Any Sharepoint gurus?

[BeeR]

We had this at last job and from my viewpoint it was basically a network file storer/version control thing. From what I gather it's supposed to be or be able to do a lot more, all kinds of amazing wonderment. Anyone able to explain the realities of this (or false hype) in such a way such that even a caveman can understand in 10,000 words or less? TIA

[Riffraff]

Sharepoint or MOSS can do quite a few things, most notably: file sharing, storage, report routing, intranet web portal / website, and project collaboration.

[BeeR]

Thx riff........can you elaborate a little on that stuff, minus the file sharing/storage? What kind of report routing can it do and what do you mean by "intranet web portal / website" and "project collaboration" - ?

[Riffraff]

Instead if forwarding a doc in e-mail and waiting to get it back, someone can route it. It gets held for that person to go modify. Some people may have read only access while the person it's waiting on has edit access. Think of the report that has to be seen by 10 people in your reporting chain.

 

Or an open inspection reports that stays open quite a long time, you don't have it sitting in someone's e-mail. Everyone in the project knows exactly who and where the hold up is. You can generate stats off who the bottleneck is and such things too.

 

Web portal and website are just that.. your company's internal website. It can manage and build it. Give access, restrict access, etc.

[cliaz]

I work with Sharepoint daily (not a developer, but use it). It is a very powerful tool. I manage all of the documentation for Incident Management, Problem Management, Change Management, and Business Continuity through sharepoint. We have leveraged SP to develop an escalation tool and I will be inheriting a project to develop a tier 2 to tier 3 escalation vehicle using sharepoint. You know what, I'll ask our SP developers at work if they have time this week or next if you want to talk to one of them. lemme know.

[BeeR]

Yeah that'd be great, many thx. Although to be honest half what you said I'm not even sure wtph you're talking about. Or should I say I've seen these terms used differently. eg what's the diff between "Incident Management" and "Problem Management?" Not even sure what you mean by 'Business Continuity," which seems to me could mean just about anything. Again just trying to make sure I get where you're coming from.

 

I won't go there re. "escalation tool" I guess I'm more out of touch w/the lingo than I thought -

[Kid Cid]

Yeah that'd be great, many thx. Although to be honest half what you said I'm not even sure wtph you're talking about. Or should I say I've seen these terms used differently. eg what's the diff between "Incident Management" and "Problem Management?" Not even sure what you mean by 'Business Continuity," which seems to me could mean just about anything. Again just trying to make sure I get where you're coming from.

 

I won't go there re. "escalation tool" I guess I'm more out of touch w/the lingo than I thought -

Think of escalation tool in the world of support. If the Tier 1 front line dummy can't handle and issue it gets escalated to the Tier 2 I've got six month's experience dummy. If Tier 2 can't handle it, it gets escalated to the Tier 3 I know what I'm doing person, etc. The tool is used to track the case so that each higher tier knows what the dipschit before him did, who was spoken to, what fixes were tried, etc. SharePoint can do these sorts of things. It's not as powerful in this regard as say Remedy, but depending on your needs, some pretty useful things can be made with it.

[TimC]

We use Sharepoint here...it would be a much better experience if we didn't have a Chief Officer that thought computers were the debbil's tool and basically only knew how to check e-mail. I can be very powerful but we basically only use it as a file storage. If you have one person that doesn't use it as intended, it drags the whole process down.

Edited March 3, 2010 by TimC

[cdrudge]

What Sharepoint can do to it's full capabilities depends on what edition you have. Windows Sharepoint Service (WSS) is included with Windows Server and is the "base" model. Moving up from there you have Microsoft Office Sharepoint System Standard and Enterprise Editions. There is also Excel Services, Business Intelligence, Infopath/Forms Server, etc that may be added on or part of a higher edition.

 

MOSS handles 6 areas:

1. collaboration - sharing documents, thoughts, messages, etc.

2. portals - publishing information so that it's accessible and easy to manage/update.

3. Once you get #1 and #2, you can index and search the content. Also can be configured to index non-sharepoint content (file shares for example)

4. content management - not requiring users to be web developers to update the site. Users can update HTML content, as well as redesign pages

5. business processes and forms - creating forms, submitting information, document workflow/routing, approval, etc. Complex forms, workflows, or processing may require infopath/forms server for most flexibility.

