Two questions people often ask when first confronted with SharePoint are, “What is it?” and ”What does it do?”
If you read the blurb about SharePoint on the Microsoft site it’s full of marketing-speak and talks about the
“Integrated suite of server capabilities for enterprise search, content management, business process facilitation, simplified information sharing, and enhanced business insight”
SharePoint home page on Microsoft site
which really tells you nothing at all about what SharePoint is or does.
If you persevere and learn a bit more, your next question is likely to be, “What does it do that I can’t do now?”
Strangely enough, it’s the wrong question. What you really need to ask is, “How can SharePoint help me to do my work better, or more easily?”. But let’s answer the other question.
What can I do with SharePoint that I can’t do now?
The answer is … not much.
You can, however, do things differently—and that difference can save you a lot of time and work.
Let me explain using a non-SharePoint example.
‘Sandy’ is a friend of mine. She’s a bookkeeping wiz, and loves the work. She toyed briefly with the idea of going into business with ‘Richard’, providing bookkeeping services for a small business clients. The problem was, Richard was an old-fashioned guy who had not had much exposure to computers throughout his working life. His idea of bookkeeping was the old-fashioned ledger book.
He refused to consider one of the dedicated accounting programs such as QuickBooks or MYOB, although he did agree that maybe they could use a spreadsheet—provided they wrote it into the ledger first, and then transferred that to the spreadsheet.
“No way,” said Sandy. “That’s far too much work, and double-dipping, besides.”
Richard refused to budge. The only way he would contemplate recording the data was was via pen and paper.
As you can imagine, their partnership foundered, then and there.
And that’s how I look at SharePoint. I have talked about this on another site, how I believe that SharePoint’s biggest competitor is its own product siblings in the Microsoft Office suite. Nowadays not many people want to go back to pen and paper ledger books, but most people find that Excel, Word and Outlook, along with Windows file manager, are more than adequate for them to do their day-to-day work. They know these products, they have processes in place for working with documents. Processes that have been tweaked over the years so that they really work well. Why should they change?
First up, you don’t change the tools. SharePoint is not called the Microsoft Office SharePoint Server for nothing. The Office products are integrated so seamlessly it’s almost impossible to tell where SharePoint starts and Word or Excel or any of the other Office products end. If you write business reports you are still going to write them in Word. If you create financial spreadsheets you’re still going to create them in Excel. What does change is how you store and share those documents, and how you report on issues and other things.
But you do have to change your way of thinking to get the best out of SharePoint, and if you don’t change, then you will never understand just how much SharePoint can do for you.
Remember, it’s not about “What does SharePoint do that I can’t do now?”. It’s about, “How can SharePoint help me do my work better or more easily”.
57 responses so far ↓
1 Peter Benton // Oct 2, 2008 at 11:30 pm
Please contact me via e-mail. We are a small company located in Mn. We work with small businesses who all are on ths MS Small bus server platform, which includes sharepoint. Alot of our customers want it and I need to learn it, Where do I start? I have attended several seminars but they only apply to high-end enterprise solutions.
Thanks Peter
2 Mosslady // Oct 6, 2008 at 8:29 pm
Peter
I think you are going to find this a lot with SharePoint. Lots of people have it, lots of people use it, but all you really get for information is either Microsoft sales talk or developers writing custom code for it.
I’m a SharePoint user like you. It’s probably best to ask questions and maybe I can answer some things for you, based on my own experience. SharePoint is a big product, and it’s hard to say definitively “what it does” because everyone’s experience is different.
One of the biggest problems I had when I started was that I didn’t even know what SharePoint was. We made some major mistakes first time around because I (and all of us at work) had no idea. It’s more than just a fancy file system with added features, but seriously, that’s all we used it for to start with. And for our intranet.
Ask me any question, no matter how trivial it seems, and I’ll try to answer it. If I just try and explain it though, I’ll end up sounding like Microsoft. [A sales pitch for what isn’t a bad system really, but not giving you any real information.]
That goes for anyone. Ask questions. I have been there, absolute beginner, and felt that I was drowning in technical and sales talk that told me absolutely nothing. There is no such thing as a dumb question.
Another site, if you haven’t already come across it, is http://www.endusersharepoint.com, one of the few sites dedicated to end users of SharePoint, rather than developers, although it does presume you know a little about the product.
Regards
3 Carol Woolman // Dec 11, 2008 at 10:11 am
Someone told me they thought SharePoint could do what I needed. Can you tell me honestly if SharePoint does these things and if so, does it do it “Out of the Box” or will I have to customize?
The three things I need to do are:
1) Gather information (from the field, Marketing Divsions and resellers into some sort of database)
2) Share information (share certain pieces of collected information with others to approve, and collect additional information)
3) Workflow (come up with a workflow that triggers the correct set of sequenced events/tasks)
I need people to be working in the same spreadsheet or database at the same time.
Thanks,
4 Mosslady // Dec 12, 2008 at 6:18 pm
Carol
Yes, SharePoint can do this. In fact, it’s designed for things like this.
You need to remember however, that out-of-the-box doesn’t mean you just install it and it’s ready to go. There is still quite a bit of work to do, to set up your lists and your workflows. It’s a fairly steep learning curve. It’s going to take time to put together.
You also need to change your thinking about how you do things. Start with the SharePoint lists rather than the spreadsheets for example. And don’t expect things to work exactly as they do with Excel.
I am assuming here that your marketing database isn’t so huge (e.g. tens of thousands of records) that it needs its own dedicated system.
Regards
5 Peter Thomas // Dec 30, 2008 at 12:30 am
I am the IT Director for a large Mental Health Hospital in London, England. I need to understand more about what SharePpoint can do for us. The main thngs we need to do are:
1)Publish reports containing data from our SQL Server 2005 Data Warehouse of clinical and management information on our Intranet and Extranet.
