I recently received a free copy of "The SharePoint Shepherd's Guide for End Users", by SharePoint MVP Robert Bogue, and I wanted to share my thoughts with you about the book.
The lack of good end user resources for SharePoint like the Shepherd's Guide is what prompted me to start writing this blog in the first place. SharePoint is a vast, complex, and often difficult tool to use if you're not properly introduced to it. Time and time again I have seen SharePoint sites wither on the vine from a lack of use, not because the opportunity for collaboration was not there but because the audience could not grasp everything they could do with their SharePoint site or how to do the most basic tasks. But educating and training your users on SharePoint can be time-consuming and expensive.
For me, this book is like the end user manual that Microsoft never shipped with SharePoint but really should have. Rob does a great job of identifying the core functions of SharePoint that users need to know, and covers them as easily understood common tasks. I think this is a great way to introduce information workers to SharePoint, as a user my goal is to figure out how to accomplish what I need to do with a new tool not the intimate inner workings of the tool. By distilling SharePoint's core collaborative functions into chunks that users can easily grasp, the book makes it much easier for a new user to get up and going with the platform.
Each task is clearly laid out with a descriptive purpose, so a user can identify whether or not the task described by the book is applicable to what they are trying to accomplish in SharePoint. Rob then walks through the steps necessary to execute the task from start to finish, and includes very useful screenshots to guide readers through the SharePoint pages they should be seeing in their environment as they complete the task. The book also does a good job of explaining why the task is being executed in a particular way and covering any limitations or gotchas that the reader may encounter.
The book covers a wide range of topics, including basics like using a SharePoint collaboration site and integrating with Outlook and the rest of the Office stack. Rob also goes into some Microsoft Office SharePoint Server (MOSS) 2007-specific topics such as MySites and publishing sites. One thing I would have liked to see Rob spend a little more time on is the difference between MOSS and Windows SharePoint Services (WSS); he does mention it briefly in the initial chapters of the book but when covering MOSS-specific tasks I would have liked to see him pointing out that features like MySites require MOSS and are not included in all versions of SharePoint. But I know from personal experience that this is not an easy topic to cover briefly and understand why he took the approach he did with WSS versus MOSS in the book.
The Shepherd's Guide also includes some outstanding resources in its appendices. The appendices cover Site Definitions, List Definitions, Web Parts, Views, and Permissions, and provide excellent descriptions of each SharePoint component within those groupings so that users can get a good understanding of what makes them unique as well as their common use cases. I think it makes a lot of sense to include these in appendices, rather than trying to explain the components within the book's tasks. This way readers are not getting overwhelmed by all the information and have an easy resource to flip to when they need it. And I really like seeing everything covered so thoroughly, because these components are key elements to successfully using SharePoint to its fullest potential.
One last thing about the book I want to touch on is the multiple and innovative ways Rob is distributing and licensing the book for sale. If you want to purchase a single copy of The SharePoint Shepherd's Guide for End Users, you can do so from Lulu.com. Rob also reports that the book will soon be available from Amazon.com, I have linked to its page if you want to bookmark it for future reference. But the option Rob is offering that I think is really interesting is the availability of corporate licensing programs for companies that would like to purchase multiple copies of the book for their end users. To me, this gives a company the opportunity to provide the Shepherd's Guide to their information workers as an actual manual for SharePoint so they have a ready resource on hand when they need it, sparing the need for costly training resources and classes. For more information about the corporate licensing programs, I recommend sending Rob an email with your request.