personalized Sites created for each user, allowing him to create blogs, wikis, store his personal documents, Share information with others, etc.
Organizational Hierarchy Web Part: This Web Part shows, where the user is situated, in terms of hierarchy, in the corporate pantheon.
Colleagues Web Part: This web Part allows the user to mention who colleagues are and define his relationship with them though the use of Meta data.

People Search: This feature allows users to be able to search for colleagues based on filter criteria.

Though SharePoint, does not have all the components to be called a complete Social Networking Solution, such as bookmarking, Tagging, the ability to publish this internal data on the Internet, and more extensive support for Forms based authentication, etc, but nevertheless, It is a great platform for building robust and flexible Enterprise 2.0 solutions that are extensible and secure, and leverage Web 2.0 in a holistic fashion to empower business users, and help organizations become more agile, efficient and productive, all in a seamless and secure fashion., but it is a great starting point, and given the fact that it is already being touted as a great publishing and Business platform, and with the progress being made in the social networking aspects, it is a good platform to bet on.

OptimusBT, a Microsoft Gold Certified Partner is a global leader in providing Business solutions that are primarily sharepoint based and utilize existing client infrastructure. For over 5 years, OptimusBT has paved the road when implementing complex, global solutions in the areas of Sales, Finance, Procurement, Manufacturing, Human Resources, and others across industry segments around the world.

SharePoint - The New Face of Your Enterprise Architecture

2009-12-17T18:39:00.000-08:00

Business Users today have to operate on tens, if not hundreds of applications, as part of their daily routine to run through their quota of work, moving from one silo to another to another, and if that isn't enough, the increased application access and password complexity, making it absolutely hard to maintain focus on their core jobs. Add to that, a lack of interoperability between these systems, and a lack of a truly integrated experience, and you've just defined virtual hell. Not to mention, the virtual nightmare that it is, for the IT departments, to manage and maintain these varied platforms and applications on a day to day basis.

In a world where the focus has moved from "one solution for all " to "doing one thing, and doing it right", vendors are building software solutions that meet some specific need and Enterprises, in an attempt to stay current, and to give their employees the best-of-the-breed software end up bringing in a myriad of applications and platforms within their environments. The result: "Virtual Hell".

Positioning of SharePoint as a Business Platform

SharePoint Features and Benefits

- Provides out of the box collaboration features like blogs, wikis, discussions, project management, document libraries, lists etc., that are easy to use and allow information workers to share and manage contents.
- Allows building applications that are supportable, extensible and easily maintainable by business users
- Workspace templates along with the collaboration tools can be used to manage specific information about projects, IT, HR etc.,
- Advanced Document management capabilities with support of content types allow information workers to easily create documents, fill information and share them securely.
- Can be a single platform for Intranet, Extranet and Internet with support for hosting to provide applications and software as service
- Supports collaboration both within the internal users, external users, and anonymous users of the Enterprise.
- Supports out of the box reporting dashboards, KPI web parts etc. that can be used to build mash ups and integration with backend systems
- Offers a component, the Business Data Catalog that allows for integration of LOB systems with SharePoint, and surfacing the data from within these disparate systems, right into SharePoint.

SharePoint is a great platform for building robust and flexible Enterprise 2.0 solutions that are extensible and secure, and leverage Web 2.0 in a holistic fashion to empower business users, and help organizations become more agile, efficient and productive, all in a seamless and secure fashion. Common areas where Enterprise 2.0 solutions prove particularly useful are IT helpdesk, Active Directory user provisioning and profile management, eProcurement and the like. Well designed Enterprise 2.0 solutions virtually become key strategic assets for any organization's business performance.

OptimusBT, a Microsoft Gold Certified Partner is a global leader in providing Business solutions that are primarily SharePoint based and utilize existing client infrastructure. For over 5 years, OptimusBT has paved the road when implementing complex, global solutions in the areas of Sales, Finance, Procurement, Manufacturing, Human Resources, and others across industry segments around the world.

SharePoint Performance and Website Speed

2009-12-02T19:14:00.000-08:00

Those of you who use Microsoft SharePoint 2007 for hosting your web site are probably used to speedy page load times and a rich set of features to offer your visitors. The thing is however your experience may not be what the majority of Internet users will experience when they visit your page.