2) Develop a new Intranet. Will SharePoint act as a Content Management system/Development tool for this or are there better products out there e.g. DreamWeaver, RedDot etc?
6 Mosslady // Dec 30, 2008 at 9:20 pm
Peter
Addressing point 1 first: Getting data from other databases.
If you want to get data from another (non-SharePoint) database, you need to be sure to get the right version of SharePoint. You need MOSS 2007 Enterprise edition, because this functionality is the Business Data Catalog.
Do a search on MOSS and Business Data Catalog to find out more. Some places to start looking may be:
These articles can be confusing and they assume you know SharePoint. Persevere, and dig around to find better information.
Don’t expect it to be simple though. Unless you’re doing very basic linking you are going to need someone with database and xml skills to set it up for you.
Point 2: Using SharePoint as an intranet or use another content management system (CMS) or web editor
We use SharePoint as an intranet at work and I have to say that I would never want to go back to static web pages (a la Dreamweaver) again. I’m not even sure we could go back, because our intranet has evolved so much.
The change has taken some of the load off the intranet administrators and put it back onto the user. The users do most of the work—uploading documents, changing text and so on. As the intranet admistrator I no longer care when a process document changes, because the people in charge of that particular process document are responsible for it. I no longer care when our OH&S wardens change, because the people in charge of OH&S look after that.
But it does make for more work keeping the intranet manageable (because you have less control) and consistent (everyone likes to do their own thing).
There’s also a lot more training. It’s easy enough to learn how to upload a document but to really use SharePoint properly you have to show people more than that.
A lot of our file management has moved over from LAN directories onto SharePoint too. It has become our central repository for document information, rather than just an intranet.
I haven’t used content management systems like RedDot, although I do know it has capability to work with SharePoint. The last non-SharePoint content management system I worked with (a few years ago now) created static web pages. I ended up ditching it as soon as the contract ran out and reverting back to DreamWeaver because the CMS complicated things unnecessarily. (But remember, too, that I am quite technical, and am very comfortable digging about in the code, which many people who use CMSs are not.)
If I had the choice, would I choose SharePoint over, say, Dreamweaver or another content management system (i.e. a non-SharePoint CMS)? Most definitely, unless the web site was tiny. (SharePoint is not a cheap product, particularly when you take associated costs e.g. database and servers into account). But there is a steep learning curve. Very, very steep. And to get the best out of it, you might need extras like development, or at least someone who’s good with XML (and a few other things).
I say now that I would definitely use SharePoint every time. But if you had asked me the same question three years ago, when I was totally confused about the product and really didn’t know what I was doing I would probably have said the opposite.
7 Conrad // Feb 10, 2009 at 12:23 am
Hi,
i would like to know if it is possible to stream live videos from web cams so that multiple people in the company can have video chats with each othe ron the sharepoint site
thank you,
8 Mosslady // Feb 10, 2009 at 7:51 pm
Conrad
I must say I don’t know much about live video streaming, so I am sorry that I can’t answer this one at all. I can’t even think of anyone who might be able to answer this for you.
My gut feel is that I don’t think SharePoint would do this well. We’re talking huge files and large amounts of continuous data here.
If anyone else has tried this, please let us know.
9 Conrad // Feb 10, 2009 at 9:37 pm
Mosslady thank your for taking the time to read my qeustion. I f it is not possible in that way can you help me find any other alternatives. I need to make a conference video chat system en try to incoparate it into sharepoint. I know with C# it is possible to get e live stream from a web cam i just need to know how i can make this into a webpart and put in on the sharepoint site.
Thanks you for your time..any tips or help is welcome
Conrad
10 Mosslady // Feb 11, 2009 at 6:17 pm
Conrad
I can only say what I would do in your situation.
First, I would check the sites that talked about live streaming and web cams and see if any of them have done it on SharePoint.
If I was going to write my own code for the web part I would start at Microsoft’s MSDN site (maybe start around http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb931737.aspx) and some of the C# developer’s forums.
I would also maybe ask a very general question over over at http://www.endusersharepoint.com/ — do they know of anyone who has done it?
Regards
11 Art C. // May 16, 2009 at 2:53 am
The truth is that SharePoint does nothing useful. It is Microsoft’s attempt to create even more platform lock-in, which no one is really asking for. It’s an intranet portal program (and not a very good one, at that).
Nearly every organization considering SharePoint would be better served by mainstream intranet tools such as wikis and blogs.
12 Mosslady // May 18, 2009 at 7:40 am
I have to say I would disagree that SharePoint does nothing useful. As an intranet portal tool I love it, and would hate to go back to a static site.
And as for wikis and blogs — each has their place, yes, and sometimes that place is inside SharePoint, by the way — the problem starts with the scalability of it all. One tool (wiki for example) is okay when only one group is using it, but when you start to get multiple groups who insist on using multiple tools, then they become a nightmare to manage.
13 Art C. // May 18, 2009 at 9:16 am
Mosslady is completely wrong. SharePoint, without question, does nothing useful. The “multiple groups who insist on using multiple tools” is a strawman argument. Agreeing on a single toolset does not mean you have to use Microsoft’s toolset. In fact, “make the job fit the tool” is how many organizations got stuck with abominations like Exchange in the first place. Do you really want to make that mistake *again* ??
Around here our mantra is “always choose an open tool; if one is not available, at least choose a non-Microsoft tool.” Microsoft builds software designed to lock you into its world. Solving your problems is secondary.
14 mross01 // Aug 11, 2009 at 6:53 am
When a competitor posts something like this it really makes you question intent as well as how non-bias can you be.
SharePoint actually is a very useful tool for many things, things that no other tool on the market has in a single solution. Lotus Notes (IBM) is the closest to it and it falls short as well as doesn’t work that well.
As far as video streaming, yes you can do that in SharePoint. Anything you can do in .NET you can do in SharePoint, it’s just not out of the box. Creating a WebPart to provide the feature is all you have to do.
