27/07/2011
We have been doing a lot of work recently surrounding the branding and theming of SharePoint systems. Whilst this is not revolutionary it has definitely become a key focus for organisations.
Previously organisations were happy to exploit the rich functionality that SharePoint offers - from a technical perspective. But they were either accepting of the technical data presentation or ignorant to the issue and / or possibilities of designing a friendlier user interface.
SharePoint can, and soon does, become a minefield of data and information and unless it is properly structured and presented can start to become inefficient and debilitating – the complete opposite of what it is meant to deliver.
Branding policies are important for ensuring consistency of image inside and outside of an organisation, and with SharePoint increasingly being used as an Extranet it breaches both these divides. However what needs factoring into the branding is navigation and usability. There are a number of elements you can include in your design strategy to address this.
Information Delivery
Bringing the information to the user rather than the user having to find the information. This can be achieved in a number of ways including dashboards and landing pages. Providing a landing page dynamically associated with the user logged-in can quickly focus attention on their key objectives and value to the organisation.
Personalisation
Providing quick links to all relevant information to a user’s role and benefits in the business – i.e. My Tasks, My Holidays, My Expenses, My Policies and Procedures, My Contact Details etc.
Navigation
Being able to provide a quick and easy navigational structure to allow users to get to the information they require efficiently – without having to drill down menu structures and reverse out or jump back to the home page and start again.
Status Indicators
SharePoint provides the ability to develop process-led applications – being able to provide overriding status indicators without having to delve into individual files, documents and / or data entries.
Design and branding strategies for a SharePoint system are becoming increasingly challenging and to that degree, more interesting. Gone are the days when it is all about colours, logos and font styles. If they were not previously so, the user interface and navigational aspects of designing a SharePoint system should be a key focus to ensure quick user adoption.
21/06/2011
The purpose of this Blog is not to overplay the fact that we are SharePoint specialists and Colligo partners, rather to share our client requirement experiences and how they are getting value in practice.
SharePoint is commonly used for managing CRM and HR processes, including the ability to store client and employee documents with meta data properties, so that the relevant information can be accessed via customer and employee records.
Providing the ability to access all information from the client or employee records makes for efficient and simplified information practices. However, the one slight downfall is email – in that important information is stored within emails that would be fundamental to an information audit trail with clients and employees. SharePoint, out-of-the-box, can store emails forwarded from your email system, but you do not have the ability to assign meta data to the record – i.e. you cannot associate a client, employee, project reference (etc.) to the file so that it can be linked and accessed from those records. So it just becomes an email archiving system.
The real value in filing emails within SharePoint is to be able to apply meta data properties so that the emails appear against the relevant client, employee, project record, regardless of who sent or received the email.
Microsoft SharePoint 2010 combined with Microsoft Workspace achieves this to some degree (although Workspace doesn’t support custom property fields), but to do this with all versions (2007 onwards), and apply custom property fields, you require an add-on such as Colligo.
Colligo provides the ability to force users who are forwarding or filing emails in SharePoint to complete the meta data properties and consequently add value for the whole organisation. This centralises all information and knowledge against the indexed records (for example the client, employee or project etc).
So combining SharePoint and Colligo provides organisations with a comprehensive One-Click communication management system that consolidates all documents (scanned, uploaded or generated in SharePoint) and emails in a central (indexed and searchable) management system, with all the advantages of meta data properties linking the communication through to the relevant records.
This process is quite simple in theory but not necessary as simple in practice and most organisations suffer from disparate and individual communication systems. SharePoint and Colligo help to make the practice closer to the theory.
11/05/2011
The ability to create online forms for data capture has many advantages. These include:
· Consistency of format – providing data integrity
· Ease of update – one change to the template and it’s immediately available to all
· Access to centralised forms processing – providing data security/storage/backup
· Intuitive/intelligent data capture – the ability for the form to direct the user input
· Links to other databases – allowing selection and lookup whilst reducing input error
These advantages are increased massively when the forms are integrated into the SharePoint environment. Data captured in the forms can be promoted (automatically) into SharePoint, which then allows the data to interact with SharePoint’s workflow and reporting features. For example if you stored quote forms in a SharePoint library then the values, due date and status fields can be promoted. This allows the workflow to alert you if the expected win date is overdue and enables the creation of graphical pipeline/lead-to-order analysis.
The issue is how to build a business case for a return on investment, as there are a number of licensing implications.