The main reason for this is the geographical location of your web site. The further away it is from whoever is trying to visit the longer it will take for it to load. Website speed is incredibly important in overall guest satisfaction, and has been proven to increase sales as well as overall SharePoint performance. If a hard earned visitor is interested in your web site, but when they try and visit they are met with slow load times and a laggy response, you can guarantee that they will close your page and find one that performs better.

On top of physical distance from the server there are any numbers of things out of your control that could cause this type of poor SharePoint performance. This is precisely why optimizing your web pages to allow for the fastest experience for your visitor is the smartest choice you can make. Using a website optimization server component like Aptimize that you effortlessly install on your web server will automatically analyze the requested web page and make optimizations that will increase your visitor’s page load time by 33%-75%.

On the surface a dramatic increase in website speed seems like enough of a benefit to both you and your visitors, but Aptimize does much more. Your new highly optimized web pages use technology such as file and image combining, as well as Gzip compression of the data. What this means is that it take less requests on your SharePoint server to complete send the page, and this means less stress on your web server. You can also start benefiting right away with an up to 50% reduction in your bandwidth costs alone.

In short, the benefits of using website optimization software is far reaching and essential to give your website the edge against its competitor’s. Before you start worrying that all these optimizations are going to take countless man hours to set up know this, Aptimize requires absolutely no change to your current website’s code and all these optimizations are preconfigured to your specific web server within minutes of installing.

You are doing yourself a disservice if you do not check out how Aptimize can take your website’s performance into the stratosphere. Faster page load times will get your potential customers and visitors the information they request as quickly as possible, this has been proven to increase conversions on a web site. Your SharePoint performance is really this important to your website speed, make the right choice and take a closer look at how Aptimize can help you.

How slow is your SharePoint website or intranet? Take the Website Speed Test.

Web Performance links

2009-12-02T19:12:00.000-08:00

Building Extranets in SharePoint Hosting Sites With WSS 3.0

2009-11-17T19:11:00.000-08:00

SharePoint 3.0 hosting in extranet mode makes it extremely easy to open up hosted SharePoint web sites for external access. Building extranet in SharePoint hosting sites offers more enhanced support for authenticated third party users in dispersed communities.

Building extranets in SharePoint hosting sites with WSS 3.0, using internet protocols creates a private network to securely share information on operations or, any other level with pre-approved users. These users include vendors, partners, suppliers, customers and other businesses. This B2B environment is kept in complete isolation from other internet users. Extranet in a SharePoint hosting site may be viewed as part of the company internet which has been extended to other users. Basically it is intranet mapped onto the public domain.

Web sites making use of extranet SharePoint WSS solutions allow business managers to share information in an extended business environment. Security is in place to ensure security information and compliance standards are met. Localized IT staff is able to manage extranet users even if these scale into the thousands. A new layer of security has been integrated into SharePoint 3.0 hosting, and this has improved the level of protection of hosted SharePoint web sites. Stringent security is required by extranet and SharePoint WSS is able to provide this.

Building extranets in hosting Sites expands authentication choices and provides a central point for group management, and extranet users which span into multiple SharePoint operations. Building extranets in hosted sites securely extends communication, document management and collaboration beyond the boundaries of the organization, and will improve operations with suppliers, distributors, partners and customers alike.

Adrian Gates (Adrian@apps4rent.com) is a Business Manager with Apps4Rent (http://apps4rent.com/sharepoint.html); which offers premium hosted Exchange, Microsoft SharePoint Hosting Services and Microsoft Exchange Hosted Services.

Blogging For Test - SharePoint As a Blog

2009-10-27T19:10:00.000-07:00

This is the first article in a series designed to help answer the questions "What can SharePoint do?", and "How do I do that with SharePoint?". Today we are going to show you how easy it is to implement a blog using your hosted SharePoint account. Later on in the series, we will take on subjects like basic websites, SharePoint design and different types of sharing and collaboration servers.