Posts like above should be deleted from the board because they serve no purpose other than flame a war, which is the only purpose I can see a post like that would be made, any other reason and its merits are questionable.
15 nhuygen74 // Aug 11, 2009 at 7:27 am
What “competitor” is being advocated here? I agree with the post you are criticizing — Microsoft products are designed to lock the customer into more Microsoft products. I for one applaud the efforts of those who advocate openness.
Your suggestion of deleting posts from the board is scary; it suggests that you, like Microsoft, enjoy playing on a non-level field.
SharePoint is indeed a redundant product. It accomplishes nothing of value unless you are Microsoft and on the receiving end of those large licensing fees.
16 mross01 // Aug 11, 2009 at 7:44 am
Click on the links.
Trying to start a flame war on a site is cause for deletion. Of course MS products are to try to lock you in, all products are or they would not survive. But this is not a debate on open source or MS, its about SharePoint and what it does, which is a complete product that does more than any other competing product on the market.
I have use and implemented several competing products and nothing compares to SharePoint in freatures. TCO is fairly low compared to others in an enterprise solution. Quality is very good for an Enterprise Solution from MS.
17 mross01 // Aug 11, 2009 at 7:44 am
Wish I could correct spelling and grammar but I can’t so please ignore those.
18 Sats // Aug 17, 2009 at 8:04 pm
Hi Mosslady
I love SharePoint. SharePoint gives everything whatever end user is required. Remember we need to do something better job to understand How SharePoint works
Thanks
Sats
19 Mosslady // Aug 18, 2009 at 9:29 pm
Thanks mross1. It’s always a difficult question as to when to censor and when to not.
Sats. It is a good product.
I’m currently talking to a group of project managers. They love their Excel reports but they want automated reports that they can customize for various audiences. Dashboards to the Executive, more detail for the line managers, and so on. Right now they have to manually extract that data from the spreadsheet. It’s tasks like this where SharePoint comes into its own.
20 Diablorick // Sep 18, 2009 at 4:54 am
I just have one question for the people putting down Microsofts products. If it is so bad, why do the majority of computer users, worldwide, use it instead of Linux? Maybe the answer is that it works. It does exactly what people need it to do at a reasonable price. I think it is people like you (Art C.) that lock people in to what you want. You use free software because it is so complicated that it will mean the company can never get rid of you therefore lining your pockets! If you were really good at your job, you could use Microsoft products and still keep your job. Linux administrators, for the most part, are proffessional blackmail artists who install all of this impossible to manage “freeware” and then tell you if you fire them, you won’t be able to find anyone else to run it.
I think there is a place for everything. I have 10 Debian Linux boxes that serv web pages and forms, and I also have 12 Microsoft boxes that control our domain and internal stuff.
Everything has a purpose, stop being so 1 sided and judgemental!
BTW, I am setting up our first Sharepoint server now, I will let you know how it goes.
21 SteveM // Sep 25, 2009 at 2:16 am
Quotes like “always choose an open tool; if one is not available, at least choose a non-Microsoft tool”, from Art C. are based on emotion and not logic. I’ve heard similar rantings from others almost foaming at the mouth as they decry Bill Gates as the leader of the “dark side”. C’mon Art, can you really say with a straight face that Sharepoint “without question, serves no useful purpose”. Gimme’ a break!
It may be frustrating to you that Microsoft is everywhere, and that some of their tools are less than perfect (ok, maybe some of them suck), but at least they make an attempt at interoperability, which is what most of us mortal humans want.
22 Mackie // Sep 30, 2009 at 1:37 am
I don’t know what your experiences have been, but mine seem to be more closely aligned with nhuygen74 and Art C. Our IT department tolerated a “rogue deployment” of SharePoint for about six months, because a department head wanted it. Eventually we had to put our foot down and replace it with software that knows how to “play well with others.” I suppose SharePoint would be useful if your environment is 100 percent Microsoft across the board, but we found it cumbersome to maintain, difficult to interact with, and impossible to integrate into a heterogenous environment.
Also, as has been pointed out here, SharePoint really does appear to be yet another Microsoft “me too” product that adds nothing of value over more readily available, more flexible, and less expensive (often free) tools.
As for the idea of IT architects designing systems that only they can understand as a means of implementing some paranoid form of job security … well, I’m afraid that it is possible to do this with proprietary software just as easily as it can be done with open source software. Regardless of what software you are running, it is the implementor’s responsibility to document everything. When something new is implemented around here, I don’t consider the job to be complete until it is documented.
23 Mosslady // Sep 30, 2009 at 9:02 pm
My introduction to SharePoint was similar — a department head wanted it — but different in that the department head controlled IT spending and implementation at the time, so she said, “We’re buying SharePoint and everyone will use it.” Full stop. Next thing we know the product is purchased, installed and we have to support it. It was a very steep learning curve and we made lots of mistakes before we could really say we knew what we were doing. I think (I know) that acceptance suffered because of this.
Talking about Microsoft in general, my experience here has been that Microsoft pretty much has the business market cornered. It’s a rare business that doesn’t use the Office suite, so it’s not really a stretch to go for one more Microsoft product, particularly one so well integrated with Office.
How SharePoint is implemented initially in your company makes a big difference to how you feel about it ongoing.
And a side note here. In my experience, I find that people often get better value out of MOSS than they do out of just WSS. They are more accepting of SharePoint when they use MOSS than when they start with straight WSS. Which is logical I suppose, in so many ways that it hardly needs to be pointed out (features, cost–which means more people in the company have a vested interest in seeing it succeed, and so on). The rogue deployments Mackie talks about above are usually WSS sites.
24 Diablorick // Sep 30, 2009 at 11:26 pm
When I posted my original comment, 12 days ago, I was just getting ready to setup my first sharepoint server. I was delayed a few days in preperation for other events so I actually installed it 2 days ago. This morning it is online and serving over 300 documents company wide, to 50 users , in 4 groups. Before this install I knew absolutely NOTHING about MOSS and in 2 days had a completely functioning, and secure, server.