You can create electronic forms that are compatible with SharePoint by using Microsoft InfoPath – this is included in the Office Professional Plus suite. However all users who need to access or process the forms require a copy of InfoPath, which can become quite expensive. If you install Forms Services as part of your SharePoint deployment this will allow users to process forms without a local copy of InfoPath on their PC or Laptop. However Forms Services is only available with the licensed versions of SharePoint (MOSS – 2007 and SharePoint Server – 2010) and again this can be a relatively exepnsive option.
A lot of businesses extend their SharePoint systems to be able to collaborate with clients and partners, and also integrate with web sites. This complicates the issue further if forms are involved, because the client and/or partner would require licensing to process the forms.
Building the forms into an application process allows the development (using Microsoft InfoPath) and deployment in the ‘free’ SharePoint environments (WSS3.0 – 2007 and SPF – 2010) and provides the ability for end users to access or process without the need of a local copy of InfoPath on their PC or Laptop. This then becomes a very cost effective way to exploit the InfoPath Forms functionality within a SharePoint environment.
Being able to develop a forms strategy for processes such as expense claims, holiday requests, quotations, company car/mileage, timesheets for example makes the business case for implementing SharePoint a no-brainer.
12/04/2011
  
As a SharePoint development company we are often faced with the task of trying to explain to clients the complexity of SharePoint licensing around the ‘free’ versions of SharePoint. It can get complicated when considering extending the deployment to include Extranet functionality so that you can collaborate with your clients, partners and suppliers, so here goes…
SharePoint is a free add-on to Windows Server 2003/2008/2011 operating systems - and as such, access to SharePoint is bound by Windows Server licensing for the server it is installed on. If you have a server in the business then you will probably have all the required Client Access Licenses (CALs) for your staff to access the server – and by definition, SharePoint. However you may need to consider external, remote and or mobile staff that may not have a CAL to the server but because of SharePoint’s easy remote access features will start to connect and use the server infrastructure.
Once you start to extend your SharePoint functionality to provide services/functionality for your client/partner/supplier base then, whilst they do not need a SharePoint license, because they are in principle connecting to your server, they require a Server CAL. This can become expensive if it is scaled to 100’s of ‘non-employees’.
With Windows Server, you can purchase an External Connector License - which allows for an unlimited number of external users to connect to your server (and thus any SharePoint sites). Note that an external user is defined as “a person who is not an employee, or similar personnel of the company or its affiliates - so you would still require the necessary CALs for internal users (staff).
With specific reference to Windows Small Business Server (SBS) versions of Microsoft’s server operating systems - you have to provide a CAL for each named User or Device that is going to be accessing (authenticating with) your SBS domain (you can't use a concurrent connections model). There is no External Connector License for SBS. This means that if you want to use SharePoint on SBS as a secure Extranet, you need an SBS CAL for each external user!
Also, since SBS is limited to 75 CALs total - you're limited as to the number of external users who can access your SharePoint Extranet (internal users + external users <= 75).
Another consideration is Database Licensing – SharePoint utilises an SQL database management system. It can be deployed on SQL Express (i.e. the free version), but this has a limit of 4gb (SQL Express 2005) or 10gb (SQL Express 2008) in terms of database size. The full version can be licensed per user or per processor. The threshold in terms of cost efficiency between the 2 options is around 40 - 50 users – i.e. once you have more than this number of users accessing SharePoint, the per processor license is cheaper (this allows infinite connections).
Remember that external connections (i.e. clients, partners etc.) are classified as a user and as such require a database license, so this needs to be considered when extending your SharePoint deployment to include Extranet functionality.
So, if you have a server and the relevant CAL’s and you feel you will not exceed the 10gb database limit, then SharePoint in theory is ‘free’ – from a licensing perspective. But we would always considering the possible scaling implications and budget for the costs around the corner – primarily SQL Licensing and External Connector Licenses.
Scaling your SharePoint deployment to multiple servers needs further consideration – i.e. multiple web front end servers would require multiple remote connector licenses.
Taking the above into consideration, with Microsoft SharePoint, Microsoft Office, Microsoft Desktop and Internet Conenctivity and a Browser, you have a rich toolset to save your business money, share information more effectively and improve communications with colleagues and clients.
Not that complicated! It just requires the knowledge and planning up front so you can deploy and extend your SharePoint system in the most effective manner possible - So, maybe not ‘free’ but still a relatively cost efficient way of introducing efficient business processing and collaboration with your contact base.