On to SharePoint as a Blog.
The very first thing we will do is navigate our preferred web browser to the URL of our hosted SharePoint account. When the authentication pops up, enter your user name and password, and press enter.Once logged in you will be presented with the default view of your Administration panel. The SharePoint site that I am using as a demo for this series looks like this:

My Default Screen
From here, we need to click on "View All Site Content" at the top of the navigation bar at the left. This brings up a page that gives you information on all the content that is currently hosted by your site. My demo site is already set up for one blog, so it looks like this:

A view of all the content on my Sharepoint Site

The next step is to click the "Create" button to go to the "Create" page. This is where you will go to make anything for your site, but for right now, we are looking for "Sites and Workspaces". Follow that link to the "New Sharepoint Site" page. Here is where we really get started:

1. Give your blog a name and a description. My demo blog is going to be "Bligitty Blog". Remember that the title you choose will be displayed on each page of the site.

2. Designate a web address for your blog. You will notice that the URL of your blog is the URL of your main site with the addition of the name you choose.

Input your title, description, and URL.

3. Select your language and template. The template we are going to use is "Blog", so select it in the template list under the "Collaboration" tab.

4. Set permissions. Here you have the choice to use the same permissions as your main site, or use a unique set of permissions for your blog. For the purposes of the tutorial, we are going to use the same settings as our parent site.

5. Set up your navigation and navigation inheritance. These two options allow you to add links from this site in the navigation of your main site and inherit the top menu bar if you wish. We are choosing "yes" for all of these options, but you can just as easily say "no".

6. Click the "Create" button. Bang! Done and done.

You now have a fully functioning SharePoint based blog, ready to rock and roll, and inform the world! Admin links to the right allow you to manage or add new posts, set blog permissions, manage comments and other blog admin tasks. Now get to work posting your content!

Adrian Gates (Adrian@apps4rent.com) is a Business Manager with Apps4Rent ;which offers premium hosted Exchange, Microsoft Hosted SharePoint Services and Microsoft Exchange Hosted Services.

Ways to Use SharePoint Effectively in Your Business

2009-09-12T19:07:00.000-07:00

We're listing some common business needs that can be solved by using a SharePoint Services 3.0 site. Maybe you'll find a few things here that you've been trying to find a solution for within your own organization.

I'd like to share with you the top 20 ways that SharePoint can solve your common business needs. And I want to emphasize that these 20 are only a few of the many ways to utilize the SharePoint Services. Once you start using it, you will begin to realize the many other valuable benefits that can easily be accomplished by the everyday user.

Shall we get started? Let's see if you can find a few productivity solutions here that you've been trying to find for your own organization.

With SharePoint you can:

1. Store all your emails on a secure and centralized Website for easy archive.

2. Keep a central task location for assigning tasks to team members. These tasks will automatically show up in your team's Outlook 2007 To-Do List. Those tasks will also link to your projects so you can easily find out what tasks are still open for each project.

3. Organize large events and store the related documents, assigned tasks, and generally post anything and everything related to the events. It will also integrate with Outlook for added efficiency.

4. Collaborate with team members on all documents and stay on top of who did what. Earlier versions can easily be restored in case someone has made too many mistakes. Projects can also be linked to related documents.

5. When tasks are assigned to team members they'll automatically be notified that they've just been assigned a new task. Alerts are sent when there have been updates to the tasks.

6. Use SharePoint as a robust, but simple project management solution for your organization or team.

7. Use the efficient check-in / check-out management feature to sort your documents.

8. Implement a help ticket resolution for your organization or team without breaking the bank.

9. Start a private company blog to communicate and share ideas with your team that's viewable only by those you give access to.

10. Gain more control over your company's documents with the content approval function.

11. Offer training materials to your teams, clients, and/or partners in a password-protected Website that can be accessed anywhere in the world.

12. Offer a secure and private place to share documents and other information with clients and/or partners.

13. Access and work with your data using your Internet-enabled mobile phone for added convenience while traveling or out of the office at client meetings.

14. Create better team communication and brainstorming sessions where everyone can participate when their schedules permit.

15. Centralize where company and team project announcements are posted. Everyone will receive a notification via email or mobile phone automatically, anywhere in the world.