In contrast, the first Linux server I setup took 3 weeks just to get it running. I had to re-install it 7 times, and even after it was setup, every time I wanted to do anything with it I had to spend days on the internet searching for the commands that actually worked. I finally went out and bought several books on it and spent weeks reading and trying until I finally got them running properly. So in the end, this “free” software, cost me over $200 in books and cost my company thousands in paying me to figure it out. We found out the hard way that NOTHING is free!
I guess the gist of what I’m saying is, if you already know everything about Linux and are a complete expert, then use it. For you it will be free and easy. If you are a beginner or even a knowledgeable windows admin, you better be prepaired to spend MANY hours going “back to school” if you are going to use these free programs. In other words, for the average admin, you can setup a MOSS server and have it functional and useful in a couple days with very little knowledge of any programming languages.
I am now getting ready make it look good and that involves a little learning curve. I have found that, so far, it is easier to use SP designer than to try and use the web interface for mods. I will let you know how it works out.
25 Art C. // Oct 1, 2009 at 3:41 am
@Diablorick
My my, such hostility coming from the Microsoft camp. It seems that you are saying “Linux is hard to use” when you really should be saying “I don’t understand Linux.” The fact is, both free and proprietary software have a learning curve. The fact that MOSS more closely matched your existing skill set, and as a result was easier for you to get up to speed on, is a coincidence. This comparison could be made for any two technologies.
@Mosslady
That’s exactly the problem. You chose MOSS because it integrates with Office, which you already have. This is by design — lots and lots of lock-in via proprietary and difficult-to-separate integration. You add one more piece after another, and soon you are paying thousands of dollars each year in Microsoft licensing fees. If you are ok with being indentured to a single vendor in that way … well, it’s your money. Far better to use software which integrates using open protocols and standards. That doesn’t necessarily mean you have to use open source software exclusively — there are plenty of software vendors out there who are happy to work with open standards. Microsoft isn’t one of them. This is why, as I mentioned earlier in this thread, that in our data center we always choose a non-Microsoft product if possible (a rule that was in place long before I got here, btw).
And yes, I still maintain that SharePoint does nothing useful.
26 TomD // Oct 23, 2009 at 5:22 am
This is a little frustrating and probably embarassing, but i have been reading for two days and cannot tell you what Sharepoint does.
Is it Exchange public folders? Is it a project sharing explorer when files are stored across a WAN? If someone could please explian to me what Sharepoint is, what it does for me, and a list of common tasks that it solves/automates, etc that would be very helpful.
Thank you in advance for your help
27 Mosslady // Oct 24, 2009 at 6:29 am
This is a question I have never seen a really good answer for, so if anyone can point to a good explanation of what SharePoint is, please do.
At its most basic it is a combination of files in folders (libraries), tables of data (lists) and a website. Each of these has added functionality.
Files, for example—and they can be created through SharePoint itself or through other programs—allow you to keep versions, to check-out (which write protects them and hides the changes you are making to a document until you check it back in), and to add workflow.
The tables of data sound simplistic but you can do a lot with simple rows and columns. Microsoft have created some basic lists for you — task lists, issue lists, surveys, calendars, announcement lists.
You can add extra information (metadata) to (almost) everything. For example, you may wish to add a business unit column to your process documents so that you know whose business process it is.
You can display your documents or your lists pretty much any way you want to. You can display them in the basic folder structure. You can use metadata—e.g. display by business unit. You can display user-specific information—show me only those documents I created. Or time—show me the tasks due today. Or by a combination—show me tasks assigned to me that are due today.
You also control who sees information. Want everyone to see the sales brochures but only the Sales team itself to see prices—you can do this.
As for web sites. Think something like iGoogle, where you add gadgets to the page (sort of). Some of them can be standard, some can be personalised. Your files and lists make up part of that website.
The whole thing is integrated with Microsoft Office, so it’s part of programs like Word and Excel and Outlook (sort of again, I’m being very simplistic here). You can work in, say, Excel or Outlook calendars and make this information available on your SharePoint site.
Everything, even documents, are stored in a table. You use a browser to access it.
There are lots of things I haven’t talked about and I have made it sound pretty terrible, but the whole thing comes together well and it makes an impressive whole.
As for what it can do. If you have the bandwidth I would recommend that you download the Office SharePoint Server 2007 Training pack—the standalone edition—and watch the videos (just the videos). This will give you a much better idea of what SharePoint does. Beware — it is 140MB.
28 Michelle Cox // Nov 12, 2009 at 7:35 am
Hello,
First let me just say I am not an IT person at all… I have no idea what half of the stuff is you guys are talking about, but I’m trying to look into SharePoint as well and am happy I found this site because I’ll take any help I can get!
The project I am working on is to author policies, procedures and work instructions for the company I work for. Sounds simple, but my boss is looking for a policy and procedure handbook that can be viewed and maintained in a central repository on an intranet. He also wants it to be able to handle tasks and for department heads to be able to report out on their daily goals with it. I know all of this can be done manually and I also have found software that can do bits and pieces of each of these things, but I have heard that SharePoint is used in companies for projects like this. We already have what I understand to be “enterprise” software, we already have software that takes care of our internet site and our IT department already maintains our intranet site with something else.
So I guess my question is; is Microsoft SharePoint way to big and advanced for what we want, and if so does anyone have any ideas on what we should look at?
Thanks in advance!
Michelle
29 shelleyg // Nov 18, 2009 at 11:19 am
Ditto to Michelle’s comments. I’m also not an IT person and although we’ve been using WSS for about 18 mths I’ve had to learn it all on my own as we go along. I find it very useful however the OOTB options are now limiting us.