30/03/2011
Some businesses are struggling with how to use social media in a business environment and trying to understand how some of the common social media tools can be used to enhance their marketing strategies.
All content management systems, collaboration systems, intranets, extranets, web sites and social networks serve the same purpose – to share information with people, groups or teams. As this very interesting video communicates, social media is the chosen method for information search and cannot be ignored: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lFZ0z5Fm-Ng
End users want to use technologies they are familiar with, that are ‘cool’ and fit with the way they think and work – not having to think/work differently to fit the technology. The key element is to deliver the strategy in a measured environment that adds value to the business. For example increased efficiencies, raising the company profile, generating additional enquires/sales or providing your employees with an identity and a sense of importance.
When designing and implementing SharePoint systems the subject of social media always crops up and in most cases I am met with a confused view on how best to exploit this medium. Without coming across as condescending the key aspect is no different to developing any other marketing strategy – understanding what it is your target audience wants. All businesses have a good idea of this, what they struggle with is understanding the technologies to deliver this using the social media tools. The following are examples of SharePoint features that may help:
· Social Networking Solution
The ‘My Sites’ feature of SharePoint is not just about self promotion (although this has huge business value), it is a key element of information searching and facilitates workflows using extended employee information. In addition there is a built-in organisational chart and the ability for employees to categorise (tag) data/documents – further aiding search and document/information access.
· Twitter
One of the fastest growing areas of social computing is the socially-driven listening posts on customer behavior. Connect to Twitter, and you have an ear to the ground on product or technology trends, competitor movements, and customer feedback on your own products and services. You can add your Twitter Feeds to your SharePoint site:
· Blog
SharePoint provides a standard Blogging Template that can ‘skinned’ to adopt your external branding standards. The Blog feed can then be ‘plugged’ into all your communication mediums (Web Site, Facebook, Linked-in etc.):
· Content Management System
SharePoint can be used as your content management system - i.e. to update your web site with news, promotions, testimonials, Blogs etc. ensuring consistency and not having to use different tools for different mediums, increasing efficiencies and avoiding duplication.
· Discussion Board/Forums
Another out-of-the-box feature of SharePoint with discussion threads and response alerts helping to streamline interaction.
· Wiki Sites
Wiki is Hawaiian for ‘quick’ and the SharePoint Wiki pages allow content to be linked providing efficiencies in information/knowledge access
· Extranets
Extending your SharePoint solution from an Intranet to an Extranet further engages your clients, partners, suppliers etc. and exposes the above information sharing tools to add value.
Social Media is here to stay and every business will require an organisation wide strategy. How successful the strategy is will depend on:
- Identifying the need within your specific company/market sector
- Ensuring a cultural fit of which Social Media tools you choose to use
- Developing sustainable and flexible strategies
Many companies are finding that SharePoint out-of-the-box can provide a lot of the features their target audience is looking for. SharePoint is a highly flexible and customisable platform to develop your plan around - understand your target audience requirements in this area and leverage the many capabilities of SharePoint to meet your future social computing and collaboration needs. 08/03/2011
When considering a SharePoint installation and whether to deploy the latest version – either SharePoint Server 2010 or SharePoint Windows Foundation (SPF), there are wider implications/considerations outside of SharePoint functionality – as the obvious response would always be to deploy the latest version (once proven).
For the more technical minded amongst you SharePoint 2010 requires a 64-bit infrastructure environment, this includes the operating system, server processor and SQL database. These wider implications generally mean the business case extends further than the functionality delivered by SharePoint, especially if it involves a server farm or virtual server environment.
Putting the focus back on SharePoint it means that the business needs to demonstrate a very high potential for a return, in whatever guise this takes. There are many enhanced features promoted of SharePoint 2010 by Microsoft, but there needs to be either a combined benefit or one specific area of focus to tip the balance of the business case. The new features and key enhancements tend to be around the infrastructure and tools used by SharePoint.
From a Business perspective:
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Using SharePoint as your Content Management System to feed all communication channels (Web Site, Blogs, Twitter, etc.)
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Closer Integration with the Microsoft Office tools used every day within a business - Outlook, Word, Excel etc., including the Office Ribbon
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Extended Design Templates / Features to Brand your SharePoint Site
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A lot more out-of-the-box features that reduce development / implementation time and consequently, cost
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Working with SharePoint data offline using Microsoft Office Workspace
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Digital Media Integration - Video etc.
