Compliance - SharePoint for End Users

9/11/2009

Cool Content Friday - Resources for wrangling SharePoint content

Wrangling content throughout its lifecycle can be a major challenge. It's human nature that people and groups might use slightly different terms or systems to work with files, which could lead to complexity or chaos over time.

Planning how to organize content can make it easier for users to find and work with it. If you are storing records electronically, your organization may need to set policies and establish guidelines.

SharePoint MVP Zlatan Dzinic recently covered these topics in presentations at the SharePoint Best Practices Conference, and he has shared his insights in this post. He has also shared his slides.

The following two presentations are downloadable - on the pages that appear, click the "zipped" folder icon Zip Folder

on the left to start the download.

The Taxonomy in SharePoint ECM and Enterprise Search presentation covers ways to organize data consistently, such as by setting up a taxonomy (structure), and opimizing for search.
The Records Management: Best Practices in SharePoint presentation covers setting policies, establishing standards and procedures, and designing management systems.

We hope you find these resources to be helpful. Cheers,

Toni

SharePoint End User Content Team

Posted at 1:41 PM by | Category: Compliance; Cool Content; Planning & Process; Search | Permalink | Email this Post | Comments (0)

9/10/2009

Records management resources for government organizations

If you work with SharePoint records management solutions for a government organization, you might find the following resources to be helpful.

The Records Management section of the Microsoft Solutions Center for Government has links to whitepapers, other downloads, case studies, videos, and more. Topics include compliance, auditing, e-discovery, digital archives, and best practices. You can also view recent Microsoft in Government e-Newsletters.

If you are interested in state and local government, check out this post about a time-saving county solution, which officials report has helped to improve response times and service to citizens.

If you are planning a deployment, you might be interested in the Downloadable book: Records Management Guide for Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 on TechNet. If you work with end users, you might be interested in Help and How-to topics on records management.

Thanks,

Toni

SharePoint End User Content Team

Posted at 5:39 PM by | Category: Compliance; Site Admin | Permalink | Email this Post | Comments (0)

8/17/2009

Integrating Your Library System with SharePoint 2007: As Simple as BDC

By Miles Stauffer, MLIS
CIRPD | http://www.cirpd.org

As a consultant librarian I have been given many opportunities to work with technology. By far the most rewarding was my experience with SharePoint 2007 and the Business Data Catalog.

For those of you who don't know the Business Data Catalog happens to be the most amazing, simple, and under rated feature of SharePoint 2007. Essentially it allows you to connect to all your other business applications without any coding. I am still shocked that as a librarian I was able to do this!

In this article I am going to explain why this is such a valuable tool, and to give you some direction if you want to know more. Future posts will walk you through the different library systems.

Why is this so interesting?

There are numerous reasons why this is so interesting, so let’s start with the library world. At the moment there are multiple content management systems that allow a library to integrate all of their holdings into one slick portal interface. Products such as Encore, VuFind, and Scriblio are incredibly popular, but there are two glaring problems with these data aggregators: 1) your library portal is still separate from your intranet, and 2) you still have go through all the work of implementing this brand new system instead of using the SharePoint installation that already exists.

Let’s take a step back from the library world to get a bigger picture of this. SharePoint 2007 using the Business Data Catalog allows your company to aggregate all of your specific software solutions into one platform. With regards to usability, user centered design, and accessibility it is amazing that SharePoint can provide one interface where users are able to access all types of information regardless of what system they live on.

Next Steps

To make this a reality there are a few tips, tools, and sites that you will need.

Documentation – to me there is not too much written on the internet about how to use the Business Data Catalog. Three sites come to mind – ones that I use all the time;

Software – there are 2 programs that allow you to create BDC definitions files

The MS BDC Editor in their SDK package (free)
BDC Meta Man which is not free, but a great tool to work with

Microsoft SharePoint 2007 can integrate and leverage all of your existing software services with no coding needed. For me this has been a rewarding process. These projects promote the visibility, flexibility, and the importance of the library. Libraries always have to fight for their importance, take the next step and wade into the waters of the BDC!

Posted at 9:55 AM by | Category: Building Solutions; Business Intelligence; Compliance | Permalink | Email this Post | Comments (2)

7/24/2009

Great resource about managing SharePoint sites - Friday cool content

I found a site that I think’s pretty cool, assuming you’re a SharePoint geek like me :-)

SharePoint Governance is quickly becoming an invaluable resource for info about how to effectively manage SharePoint sites, a.k.a. governance. It was launched on July 1^st and contains info from your peers and “gurus”.

The site includes information such as, comparisons between SharePoint and other applications, how to setup a governance committee, and a SharePoint ECM governance plan.

I hope you find this helpful. See ya' next week.