After reading Mosslady’s initial comments I’m not sure that moving to MOSS 2007 is going to be much help but then again staying with WSS isn’t going to achieve what we want. I find it frustrating that whenever I ask questions in various forums the response (and rarely there is one!) is usually try a third party product.
Initially I’d just like to know if MOSS allows greater sharing of lists (incl task lists) and web parts across sites. As an eg, have one contacts list on home page containing all data but a team can view just their applicable contacts on their own team site.
Also I haven’t yet found a site that gives more detailed examples of how to use various web parts etc. I’m keen to do some sort of training course in Oz but those that are available tend to be more along technical lines, which is beyond me. Any help or direction would be appreciated.
Michelle
30 Art C. // Nov 24, 2009 at 6:26 am
Michelle Cox:
Sharepoint is overkill for what you’re trying to do. A simple wiki would get the job done far more efficiently.
31 Mosslady // Dec 6, 2009 at 4:58 pm
Michelle
Sorry I took so long to reply to this. Life has been frantic both at work and home and blog questions kind of got lost in quagmire somewhere.
I would say, no, SharePoint is not too big for this, and would be ideal. You don’t need the full power of MOSS, however. You need a simple Windows SharePoint Services (WSS) site.
From there you would set up
Given that you have a lot of enterprise software I would assume that you are probably running on Microsoft operating systems already so it should also be relatively easy to set up, and WSS shouldn’t cost you anything. (MOSS costs, WSS comes with Windows Server (or as an add-on)). You will need the help of your IT department though, because it has to be set up on a Windows Server operating system.
In my experience, I have found that a lot of smaller sites like this are far more successful than the bigger sites.
And sorry, Art C., but I totally disagree that a wiki would be a better option. These type of documents (policies, procedures and work instructions) are controlled documents. You can’t have everyone who reads them updating them (but you can get feedback). SharePoint works perfectly for these types of documents for a number of reasons.
32 mosslady // Dec 6, 2009 at 6:51 pm
Shelley
Upgrading to MOSS would give you the Content Query web part, which does exactly what you want. It takes items from any list in your site and displays them elsewhere. Google Content Query web part to find out more. A good place to start is with an old article from the Microsoft ECM blog. It gets a bit technical at the end, if you read down to the end of step 2 you should get an idea of how it works.
Eric Kraus came up with a way to display lists in WSS using RSS feeds, but it requires an understanding of xlst to set up.
[I just want to give credit here for one of my favourite web parts ever. Back when I was using SPS2003/WSS2.0 Carlos Segura’s cseg rollup was an absolute life-saver. It worked similar to the content query web part and I used it everywhere.]
33 heraldo // Feb 23, 2010 at 5:28 pm
Dear Peter Thomas, I think Drupal is more suited for your needs, and it’s free.
34 Sammy // Mar 11, 2010 at 5:34 pm
First let me give thanks to all the people who contributed to the topic. I am busy with a small HR project here in my workplace and I thought I can use Sharepoint as a platform. What is needed is a web based platform that is capable of sending reminders to e-mails and Short Message Services (SMS) to members of staff mobiles. Can I create input fields, radio buttons, text boxes, dropdown boxes etc where users will be able to capture info, write comments & send reminders to other users in their groups. Part of what I need to do is to be able to draw stats based on user respones to our surveys.
Can I achieve all this on Sharepoint.
35 Mosslady // Mar 12, 2010 at 6:04 pm
Sammy
Definitely yes to getting stats based on user responses to surveys. A qualified yes to reminders and an even more qualified yes to SMS messages.
User surveys are one of the bread and butter things that SharePoint does, and you can set up a pretty reasonable survey in SharePoint 2007. You can export the results to a spreadsheet and do pretty much what you want with the data.
For reminders - that depends on what type of reminders you want, how you want them and how many people you want to send them to. Task list and workflow alerts are easy to set up but the more complex your reminder the more complex your setup and the more you will have to fiddle with the settings to get it working. For example, if you simply want people to respond to your survey you can set up a workflow and send an email to them when they need to respond, but if you want to keep nagging at them until they have completed the survey you have to look at something like “Use SharePoint Designer to Email Daily Task Reminders (The Dog Ate My Task)”.
For SMS I can only go by what I have read here, because I have never actually done it. I believe you need third party software - something like Ozeki’s SMS gateway . While I don’t think it would be hard, it might take a bit of effort to set up. Once it was set up, you would probably use it with some kind of workflow.
36 John Williams // Mar 20, 2010 at 7:09 am
I’d been contracted by a small finaincical services commpany to develop a workbook, with two sheets. Sheet 1, data input by the sales staff (company name/type, possible loan amount, probability of loan going through, etc.) Sheet 2, pivot tables aggregating the data from Sheet 1. Since discovered Pivot Tables don’t play well with SharePoint. Any work-around? e.g., split into two workbooks, some sort of anchor/connection, etc. What actually happens to a file in SharePoint, as it flies around the co. intranet?
37 Mosslady // Mar 28, 2010 at 8:19 am
To answer your last question first. What happens to a file in SharePoint as it flies around the company intranet?
Files such as Excel files are stored as data in a table row. The spreadsheet itself is stored as one record in the row, and the other SharePoint data (created, modified, metadata) is stored in other columns in the row. So when you open the Excel spreadsheet you are just reading a record in a table, and when you save it you are saving the record back into the table. The file you are saving is a genuine spreadsheet. If you have access to the database you can go into the tables and get the spreadsheet out.
SharePoint lists (I’ll explain why I am talking about them later) are stored as one line per row in a table.
Re the spreadsheet itself. The version of SharePoint that you are using makes a difference. For example, if you have the Enterprise license you can use Excel services, which deals reasonably with pivot tables. However I would not expect a small company to run Enterprise, or even MOSS, just WSS.
What do the people want out of the data? Pivot tables graphs or just aggregates?