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Dynamic Dashboard Features to present / consolidate data from within and external to SharePoint
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etc.
From a Technical Perspective
· 64-bit Processing
· Office Ribbon Incorporated
· Features and Reliability of Designer and InfoPath 2010 over the 2007 versions
· Adherence to Web-Based Design Standards
· Visual Studio 2010 provides the up-to-date tools for development of SharePoint 2010
· Further Integration with Office 2010 Suite (Word / Excel)
· Advancement of Integration Features of Microsoft Workspace over Groove
· Social Media Integration – Blogs / RSS Feeds / Twitter are becoming a big part of business both internal and external to the organisation
· Audio / Video – SharePoint 2010 has the concept of multiple content web parts where you can combine video, audio, pictures and word in a single web part
This means that SharePoint 2010 is a more efficient and richer environment to develop and deploy collaboration and business process solutions. Also, a lot of the out-of-the-box features address the frustrations of 2007. However, in practice workarounds/alternatives may have been found – diluting the business case for an upgrade based on these aspects.
If and when your business looks at a server upgrade strategy then SharePoint should be factored-in, as once the infrastructure is capable then the business case becomes a lot more plausible.
Extending your SharePoint system to engage clients and partners is an underused strategy within the capability of standard SharePoint functionality.
The business process reasons are many and varied, dependent on the organisation and its service offerings, but the key element is that it must provide the client or partner with a valued reason to log-on. If this can be achieved you are enhancing the relationship and providing differentiation that is so difficult to achieve in the ever competitive marketplace. You are demonstrating that you are a technically savvy company that is providing services and solutions that make dealing with you so much easier than your competitors.
Once your clients and partners are logging into ‘their’ information site you can then start to utilise the space to promote, announce and request feedback.
The structure of a SharePoint system to include Extranet* functionality requires careful design and planning, but if achieved it can be efficient and self-managing. All of the following examples enable the design of one page to facilitate an Extranet serving all clients/partners – for example the information presented is in direct relation to the user/company logging-in (opposed to having to set up a page/site per client/partner):
· Creating content management (announcements/promotions/blogs) with categorisation consistent with those against a client/ partner record – for example this may be based on market/size/specialism or whatever category you require
· Using property meta data against documents/invoices/orders so that they can be filtered, displayed and linked to the user that is logged-in
· Assigning tasks/fault logs/service items to specific client/partner id’s to facilitate filtering and publishing
· Schedules/diary entries logged against specific client/partner ID’s with workflow alerts for reminders
The following technical requirements should be considered when deploying an Extranet within a SharePoint environment:
· With WSS3.0 and SPF 2010, although these versions of SharePoint do not attract license costs you are bound by the licensing requirements of the server on which they are loaded – for example Operating System Client Access Licenses – this includes external users such as clients and partners
· If you are not utilising the Express version of SQL (where you get 4gb and 10gb of capacity with 2005 and 2008 respectively) the users (including external) require a Client Access License
· Authentication – in order to avoid adding external users into your Active Directory (when using Windows Authentication) you would set up the Extranet areas to use Forms Based Authentication – linking to an external database for User Name and Password Authentication
* Extranet’s are a natural extension of a SharePoint Intranet deployment and are an efficient way of providing value-added services.
We've been working a lot with clients recently on how to get the balance right between empowering their employees by allowing them to utilise the many features of SharePoint for intelligent information processing and sharing. The solutions we have provided have ensured that there is no duplication of content, avoiding unnecessary administration and maintaining the integrity of the system structure.
There is no doubt that used in the correct manner SharePoint delivers efficiencies and provides the tools for employees to do their job to the best of their ability. However, used in the incorrect manner, it can become a hindrance to efficient business workflow processing.
Organisations tend to adopt the extremities in that they either remove access to the standard collaboration functionality and as such limit the value, or they adopt no structure at all and the whole information management system becomes a web of duplicated data and unintelligent out of date information.
With a little planning, and the adoption of a number of key strategies, you can ensure that both your organisation and employees benefit from the core features of SharePoint.