6. Business intelligence - you can setup business data sources so that it can be queried, ran reports, KPI dashboards, etc.

 

Wrapped up in all that you also get versioning, tracking, security, regulatory compliance, etc.

 

Sharepoint can be pretty simple out of the box, or it can be an EXTREMELY complex beast that you will want to run away from and curse Microsoft forever. If you want to use it to it's basic potential, most companies can probably do that out of the box. If you want to use it to it's 50% potential, you really probably should have a dedicated person or two. If you want to use it to your fullest potential, you'll need a team of experts. If you want to create custom webparts, you'll definitely need developer(s) fluent in Webparts and Sharepoint. A typical .net developer will struggle.

 

Also licensing costs can be pretty cheap (for WSS...it's included with a Windows Server Client CAL) to mega bucks (Standard/Enterprise CAL, server farms, etc). There are a bunch of different licensing models based on your particular needs. If you have external users will also complicate matters. Don't forget MOSS users will also need Server CALs, SQL Server CALs, external connector licenses (for external users)...it all adds up really quickly.

 

My previous job we were in the process of setting up the first of 3 MOSS portals and it really overwhelmed the company with the deploying and forms processing. My existing company is a key player in helping a local hospital get up and running with 7 or 8 eventual portals for employees, patients, doctors, suppliers, etc. I worked briefly with some of it, but I personally don't like it. I would rather have my toe nails pulled out with pliers then work full time with SP as a developer due to it's complexities. That being said, my company's custom CMS is loosely based on some Sharepoint technologies/concepts.

[BeeR]

Think of escalation tool in the world of support. If the Tier 1 front line dummy can't handle and issue it gets escalated to the Tier 2 I've got six month's experience dummy. If Tier 2 can't handle it, it gets escalated to the Tier 3 I know what I'm doing person, etc. The tool is used to track the case so that each higher tier knows what the dipschit before him did, who was spoken to, what fixes were tried, etc.

Then how is that different than incident or problem mgt?

[Kid Cid]

Then how is that different than incident or problem mgt?

I would say that it isn't some will say it is, it's mostly in how specialized the application is.

[cliaz]

Then how is that different than incident or problem mgt?

 

 

In ITIL, Incident management is a process where an incident occurs (unexpected event like an outage or a server going down) and it is managed through an escalation process

 

Problem Management, in ITIL, is a process where incidents of a similar nature are grouped together to see if there is an underlying issue at hand. Then it is identified and worked on to correct the issue.

 

Change management, in ITIL, (about 40% of my work experience) is a process of management and controlling a change where an event results in a new status of one or more configuration items. So say you wanted to change some firewall group objects, change management would ensure that the change will be unnoticed and non-impacting to business critical items.

[BeeR]

So.......

 

incident mgt is where an incident is managed

problem mgt is where you see if there's a problem

change mgt is managing a change

 

Thanks, that cleared it right up.

 

You work for the gov't don't ya.

 

 

 

Couldn't resist

[BeeR]

PS wtph is "ITIL' - English please, I'm old and decrepit remember

[cliaz]

So.......

 

incident mgt is where an incident is managed

problem mgt is where you see if there's a problem

change mgt is managing a change

 

Thanks, that cleared it right up.

 

You work for the gov't don't ya.

 

 

 

Couldn't resist

 

believe me, i used to feel the same way (and no, i don't work for the government - Verizon Global) but ITIL is a very powerful thing to know and if you have your PMP and the ITIL fundamentals cert, you can write your own career.

 

PS wtph is "ITIL' - English please, I'm old and decrepit remember

 

Information Technology Infrastructure Library is a set of concepts and practices for managing Information Technology services, IT development and IT operations (wiki)

 

Highly recommend getting at least one of the certs.

[Czarina]

We use it at my company. Its our internal webpage and I manage a database of client information on it, as do several others. We have the time clock thing on there but nobody uses it at this time. It's been pretty helpful in terms of keeping client info visible to people within the office without having to use emails and other types of less secure ways of sharing the documents.