16. Take the project tasks, team discussions, company contacts, centralized calendars, team blogs, and files offline. and then sync the updated information later on.

17. Create "central" documents (and syncronize), so all team members, clients, and/or partners are able to work on the same document and make changes. Updates are accessible with a click of a button. Everyone can then sync back to the "central" document and have all edits merged into that single document.

18. Easily add custom fields to any area and capture the information that's most important to your company, all without the help of a web designer or IT person.

19. Pull up and update Microsoft Access 2007 database from a local desktop and sync information to a central location that can be accessed from any where at any time.

20. Create a project dashboard where on one page you can view and filter on common project elements, such as: project details, project documents, project tasks, project issues, project calendar, project milestones, project lessons learned, project risks, project change orders, and more.

On top of it all, you won't spend a fortune to meet these communication, collaboration, and organizational needs.

Don't even get me started about the integration features between SharePoint Services 3.0 and the Microsoft Office 2007 products, especially Outlook 2007 - It's fantastic! A few of the ideas above do require Office 2007.

Keep in mind that a little training goes a long way in increasing productivity in the products you use in your business. I highly recommend taking the time to learn this efficient and effective tool and watch your productivity, along with your profits, soar!

Andrea Kalli Virtual Trainer and Assistant, LLC offers a wide variety of business services, to include: Productivity training and support for Microsoft Outlook and Windows SharePoint Services, Administrative Office Assistant services, and Podcast Production and Support services. She has more than 12 years of office administrative experience, with a primary focus on maximizing team collaboration and communication for daily work and managing projects.

As a Certified Internet Marketing Virtual Assistant, she supports your internet marketing needs such as Website Analysis, Search Engine Marketing, Blogging/Podcasting/Social Media, Email Marketing, and Affiliate Marketing.

Outlook / SharePoint training and support, Podcast / audio editing, Certified Internet Marketing Assistant.

Affordable training courses for today's business professional. Outlook, SharePoint, Word, PowerPoint, Social Marketing, Blogging with Wordpress, Photoshop, and much more.

3 Useful Applications For Microsoft SharePoint WSS

2009-08-15T18:59:00.000-07:00

3 Useful Things SharePoint WSS can do without Upgrading to MOSS

When most people think of SharePoint, they think of giant intranet sites that multinational companies use to manage content and communicate internally. They think of months of customization and design, complex licensing, and long returns on investment. In short, they think of SharePoint MOSS with all of the bells and whistles.

But there's good news. SharePoint WSS is free. It's fast to set up, and best of all, it's useful. Many small businesses are finding huge value in SharePoint WSS without the development and licensing fees a full MOSS deployment.

Of course, the question is, "What does it do?" The following are 3 useful things to do with SharePoint WSS without endless development or upgrading to MOSS.

SharePoint WSS Document Collaboration

Although some of the more abstract collaboration tools (Wikis, Profiles, Social networking) in Microsoft SharePoint rarely get much traction, the document collaboration tools are usually very popular and useful.

Let's say HR is designing the new employee manual. SharePoint WSS allows the company to create a webpage with bulletined boards and discussion threads about the manuals. HR can survey employees. Check in / Check out keeps different employees from editing the document at the same time, which saves version hassles down the road. Past versions of the documents are also accessible, and as each employee checks the document back in, they can make notes on their changes.

Use Views to make Team Calendars really useful.

Most companies use team calendars and company calendars to list events, deadlines, and meetings in one place. These calendars can even be integrated with Microsoft Outlook. It's one of the most popular features.

Views make calendars really useful because they allow users to filter events by type. Instead of seeing 20 events on the same date that may or may not be pertinent, users can filter events by type to only what they want to see.

If a user just wants to see the availability of the large conference room, and an overlay of the upcoming deadlines and his own availability, views will filter out all of the other appointments.

Resources library

One of the best uses of SharePoint WSS is to create a resource center for employees. Common documents everyone uses can be stored in one place with a familiar web interface and easy searching.

Store client information, reference materials, company information and forms, marketing materials, and anything else the company uses on the site.