Thanks,

Brian Granowitz

SharePoint documentation team

Posted at 9:56 AM by | Category: Business Processes; Compliance; Cool Content; Site Admin | Permalink | Email this Post | Comments (0)

6/15/2009

Updating Metadata on Files in SharePoint: Low Cost, High Reward

by Mike Doane

Ascentium | www.ascentium.com

Once documents are in SharePoint libraries, there’s always going to be a need to update metadata, whether it’s because the original author didn’t apply metadata correctly, or there’s a need to add new metadata. Finding documents is a high priority for all clients we work with, but many don’t have the resources or big budgets to do the work manually with their dwindling resources.

We see this scenario all the time with clients: one person (who may no longer work for the company) created a template for a Word doc, and someone borrowed it and started working on a new doc, etc. The original author’s name is still in the Properties field, so it appears that s/he has written half the company’s documents. I’m exaggerating, yes, but the story rings true with many customers who laugh at that scenario.

So, once docs are in place, yes, you can go to Spreadsheet view and make changes, but a much easier and more comprehensive way to do this is to use DocKIT’s “Apply metadata to documents from metadata file” feature, which basically works like the migration tool, except that it simply updates the metadata already attached to the documents in SharePoint.

Here’s how it works:

Step 1 – Review documents to be changed in your SharePoint site. Below I’ve identified five documents that need a metadata “refresh”.

Step 2 - Create a spreadsheet with the URL of the documents you want to change (see above) and the new metadata in columns that match the Site Column names/values in the SharePoint site. Below you can see that I’m going to make changes in Profession, Professional Organization and Author.

Step 3 – Start DocKIT and use the Apply metadata to documents from metadata file (the Excel file above) option.

Step 4 – Make sure to identify what columns you want to change.

Step 5 – Run the Wizard to update the metadata. When DocKIT is done, the metadata are updated and ready to be indexed for search. Old author names are gone, new metadata are in place.

Step 6 – Create Views to take advantage of the new metadata. For example, you cold sort a View by Professional Organization.

Hope this makes sense! Post a comment if you need more explanation. The idea works great if you’ve got a lot of old metadata (or NO metadata) on documents that you want to update, and if you don’t have a lot of time/resources to do it manually by hand.

There are a lot of other uses for the tool, but those are some we’ve done with clients so far. Thanks for reading.

Posted at 1:02 PM by | Category: Productivity; Search ; User Experience; Compliance | Permalink | Email this Post | Comments (9)

3/12/2008

The simple and hard questions about information management policies

Introducing Ryan Gachet as a new guest blogger. Ryan is a SharePoint consultant.

As a SharePoint consultant, if I'm lucky, I am asked a simple question that has an equally simple answer. However, the majority of the time I am asked questions with answers that first require that other issues be resolved relating to information management strategy and policy.

Here is a real world question I received as an example. "I am new to creating wiki sites. I am creating a FAQ wiki page using SharePoint. I want to have a question as a link to the answer on the same wiki page instead of traversing to a different page. How can I do that?"

On the face of this question is the very simple technical issue, to which you can find an answer below. However, this question also sends up a series of warning flares. The majority of this post will relate to those warning flares and issues they represent. The resolution of these issues will either help define, help refine, or help justify your current information management strategies and policies.

The simple answer

The basic design on a SharePoint wiki is a series of linked pages. Links are created between pages by encapsulating relevant terms using brackets: [[term]]. SharePoint then either links a currently available page to the relevant term, or creates a new page using the relevant term as the page title. When a user edits a wiki page, they do this through the Rich Text Editor.

The Rich Text editor, even though it contains a number of default formatting tools, does not have the ability to insert a table of contents or reference markers in a wiki page. However, if you look closer at the Rich Text Editing toolbar, you will notice an HTML Source editing option.

By editing the HTML source for the wiki page you can insert HTML reference tags (HREF) allowing you to jump from a FAQ table of contents to a specific header on the same wiki page instead of creating a new wiki page for each FAQ entry. As this is a very easy and well documented piece of HTML, instead of provide a piece of sample code, here's a link that provides a HREF sample. By using this basic HTML code, you can create a wiki page that looks like this:

The only note I have on this method is that, by default, SharePoint inserts the wiki page editing path into the <a href> tag. As a result, when you save the wiki page and attempt to use the reference links, you are taken to the wiki editing page instead of jumping to the correct header on the page. To fix this issue, you need to:

Save the wiki page;
Copy the URL for the wiki page;
Edit the wiki page again using the HTML Source editor;
Insert the published wiki page URL into the <a href> tags replacing the one inserted by SharePoint.

This simple fix will ensure that the reference headers and linking work correctly.

