SharePoint

Being a content writer, I am fascinated by various content management techniques.  I came across SharePoint and its multiple uses which made me write about it.   

SharePoint and Content Management

SharePoint is a website or rather an enterprise portal solution for collaborating and connecting information and ideas. It provides a group of people such as employees, clients, business partners with a central space to access, share and interact with relevant information. SharePoint sites are dynamic and interactive and members can contribute their own ideas and make comments on content, without having to go through the complicated Web Publishing Process.     

The knowledge and information created by workers, teams and projects can be used as Business Intellegence and SharePoint can be used as a tool, to retrieve, re-use and share the data.

The Latest SharePoint version acts as a wonderful enterprise tool and supports internet, and extranet applications, intranet portals, blogs, wikis and team collaboration sites, including social community and collaborative content creation. Users can build custom web parts from their browser and can easily work on “Do it yourself” business solutions. SharePoint provides a Web Content Management platform for publishing web sites.

SharePoint Server

Share Point Server works with Microsoft IIS web server. The data resides in SQL Database. Using Webparts the server helps in presenting the information to the user in file sharing, web databases, social networking and web publishing. The SharePoint Server farms, in addition to content management provisions also provide a framework for web application development.

The Server farm helps in document management, record management, collaboration, workflow, Blogs and Wikis. The Microsoft search server an Enterprise Search engine provides indexing and searching capabilities that can be integrated into SharePoint Server web based interface.   

                                                           Figure 1: Diagram from Ecotech solutions around SharePoint

SharePoint Development for Cloud

To save cost on infrastructure and staff, enterprises can look for SharePoint Cloud solutions. SharePoint 2010 opens up its Online facility to a wider range of applications. Many companies with their knowledge and expertise in building SaaS based applications offer solutions on the Cloud, taking care of Enterprise Security needs, right Infrastructure and in turn huge cost savings on maintenance. For the large enterprises as well, there are hybrid models of – “putting commodity teams to SharePoint Online, keeping the Core Business apps and data associated with them on-premise”.

Web Parts, Frameworks in SharePoint

Frameworks can be build that are used as a standard for different applications within an organization. These form the base architecture, for migrations or work flow applications building in SharePoint. These frameworks comprise a lot of common code libraries, enterprise wide business rules applicable for all applications, standardized structures of work flow applications for the organization, and the likes.

Web parts are built as standalone applications, especially in Enterprise scenarios, which could be consumed by several applications across the enterprise. For example, a simple web part could be Excel charting. You could use this Web part at various places, to call data from excel files in a predefined order and show charts in pre-defined format (Pie, Stack, etc.)

Intranet

To keep up with company policy and procedural changes or changes to documents by other employees, with the management of projects and workload, problems managing, sharing, and collaborating on projects, or sharing information and data with the employees, SharePoint Intranet hosting comes handy.

·         Browser based content administration 

·         Mobility

·         Templates

·         Store Documents online

·         Blogs

·         Calendars

·         Task Management

·         Create Documents Online

·         Contact List

·         Announcements

·         Feeds

Extranet

·         Browser-based content management enables the IT team to manage the hosted extranet software using a browser.

·         SharePoint templates and tools in your SharePoint website provide ready solutions for custom scenarios and can be applied to common tasks such as tracking sales.  

·         Users can access the SharePoint extranet hosted site from a Windows mobile.

·         Storing documents and information online enables all authorized and authenticated users to access documents, information, and data, which is stored centrally on extranet software through a browser from anywhere in the world.  

·         Company employees can use wikis and blogs to share knowledge, information, and ideas on any and all topics.

·         With extranet hosting, authenticated users are able to share calendars, add tasks and completion dates, while maintaining control and access to specific dates and calendars.

·         Employees working on specific projects and documents are able to share tasks, lists of pending and completed tasks with project members, and assign Authorized users can create sheets, documents, and presentations online

·         Individual contact lists can be synchronized with Outlook and a mobile phone and shared with members of the site.

·         With SharePoint extranet software hosting, there’s no need to fly employees in from overseas or worry about your company’s proprietary information.  Whether you have two company locations or a hundred, extranet software hosting gives your company the secure, worldwide connectivity you need to grow your business.

Project Management

If you have a large team working on the same project without any project management software, you may be running around from group to group to stay updated.  As well, it can be difficult to bring a project together with multiple time zones, several documentation versions and stakeholders wanting weekly special reports. SharePoint project management can:

·         Keep updated on the project status through individual team updates.

·         Check how much of the project is complete.

·         Post and assign tasks to individual team members or whole teams.

·         Track potential issues and have up-to-date access for project reports.

·         Easily update the completed percentage for personal tasks, estimate finish dates and send feedback.

·         Accept or deny requests for time off.

·         Post announcements on important news and issues involving the project.

·         Post announcements for important documentation reviews and milestones.

·         Discuss the project, tasks and other related projects, all online.

·         Share project reviews and create project documentation for easy version tracking.

·         List important contacts for project team members to access easily, such as support staff, outside vendors, customer contacts and development staff.

·         Set up alerts for non co-located team members who aren’t heavily involved in the SharePoint project collaboration (alerts are auto-emailed).

·         Track project schedules, control changes, and mange project risk.

·         Setup automatic reporting for key stakeholders.

Portal Software Hosting

SharePoint portal software combines several Microsoft products into one.  Because of this, SharePoint portal hosting includes enhanced tools for content management, integration, personalization, and security as described below

·         Single Sign-On

·         Portal site templates

·         Integration with Microsoft Office

·         Customization

·         Personalization

·         Access Control

·         Enterprise

·         Collaboration

·         Business intelligence

Control Management System

There are only two fundamental concepts to learn and remember when publishing with SharePoint Content Management System: master pages and page layouts.  The overall look and feel of your website will depend on these two elements.  Here are a few more details about the key features of SharePoint CMS.

·         Master Pages

·         Page Layouts

·         Content Types

·         Style Sheets

·         Authoring Options

·         Approval Workflow

·         Scheduling Content

·         Deployment

Document Management System

The SharePoint Document Management Software System can help companies organize, share and access important documents, increasing collaboration and team productivity. It helps in  Storage, Versioning, Metadata,     Security,  Indexing and Search and  Workflow etc.

SharePoint is the business website hosting software for many leading companies.The SharePoint website hosting platform is an entire set of business programs geared toward helping a company grow:

Set up discussion forums, picture libraries, blogs and wikis.  These advanced SharePoint website hosting features can be used to build a portfolio, create an online customer service center, create informational how-to articles, and share in depth how-to documents, as well as other functions.

Create web contact forms, or any other type of form, easily.  Often, standard websites require quite a bit of time to set up web forms, especially if there are many forms needed.  This is a very easy with SharePoint website hosting.

Create additional web pages with the click of a button.  Once you have chosen your website design, SharePoint website hosting automatically assigns that design throughout the site.  If you need to add an extra page, all you need is the content.

Set various security levels for users, based on need.  If you don’t have enough time to keep your site updated, you can provide another user with a high security level to update the SharePoint website.  On the other hand, if you need someone to update just the content on your SharePoint website, that user can be set to a lower security setting.

SharePoint website hosting comes with:

·         Business website designer, using SharePoint customizable templates.

·         Mail service, when integrated with Microsoft Exchange messaging.

·         An international office, where employees throughout the world can meet for collaboration.

·         Security guard, allowing employees access to the website based on security level.