Positive Aspects of Using Sharepoint Solutions

2009-06-17T18:57:00.000-07:00

Sharepoint development can be better known as enterprise information portal wherein people can access information and data on numerous platforms including internet, extranet and intranet. The purpose of sharepoint solution is to improve productivity by way of bringing in transparency into the system.

Advantages of implementing Sharepoint solutions:

Being an integrated solution, sharepoint development is much easier and simpler solution. The solution enables users to send, receive and store data quite comfortably.

It boosts productivity by facilitating users to review documents, issue tracking, get approvals and other such things without implementing any code.

Managing information is the prominent demand in today's growing business world. By using sharepoint development, users can store policies, manage auditing policies and control security settings as well.

One of the greatest advantages of using Sharepoint software is connectivity. The software provides a solid platform for people to come and connect with each other in order to transfer information and data respectively.

Sharepoint software is known for its security & safety features while transferring information from one end to another. There is information that can be available to anyone whereas, private data can be locked as well.

The software allows developers to create business intelligence portals wherein users can store information from web portals, dashboards, key performance indicators etc.

Without implementing any kind of coding, users can use electronic forms that enable them to collect information and data pertaining to business requirements from customers, suppliers, partners via a web browser. This particular feature helps in overcoming redundancy and eliminates errors from the manual setup.

Sharing of information without interpreting with sensitive issues can be made possible by using Sharepoint software solution. Interactive with Microsoft Office Excel spreadsheet directly from a Web browser through Excel services which are running on Office SharePoint 2007.

What is SharePoint Server Hosting?

2009-05-05T18:51:00.000-07:00

There are many different hosting platform options. Therefore, it can be difficult to decide which one will best serve your needs. Here are some of the most important reasons why SharePoint server hosting is the wise choice. In the first place, SharePoint makes it easy for you to communicate with other members of your team, as well as your key personnel and contacts. You can set up special alerts which notify you whenever any information or documents have been changed or added. Members of your team can communicate using email, audio, video, and instant messaging.

SharePoint even includes discussion boards where members of your team can exchange ideas in topic forums. Additionally, it allows for targeting specific audiences, so that you can target team members who have the same roles to receive the specific messages pertaining to them. SharePoint also comes with built-in lists useful in sharing information, announcements, tasks, and contacts. You can add lists for whatever information you need to share. You can create libraries of photos and other graphics related to your projects in addition to document libraries. All the information in all SharePoint libraries is searchable by your team members, which makes it easy to quickly find needed information and documents.

SharePoint hosting 2007 empowers you and your team members by making it simple to create new sites, monitor the usage of each site, and control membership. Team members can modify parts of the sites to suit their own needs without altering the basic site information available to other team members. Since it is completely compatible with the programs in Microsoft Office, your team members are already familiar with its basic software components. Address books and calendars can be copied from Outlook to SharePoint, and vice versa. New sites can be created and edited with Frontpage. SharePoint offers templates which enable your team members to easily create documents and new sites. Moreover, since all the information and documents in SharePoint can be accessed 24 / 7 from any internet connection, team members across the country or globe can instantly obtain the latest information and changes. Team members don't have to waste time in searching for the documents they need; and all documents are marked automatically with the latest version number, which eliminates the need for wading through different versions to find the right one.

No matter whether yours is a small business or a huge corporation - or even just a club member looking for a way to keep other members informed - SharePoint Moss dedicated server is easy to adjust to your specific needs. Moreover, it grows with you, since adding new users is easy with minimal effort and time. SharePoint can be enhanced with Web Parts, which can add new features to existing sites. You can obtain Web Parts for accessing data, content, and applications from independent support providers on the internet; or your own developers can use any of the existing templates provided by Microsoft.

SharePoint Hosting 2007 provides your team with the tools needed for instant communications and implementation. SharePoint Moss dedicated server makes it possible for your team members to optimize group effort by centralizing documents and libraries, with instant updating and search capability. SharePoint server hosting streamlines your team's efforts, no matter what your organization's size.