One way would be to start with a SharePoint list (not the Excel file) that contains the sales data (from sheet 1). Sales staff would then add the data as new items to the list. For the data on worksheet 2 you would either a) create views– on the same list — that group the data, or b) export to a spreadsheet each time, or c) link the list to the spreadsheet.
38 QueenB // Apr 23, 2010 at 4:50 am
Wow…what a convo! Have to admit I am almost afraid of getting my head bitten off by ArtC but I will dive in anyway.
We are a small software company. We specialize in Relationship Management solutions. 4 years ago we dumped our .NET applications for SharePoint. Why? Because we saw a future in it. We are also realists. Do we LOVE Microsoft? No. BUT, we have 18 years experience working with business people and like it or not, MS has this market sealed up (so far anyway).
We now have two SP applications that offer huge value to SP deployments and a number of tremendous partners around the globe offering SP Add ons.
But I am not here to promote our products. I am writing because its important for the new SP people here to understand that SP is like a freeway. It has some infrastructure that is useful (you can always walk down it) BUT to really take advantage of it you need to drive). What does this mean? Well, you can spend the time to learn and put a site together and build your own parts OR you can buy them and make your sites more instantly useful for your users. There are more and more web parts (now thats a cool concept - web parts) developed for SP every day around the world! There is a tremendous number of SP developers forging ahead to make SP a valuable tool for all sizes of business infrastructures (although larger is definitely where things are right now due to the technical nature of it).
We are deploying CRM solutions at a fraction of the price of competitive products. SP and our RM applications present a platform you can grow into and expand in ways that suit each business using a host of really useful third party products. In my over 20 odd years in technology I have repeatedly seen companies get constrained by their technology choices. Companies always have an immediate need they focus on and then when that is solved the questions start “can I now do this and that and this and that…”. SP provides the perfect platform for this common business situation. Because SP is a platform that has a set of built-in tools like a document repository and a host of web parts for different purposes you can start where your current needs are and then as your needs evolve, you can buy more. YES …buy more. All software companies need to survive. In fact this is the first technology that when someone asks “can we do…….? I can say YES. Ok yes there is a cost but as we all know nothings is free. As long as the end result moves the business forward…that is why are all here in the first place. There is a growing army of support networks for SP so the help is there when you need it unlike many of the products mentioned here that no one has ever heard of. SP will continue to grow and therefore the support network and options will grow exponentially. YES its a learning curve and YES there are issues with it…but the future is SP. If I didnt believe that I would not have placed my business future on it. So far all indications are that I was right to hop on the tail of the Elephant because delivering flexible, affordable, valuable and extendable solutions that do not constrain business is our driving focus.
Thanks MOSSLady for putting this together. I hope my comments have helped someone feel confident they made the right decision with SP.
39 Mosslady // Apr 27, 2010 at 8:34 pm
Thanks QueenB. Love the freeway analogy. Sometimes I feel like I’m speeding down the SharePoint highway out of control. But I’d hate to return to the winding back roads.
40 nhuygen74 // May 12, 2010 at 3:26 am
Finally got rid of our SharePoint server. What a relief! A few of our best people decided to finally bite the bullet and convert all of the data into open formats, and finally we’ve got everything running on open platforms with no Microsoft crud layered all around it. We actually fought over who got to turn off the power on the SharePoint server.
I’m in agreement with whomever it was here who originally said that SharePoint does nothing useful. In fact it actually *prevents* you from doing useful work.
41 QueenB // May 12, 2010 at 6:32 am
I can understand how organizations get to the point of shutting a system down. Whether it be SharePoint or any system - really doesn’t matter.
I worked as a Consultant for a well known contact management software through the 90’s and lots of organizations bought and then walked.
The failure to gain value from a software can be that there is just not a fit but other times its due to the expectations of the organization being out of alignment with the technology itself.
To me SharePoint is a platform to launch applications from, without those applications it can be like wandering down a freeway in the middle of the night wondering where the heck you are going.
Our company has developed a SharePoint CRM Template and a Stakeholder & Issue Management application that operate on SharePoint. Our clients are leveraging their MS licensing and we can feed into infrastructures already in place to deliver high value at extremely low cost compared to comparable software.
We work with other small (read “care about customers”) development companies who are creating highly valuable components for SP which provide efficiency improvements, business intelligence, automation of processes, etc which drive business operational costs down.
Admittedly this is still a “new frontier” but its exciting for a long time (30 years) technologist like myself because businesses can (and are) leveraging their investment in SP and creative independent development companies (like ours) are taking the platform to another level of sophistication in order to offer an alternative way for organizations to grow - organically!
42 WeaselSpleen // May 30, 2010 at 2:27 am
I realize I’m way late to point this out, Mosslady, but I had to respond when I read this comment you made:
“And sorry, Art C., but I totally disagree that a wiki would be a better option. These type of documents (policies, procedures and work instructions) are controlled documents. You can’t have everyone who reads them updating them…”
This is completely wrong.
The fact that you believe this suggests that you know nothing about the software you’re criticizing.
It’s like saying Toyotas are better than Fords because Fords don’t have automatic transmissions. The fact that you know of one particular Ford that doesn’t have an automatic transmission doesn’t mean that NO Fords have automatic transmissions.
You’re assuming that what you know about ONE Wiki, Wikipedia, MUST apply to all. You haven’t taken the time to actually explore the alternatives as thoroughly as you have explored the Microsoft products; you rely on hearsay from fellow fans of your products, what you hear in the popular media, and the internet zeitgeist.
That’s not unusual, I see this a lot with people who are very dedicated to a particular brand ( and no, I’m not just talking about Microsoft, Apple fans and Adobe fans often have the same blinders on.)
Rather than take a few minutes to actually investigate the capabilities of wikis, you simply assume that what you have heard about Wikipedia applies to all wikis, and declare that wikis cannot be used to manage controlled documents.
The fact is, while wikis CAN be configured to allow anyone to edit articles, most wikis DO NOT work that way. Most wikis are private, set up for internal use by organizations as a way to allow collaborative development and management of information by those who SHOULD do so.
