May 2008 - Posts

• Ready Steady SharePoint!

  This blog has moved. Click here to open the new site. Selling SharePoint  (document management system / collaboration platform) to customers is not easy. There are two approaches you can take when selling SharePoint: It works the way you business does  - Microsoft’s approach I believe that SharePoint really is very good platform but it is not an out-of-box solution. If you are experienced partner, you will be able to create added value for your customer, and your SharePoint project might be a success even with “it can do everything you need” approach. Keep it simple - Toni’s approach Potential customer for SharePoint solution is every company with two or more employees. (Look for companies using Windows operating systems and Microsoft Office). Each company is different, so I am trying to approach each customer with unique approach. 1) The first meeting is usually just an interview: we sit down and discuss customers problems in areas of collaboration, working with documents, information etc. Customer is the actor in leading role, you are just asking smart questions while trying to focus on problems that you can solve with SharePoint. 2) From information gathered I prepare a presentation/demo that focuses on problems emphasized by the customer. With focused presentation you can really show the real benefits of SharePoint platform. Usually customers have similar problems, so we have a set of predefined solutions for them. (Microsoft has done great ground work for you so you should check their WSS application templates). Usual problems are: Inability to track documentation I usually propose standard Windows SharePoint services / document libraries, calendars, contact lists etc. The key here is to focus on added benefits of SharePoint sites over standard file shares Paper based HR processes(Vacation approval, Education needs, Various requests) I usually propose tracking all these requests using WSS. In case of complex processes we are implementing Nintex Workflow. Help Desk request are not centralized Solution is based on combination of Issue Tracking, Wiki library and workflow that follows their business process. If there is no process defined, you should try to recommend one, take look at ITIL for more details. Legal department spends too much time to generate contracts In a large organization majority of contracts is based on a template. So you can save a lot of time by integrating process of contract generation into a SharePoint list/document library Paper based processes to route and approve incoming documents Proposed solution is storing your scanned documents to a SharePoint document library. With combination of proper tagging and workflows you can completely eliminate the need for paper based approvals and routings Inability to find documents Recommendation is based on company size and it may vary from WSS Search, Microsoft Search Server 2008 or full blown Microsoft SharePoint 2007 Enterprise. Microsoft solutions are really good because they are built on existing IT infrastructure So, keep it simple. Your first step is to find a business problem you can solve with SharePoint. The first project will show your customers how to use SharePoint and what are the real benefits of SharePoint implementation.   This blog has moved. Click here to post a comment. Posted May 16 2008, 10:01 PM by toni with 7 comment(s) Filed under: benefits, use cases, selling sharepoint

• Is Groove ready for widespread usage?

  For about two years we have been testing Groove internally. My first impressions were great. Groove offers the ability to share files and collaborate among various teams, inside and outside your organization. Groove key advantages: File sharing / Collaboration Unlimited extensibility It works on any network connection (it knows how to use it optimally) It allows you to take your files anywhere with you You do not need an IT guy to set it up, it requires no infrastructure (Please note: There is Groove Server but it is not required for simple deployments) It can be integrated with Windows SharePoint Services It works for inside teams, but it is also very convenient for teams that are not part of the same company / not having common infrastructure During last nine months I have been trying to evangelize Groove inside our company as great tool for ad-hoc collaboration on very small projects and similar ventures. However nine months later the verdict is: Groove 2007 is not ready! Here are some problems when implementing Groove, and possible solutions. (RayO I know you are reading this ). Some might argue that we should integrate Groove client with Groove server but at this point I see it just as overkill. Current situation What should Microsoft do to correct it? People do not like yet another program that sits in their task bar. Integrate Groove with Outlook It’s interface is… well it is hard to say, but it looks funny… Integrate Groove with Outlook, use the same interface People do not like to have yet another account, and they tend to forget passwords for it Integrate it with LiveID In case of hard disk error you cannot restore your Groove account if you do not have a backup copy of it Users should be able to login to Groove without backup file, using their LiveID Restoring your backuped account might not work if it is older than 60 days. (Error: Saved account for name is too old and cannot be used) Microsoft corrected this issue, check kb article. It does not support file versioning / check-in & check-out, document properties (only when integrated with SharePoint) should be there out of box Process of inviting people might get to complicated when you have a number of people with same names and duplicate accounts (they lost backup, password etc.) Integrate it with LiveID Groove freezes my computer. Groove slows down my computer. (I did not have any problems with it, but numerous people reported similar issues) This might be related with something else, but they should check it out… You cannot use Groove with a customer that does not have it Well it would like to see Groove Web Access, maybe Live Mash will be something similar. Posted May 07 2008, 10:05 PM by toni with 1 comment(s) Filed under: groove

• Your corporate intranet ?= Web 2.0 + Wikipedia

  When talking about intranet portals from end users perspective, the most important “feature” for them is content. Yes, a Silverlight photo gallery is very cool but employees are visiting intranet to find more information about company, to perform their jobs better (), etc… While consulting customers on intranet solution architecture, I always advise them Web 2.0 concepts. When you are building intranet solution on SharePoint 2007 (or any other CMS solution); you should allow maximum number of employees to create content. In such a case your intranet site will become like Wikipedia. The key for Wikipedia’s success was the ability to have virtually unlimited number of authors from all over the globe. You might ask: “How many is many, and how many is too many?“ Well, it all depends on your company’s profile and internal organization, but anyone who has a computer and knows how to use Word is a potential contributor to an intranet site. What are key benefits of this Web2.0/open approach? Instead of having just a small percentage of employees contributing, you will allow anyone that has something to say to be creative. On some sites like: policies, procedures, quality control, legal, etc. you will retain control, but when we are talking about general news, projects, information, events – what could go wrong? If you are using SharePoint 2007 as your intranet platform, you can enjoy benefits of SharePoint platform to establish content approval, versioning, alerts and identity integration to track all modifications. I already wrote about using blogs as infrastructure for your intranet portal, but you can also use wikis, integration with email or regular pages to achieve the same result.   Posted May 02 2008, 09:30 PM by toni with no comments Filed under: blog, collaboration, web 2.0, intranet

• Word cannot publish this post - part 2

  I already wrote how trilled I am with the ability to publish SharePoint content directly from Word 2007. If are looking to create a blog site that will allow all users to contribute you will need to setup user permissions correctly. By default, Blog Posts list requires approval, but contributors are not allowed to approve. That issue will result in their inability to publish posts from Word directly. They will receive an error: “Word cannot publish this post” and their post will not be saved. In order to resolve this issue, you will need to: 1)    Disable content approval for blog posts list 2)    Allow contributors to create and approve content In my next post I will try to provide some ideas on how to increase adoption of your intranet portal.   Posted May 02 2008, 09:29 PM by toni with no comments Filed under: blog, troubleshooting