Unleashing the Power of SharePoint
Adoption of SharePoint 2010 has outpaced previous releases, both in terms of user numbers and also the speed with which companies have migrated to the new platform. This reflects the maturity of the 2010 release, which represents the fourth wave of SharePoint products stretching back over the last ten years.
An interesting trend has been the evolution of SharePoint from a place to go for documents into a place to go to do business. Driving this evolution is the multitude of applications developed on the platform. Below are some examples of applications that Ergo have recently built and a brief description of the associated functionality:
- PMO Portal
- Used to track major milestones for all programmes and projects
- High level KPIs for project steering committee tracking
- RAG status reporting by programme and sub-projects
- Pre-programmed folder and document structures automatically created when new projects are initiated
- Action item list for major project actions issued from meetings
- Central point of access for all project documentation
- Recently implemented for a large healthcare provider
- SharePoint 2010 Time Recording Module
- Allows users to record their weekly time entries
- Allows users to log time against specific project codes or admin tasks
- Routed workflow allows managers to approve or reject time entries
- Flexible reports by user, manager and project
- Built-in hierarchy facility to assign users to managers or alternate approvers
- Contracts Management in SharePoint 2010
- Central point of storage for all company contracts
- Stores original documents or scanned copies
- Organised by department and supplier
- Configurable alerts to remind team members before renewal is due. For example, annual contracts reminder sent two months before contract is due for renewal and three year contract reminder sent six months before renewal is due
- SharePoint 2010 HR Leave Request System
- Submit online leave request form to your manager
- Manager approval workflow or multiple approvers workflow
- Automatic calculation of days remaining in the calendar year
- Email updates triggered when leave is approved or rejected
- Full reporting facility for HR, team leaders, and individual users
- SharePoint Purchase Order Management Portal
- Create Purchase Order requests
- Route PO requests based on PO value
- Single or multiple approver paths based on value and proposer
- Automatic email updates sent to proposers based on progress
- Individual work queues for approvers
- Automatic generation of PO in PDF format for issuing to supplier
- Implemented for a Pan-European insurance provider
Read our Ulster Bank case study which details how the bank has driven integrated electronic document management to the next level using SharePoint and Ergo’s Scan and Index Manager.
Ergo’s Scan and Index Manager enables the following features:
- Scan documents directly into SharePoint libraries
- Associate meta-data with multiple content or document types
- Search and find documents in SharePoint using indexed metadata
- Use OCR for automatic scanning and indexing
- Apply batch-scan for heavy workloads
- Use bar-code separator pages for bulk scans of folders (for example HR files)
- Allows departments to reduce reliance on paper originals, reducing storage requirements and speeding up access to information
- Ideal for paper-heavy processes and historical files where occasional consultation is required
- Leverage SharePoint for automatic workflow and KPI reporting by content or document type
Read Ulster Bank case study
The growth of SharePoint as a company intranet portal, a partner extranet and also a public facing website has accelerated with the release of SharePoint 2010.
One of the things that companies repeatedly ask us for, are ideas on how to make their portal look appealing to users. An attractive and easy to use portal drives adoption among the user community. It also gets Marketing departments excited about reflecting corporate branding guidelines across SharePoint driven channels.
Ergo have been working with customers to customise their portals’ look and feel. Below is an example of a SharePoint intranet portal home page developed by Ergo:
Some of the recurring features of these custom implementations include:
- Defining a structured layout for departments in top navigation panel
- Ability to incorporate branding colours across menus, backgrounds and webparts
- Rounded tab buttons and page sections provide a softer, more intuitive interface
- Integration of useful components like RSS feeds, Microsoft Lync presence, search facilities and company news
- Intelligent design and orderly layouts using this approach allows keeping content above the line, limits scrolling and de-clutters content
In a blog to mark the 10th anniversary of SharePoint earlier this year, Microsoft’s Jeff Teper estimated that 20,000 new users of SharePoint had been added every day since the release of MOSS 2007.
As a result, there has been a natural growth in the variety of SharePoint skills required to maintain a successful platform. The role of the company’s SharePoint Administrator has definitely expanded from the early days of installing and experimenting with the technology. Increasingly, companies are looking for richer, more targeted skills as their platform grows.
In addition to the primary roles that have evolved around SharePoint, i.e.:
- SharePoint Administrator
- SharePoint Developer
- SharePoint Architect
We can now also add roles that incorporate traditional skillsets for technology projects such as:
- SharePoint Business Analyst
- SharePoint QA Specialist
- SharePoint UX Specialist
- SharePoint Trainer
To this list we could also add niche roles that participate on specific projects:
- SharePoint Information Architect
- SharePoint Business Intelligence Specialist
- SharePoint Content Management Specialist
- SharePoint Search Specialist
What we are seeing, in effect, is the evolution of an extended SharePoint community or ecosystem. It should also be pointed out that each project calls for a different blend of skillsets and ensuring the success of your SharePoint initiatives means, in part, that you get that blend of skillsets right.