Before someone starts throwing out the typical accusations that always appear whenever someone criticizes a favorite, no, I am not trying to start a flame war. I am pointing out a very serious factually incorrect claim made by Mosslady which could cause someone to make a bad decision, and more importantly, which could further spread false information about a good solution.
43 Mosslady // May 30, 2010 at 8:23 pm
Weaselspleen
I concede you have a point. I have only used three wikis in my working life (none of them are Wikipedia). They have all been very simple systems, all open source, all implemented by developers for use by other developers and they have been very basic and have had no controls around who can do what. And the last one I used is three years ago now.
What defines a wiki? Is it the mark-up language that sits behind it? Or is the way everyone can contribute?
When you start adding defined controls to a wiki then to me you are building a knowledgebase, not a wiki — even if it does use wiki-style markup. I suppose really we could call a wiki a fairly simple (back-end wise, I mean) knowledgebase and SharePoint a very complex one.
If I needed to create controlled documents and I wasn’t going to use SharePoint, I would start with a dedicated knowledgebase rather than a wiki. Something like KBPublisher, which is easy to manage but gives me good control over who can edit which sections and what areas/articles users can see. (And doesn’t cost much.)
44 Penny Grewal // Jun 10, 2010 at 11:33 pm
Hello mosslady,
I was pleasantly surprised by your website. I hope I am just in time to discover this piece of work. The information you provide about SharePoint is quite right. For the people with other queries, SharePoint really does what YOU want it to do. If you are interested in knowing what SharePoint can do for you, maybe it will be easier to talk to a person who deals with bespoke SharePoint solutions. We are a compant that have been considered as SharePoint experts by our clients.
I agree that it does take a little effort to get on the SharePoint train, but its never too late to implement SharePoint.
Contact Paul - paul@cognite.co.uk
45 WeaselSpleen // Jun 20, 2010 at 4:30 pm
I’m baaaack!
You said “When you start adding defined controls to a wiki then to me you are building a knowledgebase, not a wiki”
I don’t understand this distinction you’re making. A wiki is a tool for creating and maintaining knowledge about a subject. Sounds like a knowledgebase to me.
How do you create a knowledgebase? You identify subject-matter experts, and invite them to contribute their knowledge. You allow peer review of the content to ensure that the inevitable errors and opinions are identified and corrected in as unbiased and fair a way as possible. You organize and edit the information provided so as to make it easy to navigate around and locate specific information.
Wikis excel at all three of these.
What makes a wiki a wiki? Well, first of all, it’s the software, including the incredibly simple yet extremely powerful markup language that makes it easy for users to create links and establish relationships using nothing but plain text.
Second, it’s the collaborative development process which these systems allow. Simply put, there’s never been an easier way for a group of people with a common interest to develop a viable knowledge base. Dismissing wikis simply because they allow all users to edit the content is completely missing the point.
Who ARE the users?
THAT is the point.
If the users of a wiki are all passionate devotees of a particular subject, then you will simply never find a better source of information about that topic than that wiki.
If you don’t want random teenagers coming in and vandalizing your content, then don’t give random teenagers access to your wiki. Problem solved.
The idea that wikis allow ANYONE to edit the content comes from Wikipedia. Actually however, most wikis are restricted to allow editing only by authenticated users, and those users are generally either employees or members of an organization, users/consumers of the product or service, or interested amateurs who choose to devote their time to studying the subject. There’s no better possible source of information on a subject than that.
Notice that it’s an ongoing process, not a final product. That makes sense, because in so many cases, the subject matter of wikis is current information that is constantly changing.
The IT field, for example, is filled with wikis created and maintained by IT professionals themselves. These wikis invariably knock the socks off of “professional” support options, because they contain real-world information, reinforced and refined by the real-world experiences of all the users, and uncolored by corporate spin-doctors and marketroids.
46 Mosslady // Jun 26, 2010 at 9:11 am
Weaselspoon
Totally agree with you that a wiki can be used as a knowledgebase. As you say, it’s simply the tool you use to build it.
I’m not saying they’re not good tools for collaborative documentation such as you mention.
Controlled documents such as policies, procedures and work instructions are not collaborative. Yes, you have the SME process and review process and user input and feedback, but controlled documents provide the rules by which a company or department works. There are often business and legal implications for doing things by the rules. You can’t have people changing them on the fly.
And for this I say the wiki is not a good tool. Given the choice I would always take a purpose built content management system (SharePoint is good) or a custom-designed knowledgebase that has some access/control smarts built in.
47 Avinash // Jul 27, 2010 at 4:40 pm
I am a new sharePoint developer who has just migrated from asp.net to sharepoint just few weeks ago . As I am totally new to this thing , I am facing too many problems in understanding and getting used to technicalities used in SharePoint .
Just for POC purpose , I am asked asked by team Leader to developer a SMS based Online dictionary module in a SharePoint 2010 website .
My requirement is like this ,
1. User ( who wants to know the meaning of a German / Japanese word ) will SMS that word to short code given by Language teaching site ( developed in SharePoint 2010)
2.Short Code provider will forward that SMS to Website , here Website will process that SMS and search for the meaning of that word in SharePoint list and then auto reply back meaning of that word to sender Number .
I have researched a lot and so far I have found nothing useful . What I have found so far regarding is
1. You need a fully PAID SMS GATEWAY
A. To Use Gateway , You need to have a standard Modem , SIM card , data cable, OMS service provider , a Short code and blah blah ….
2. Lots and lots of money for just testing whatever you find regarding this matter .
3. Even if you get ready everything necessary with you , still how you are going to process incoming SMS and then search the word of which meaning is supposed to be sent back to customer is totally UNCLEAR .