Here are just some of the key features:
· Creation of Site Level Templates, Content Types and Columns - ensuring similar processes adopt the same data set. This facilitates an efficient way to aggregate and disseminate data up and down the site structure. Specific examples would be Task and Calendar Lists (that are common features/requirements of workspaces) where an employee is assigned tasks and or diary entries in different workspace/project areas. By deploying the same Site Template/List containing site Content TypesColumns, you can easily deploy a My Task and/or My Diary Web Part, so that no matter where the employee is in the site they can view all of their Tasks and/or Diary entries in a consolidated manner.
· Creation of a Site Index/Catalogue - with the ability for users to request permissions to access and contribute to that particular workspace/site. This helps to avoid duplicate site creation for the same/similar purpose. It is easily achieved with custom workflow actions triggered by site/list creation.
· Centralising Document Libraries - SharePoint workspace templates encourage the deployment of individual/isolated document libraries. Whilst there are requirements for such libraries - where information is directly and uniquely specific to the workspace/project area, in a lot of cases the documents, and contained information, would also be of value to other employees/processes. Applying meta data properties and permission sets to documents within a central library facilitates the access and filtering at workspace/project level. For example the employees still have the ability to upload and create documents within their workspace area but in practice they are being stored and tagged in a central library, but from a users perspective they only see their workspace/project documents. This allows the same documents to be tagged for access from other areas on the system therefore avoiding duplication.
By adopting such strategies you are ensuring that as and when your SharePoint systems scale, they do so in a controlled and efficient manner - allowing your employees access to the rich information management toolset that SharePoint provides.
A feature that is being requested more and more when designing and deploying SharePoint Systems (specifically the WSS3.0 and SPF 2010 versions) is personalised navigation.
Because WSS3.0 and SPF 2010 do not include the ‘My Site’ features included with MOSS and SharePoint Sever 2010, it is a common belief that these versions are severely limited in this area. This couldn't be further from the truth, there is lots that you can do to encourage early adoption by personalising your site.
The standard authorisation and permission sets in SharePoint dictate that menu items and links do not appear if you are not authorised to see specific sites, lists and/or documents. This is extended down to item-level, which can be set by workflow using Content Types so that individual documents and list/data items are, or are not, available dependent on your log-in credentials. I will be posting an article on Content Types at a later date as it's a whole subject in its own right!
To extend the personalisation of the top level and quick launch menus we commonly deploy a personalised web part as part of a Master Page template. This means that each time a new site is deployed the personalised web part is applied, therefore providing consistency throughout the deployment. So no matter where a user is in the system they are one-click away from features such as:
· My Tasks
· My News
· My Mail
· My Links
· My Policies and Procedures
· My Profile
· My Contact Details
· My eLearning
· My Blog
With the speed and level of user adoption being critical to the success of a SharePoint deployment, providing the level of personalisation described above can be a decisive factor, and as such is worth consideration when creating the functional specification.
We were recently asked whether SharePoint could be used to store an organisations Policies and Procedures so that all of their employees can access them. The answer was of course, yes. The organisation in question had a lot of different types of staff (permanent, part-time, contract) that covered a diverse range of roles and responsibilities – meaning they had a lot of policies and procedures and the scale of how these were applied was quite wide.
Using the standard tools of SharePoint we challenged the organisation to implement a pro-active system rather than a categorised library. By creating a policies and procedures catalogue using a Custom SharePoint List, where columns were used to record the ‘owner’, ‘effective date’, ‘affected departments/jobs', ‘link to policy/procedure’ and so on. This allowed them to define the key information for each policy and procedure.
Adding workflow to the policies and procedures catalogue facilitated the notification to all affected groups when a policy and procedure was added/updated, which required them to review and sign-up. Additional workflow/features provided notification to the 'owner' of that particular policy and procedure and prompted them how many days it was to the effective date, allerted them to an affected employees who had not signed-up to the new policy and procedure and allowed feedback to be logged (updating a task list with assigned responsibility).
Such examples provide powerful business cases on how organisations can gain value from their SharePoint developments without the high-end development costs. |
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Mark established Biz-ICT in 2003 and has 20 years experience in designing, developing and supporting business process systems for organisations in most market sectors.
He strongly believes that the key components in providing systems that genuinely add value to organisations are:
- Listening and understanding
- Giving clear definition
- Effective communication
- Using business language (not technical jargon!)
- Excellent customer service
- Continual self development
These are the qualities that Biz-ICT use on a daily basis in order to build on the quality reputation that they already have as an accredited provider of Microsoft SharePoint Solutions.
Click Here to find Mark on LinkedIn.
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