How Windows Sharepoint Services Will Benefit Your Small Business

2009-04-17T18:53:00.000-07:00

Sharing of business data in small business used to be a nice thing to have; however in today’s business environment it is rapidly becoming a necessity in order to compete in the marketplace. Never has the demand for collaboration inside your small business, across multiple locations, geographic regions or with partners and clients been needed as it is today. Many small businesses continue to struggle with the concept of collaboration and how to do it effectively.

When collaboration in the workplace occurs effectively, productivity inside the business skyrockets, suddenly you can do more with fewer resources, both human and technical and the workforce is happy because they can work from virtually anywhere. The flipside of effective collaboration is exactly the opposite, productivity goes way down, dependence on technology support skyrockets, and the added cost is reflective in your human capital and expenses. Your team becomes frustrated and even may leave your firm when the tools are not available to do their jobs effectively, wherever and whenever they need to perform their tasks.

Introducing a new way to share business data! It is not that new actually; Windows SharePoint Services is starting to catch on in the small business market, larger corporations have been using document management systems for quite some time. Just like having your email hosted in house took a little time for the small business market to embrace, now SharePoint Services is making its way into the SMB market.

The added value of SharePoint Services is that many small businesses already own the solution; they just don’t realize that they do. Windows 2003 Server or 2003 Small Business Server have SharePoint Services included, however many businesses never implement it, this could be the result of poor IT services or just a lack of awareness of the solution and the power it brings. Small Business need strong outsourced IT services that will introduce new solutions like SharePoint Services to them and help them to understand how these new solutions will benefit them and their business.

How can your small business get ready for Windows SharePoint Services?

• First of all, it is important for small business today to be on the same page and moving in the same general direction, without this, no technology solution will ever work. Your team needs to be on the same page as the management and understand the company’s end goals and value proposition, once you have this done, then you can begin to mold a technology solution to meet your business needs.

• SharePoint Services is a tool to enhance collaboration in the workplace. In order to have the technology work for your business, you need to foster an environment that promotes collaboration. Without this environment, no technology tool will ever work. Business owners today need to make sure that the lines of communication inside their business are flowing in both directions.

• Once you have your people factors settled, then the technology can be allowed to enhance that. Still in this day, many people are nervous about what technology can do. The younger workforce has been collaborating and using technology for quite some time, however many people that have been in the workplace for a while, have concerns about technology. The message in your firm needs to be that this technology solution will aid in the employees overall success and when we are all successful, the company is successful.

Windows SharePoint Services offer some of the following benefits to a small business:

• Document Libraries are repositories for your team to work together on documents, spreadsheets, presentations and whatever else you need to work on. Inside the document libraries you can secure your information and set rights on what people can do or see, control document versions plus so much more.

• Shared calendars are available inside Windows SharePoint Services where you can post corporate events, important dates, meetings or whatever calendar information you need to post. With the calendar and many other features inside SharePoint you can also view this information inside your Microsoft Outlook application on your desktop.

• Has anyone on your staff missed an important meeting? With SharePoint you can put announcements right on your main page, so that everyone can see what is happening in your business. New product launches, important information or any other announcement that you may have in the past, broadcasted out via email to your entire team.

• Have online feeds sent right to your SharePoint site. SharePoint can link into any RSS feed service. This is great if you want to show items such as road reports, weather conditions, stock prices and any other information you need to see when released. SharePoint will become the portal for your small business to get the information you need.

• Another powerful tool inside SharePoint Services is the ability to control workflow process. Does your business suffer from workflow challenges? How does your business suffer when your team skips steps in the process? What if you had a tool that would increase productivity and results by managing workflow? Would your business prosper?

The most important tip to a successful implementation of Windows SharePoint is to keep it simple. SharePoint needs to slowly introduced to your team, include them in the implementation and planning of your site, promote buy-in from all departments in your business. When the entire team is involved, your rollout and adoption of SharePoint Services will be a success.

There are many additional benefits to Windows SharePoint Services; I encourage you to visit the Microsoft SharePoint website. Also, a strong information technology consultant can provide you with additional information on the benefits of SharePoint Services to your small business.

SharePoint will be the way files and information is stored in the future, don’t delay, understand how this new technology will affect your small business, prepare for the future, provide the tools for your team to become successful. Do more with less and watch your small business explode.