4. I dont have any idea of how you will auto create a SharePoint List of Searched word and their meanings
5. Through SharePoint 2010 , you can only send alert SMS’s using a costly OMS service provider .
SharePoint is a Crap thing for this particular requirement . I have researched a lot and so far I have found only one good SMS Gateway provider i.e. Ozeiki SMS Gateway which needs a costly Wavecom Modem and a
OMS service provider . Indian OMS service provider as suggested by Microsoft seems to be non-functional so I don’t have any use of that OMS service provider .
I am so helpless . I am searching for good and helpful content regarding this since last 10 days so far and I have found nothing useful .
I need something as
1. A project Code
2. No need to install any Modem ( treating SMS just like an e-mail )
3. some guidelines and idea about how to save a SMS in sharepoint list and search its meaning in SharePoint tables ( or lists as they call it ) and auto reply its meaning .
can ANYBODY help me into this ?
48 Mosslady // Jul 31, 2010 at 3:11 pm
Avinash
I was going to point you to the Microsoft Sharepoint Developer centre, but I see that you have already posted there. I think that the post there (http://social.msdn.microsoft.com/Forums/en-
US/sharepointdevelopment/thread/bd801d6b-b934-428e-bff1-d52d82cd439e) is still a good starting point.
I don’t know anything about sending SMS to Sharepoint but I can tell you that once you have what you want to know, it’s a simple matter of using the Lists web service to get the information into and out of sharepoint lists. See http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/lists.lists_methods(v=office.12).aspx. For example, you would use getListItems to get items in a list, and updateListItems to add new items once you
had them.
Also, there are a number of commercially available web parts already written for SMS. They may not do what you want, but it may be worth checking them out also. Google something like ’sharepoint sms web parts’.
49 Rick H // Aug 26, 2010 at 4:06 am
Developer/Consultant here trying to understand SharePoint for a potential engagement. My read of the Marketing stuff is that SharePoint is for sharing docs and for managing department-specific intranets. Seems cool enough, but seems inwardly focused. What I’m having trouble finding is the simple question: Is SharePoint a reasonable tool with which you would develop a company’s PUBLIC, commercial website? Is that what the SharePoint Developer is for? Thanks… Great forum.
50 Sydney // Aug 26, 2010 at 4:17 am
Hi, I’m creating a newsletter for end users. My main email would be on Micsrosoft Outlook 2007. Since Outlook doesn’t send html showing the actual document, I was wondering how Sharpoint could help me create an html newsletter, and then how I could send the end result via Outlook. Thanks
51 QueenB // Aug 26, 2010 at 6:31 am
Hi Rick, MS uses SharePoint for its web portals and sites and I did some research on who was using SP for web sites a few years back and was surprised to find some big names so yes you can and SP Designer is a tool to assist in that process. You will need specific skills though. One of the limitations is developing the necessary skills sets or you can outsource of course.
Sydney, I have done alot of work in Email marketing and I definitely do not see SP as the first tool of choice for what you described. There are so many great well established email marketing tools that using SP would be far down my list of choices.
My two cents worth anyway…..
52 Rick H // Aug 26, 2010 at 7:06 am
Thanks QueenB. Than helps. Part of the issue, though, is word usage in the SP world. When you say “…for its web portals and sites…”. The word “site” there seems to refer to what I’ll call Intranet sites? Using “Web Parts” with announcements, shared docs, etc? Does that make sense? Then, when you later use the word(s) web site, I get the sense that you mean outward facing public web (inTERnet) presence; and that’s where you seem to be confirming my suspicion that the bigger, internet “web sites” are done via the SP Developer product. As a Dreamweaver user, that makes sense.
Speaking of making sense….am I? R
53 QueenB // Aug 26, 2010 at 7:34 am
Ha ha…welcome to the world of SharePoint Rick! Some “mean” people have compared SharePoint to women - but I really don’t know where they were going with that one
SharePoint has the ability to play many different roles. There is also this challenging terminology used in the SP world - yes its like a world of its own. You need to earn your stripes ! ha ha…
The MS web site is both internal (for partners,etc) and external so yes SP would play a bundle of roles there. This is definitely one of the powerful functions of SharePoint - to be both public facing and intranet facing. Yes SharePoint Designer is the tool for designing SP - all facets - externally facing “sites” and internal usage “sites”. In SP they are all “sites” with different permission structures which is why we interchangably use the term. One of the best explanations for SP terminology is found http://blog.pentalogic.net/category/sharepoint-development/
Good luck !
54 Mosslady // Aug 26, 2010 at 1:49 pm
Rick
There’s a site called TopSharePoint which lists some public-facing SharePoint sites. Once you know what they are you can see the SharePoint that makes them up, but otherwise you can’t always to pick it
One of the better known sites is Hawaiian Air. Not just because it’s been around a few years now, but because the people who developed it blogged about how they did it.
Some businesses suit SharePoint sites better than others. If I was setting up a web site for a small accountancy firm, for example, with mostly static pages I wouldn’t use SharePoint. The whole site could be done far more cheaply using straight html/AJAX pages. If I had one or more of the following: data that changed frequently; a large site; mash-ups; some information that was internal and some external (intranet/extranet/internet); a site where the infrastructure was already in place (SQL, IIS, SharePoint); or the user wanted to manage their own content then I would look at it.
55 mosslady // Aug 26, 2010 at 6:55 pm
Look at SharePoint, I mean. I wasn’t very clear on the last bit.
Sydney, I’m with QueenB. on this one. I wouldn’t use SharePoint for this. I’m not clear what you mean by Outlook not sending HTML showing the actual document. Outlook does usually cope with html.
56 Ridiculous // Aug 28, 2010 at 12:25 am
I think it’s ridiculous that people come to a sight ABOUT SHAREPOINT, who despise the product, and feel it’s necessary to post multiple times. . . It’s hard to trust a think from people like Art C. or Nyugien when they are returning to this site for no other purpose then to back a tool. People like that need to bite a curb.
57 mross01 // Aug 30, 2010 at 11:09 am
Amen
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