The hard questions

Simple! Well, let's not get too excited. By answering this question, I've now opened the door to a number of hard questions that need to be addressed. First off, "Is HTML editing allowed in your wiki?" This is a great starting point. If you are a business manager thinking about encouraging Wiki usage on your team, or if you are an end-user looking for ways to convince your management to allow you to create a wiki, the first thing you need to think about is governance and how the proposed wiki fits into your company's information management strategies and policies.

Note: The same questions apply if you plan to use JavaScript in your wiki.

Who is going to support the HTML code in the wiki page?
1. Who is responsible for the HTML code inserted into the wiki? When there is an issue with the HTML code, can you contact your IT support staff for supporting assistance?
2. Do you have the necessary HTML skills to support the inserted code?
3. If there is IT support available, what is the Service Level Agreement (SLA) for this level of support?
4. If HTML is being used to create custom business applications or support business processes in the Wiki, how does this change the support model?
What is the business value of allowing the use of HTML code in a wiki page?
1. Does this level of customization and functionality spur valuable innovation, improve efficiency, and/or enhance business goals?
2. Does the proposed HTML code duplicate any current business process or tool?
3. If so, is it more supportable, scalable, or useable than current process or tool?
Is this the best solution for the proposed problem? (In this example, is a wiki the best place to have a dynamic FAQ page?)
How are wikis supposed to be used in your company?
1. How does your company interact with its tribal knowledge?
2. Will a wiki provide value to your organization?
3. Does the HTML code enhance or detract from your prescribed wiki usage experience?
4. Does the information stored within the wiki fit within your content management guidelines?

These are just a sample of questions that you should be asking yourself when dealing with using code in wikis, and I'm sure to most of you, these sound very familiar. They should, since the questions above are the types of questions that are asked on a daily basis in regards to governance. Now, I'm not going to reiterate what a governance policy is as there are many blogs and resources that exist on that topic. Though if you would like more information, please check out Joel Oleson's blog on governance, and also look at the Engineer section on governance in GEAR Up.

So in summary, wikis (as well as other free form collaboration resources, i.e.: blogs, discussion boards, sub-sites, etc.) can present issues regarding information management policies. In all circumstances, I would highly promote answering the simple questions, as this will help you further refine and enhance your information management policies. However, as seen above, there are a number of questions that need to be asked that will ultimately define how wikis are used in your company, and how wikis fit into and enhance your company's overall information management strategy.

That said, wikis are a great way to share knowledge in your company and to make it easy to find and share information. They're easy to update and to add to, increasing the amount of information available to all employees.

Additional resources

As a final note on this topic, here are a couple great links to help guide you in discussing the value of wikis and blogs in a business environment.

Information Week: Wikis in the Workplace

Microsoft: Using Blogs and Wikis in the Workplace

Ryan Gachet

Posted at 4:57 PM by | Category: Business Processes; Compliance; Planning & Process; Social Networking | Permalink | Email this Post | Comments (0)

1/17/2008

IDC Survey Says Metadata Management Important in SharePoint

A new report out by IDC says that, "2008 is likely to be a breakout year for both Microsoft Office 2007 and Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007."

The report by Melissa Webster also points out that the integration of metadata management, among other things, is very important to the overall lifecycle management of information, especially for unstructured (e.g. Word documents) information.

We all kind of know this anyway. SharePoint is an awesome system when implemented correctly (i.e. Keep users in mind when designing an implementation, offer up-to-date training, etc.)

But what exactly is "metadata management"? It's kind of what I've been talking about for a while now: we need to use only the best metadata ("information about information") to describe our documents and web content, and we need to manage it across our entire SharePoint system.

But how? Take a look at a typical DIP (Document Information Panel) in Word 2007 below.

Where do all those lists and descriptions come from? Who decides which are the best "tags"— such as "Lead" or "Opportunity"— to use when someone wants to upload a document into a SharePoint team site?

Next time, I'm going to start talking about different ways to do this, both manually (ugh!) and automatically (yeah!).

Take care.

Mike

Posted at 4:46 PM by | Category: Collaboration; Compliance | Permalink | Email this Post | Comments (1)

9/14/2007

Lost guns or lost records?

A news story in July 2007 raised fears about waylaid guns at the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, the agency that investigates the U.S. nuclear industry. I'm not exactly sure why an agency like this has guns – but losing them isn't a good thing.

As it turned out, the guns were not lost, the records system was faulty. The records in the official agency were accurate and up-to-date, but a copy of the records was not. It was a version control issue, instead of sloppy firearm tracking.

From the article:

"The OIG's audit discovered some record-keeping discrepancies between the official agency property records and the Office of Investigations' internal records…"

SharePoint could have helped the NRC, because they could have maintained version control of their records across widespread groups. One moral of this story is 'keep your versions accurate to avoid public embarrassment.'

How to maintain version control in SharePoint:

Introduction to versioning

Enable and configure versioning for a list or a library

Another helpful article:

Introduction to Excel Services and Excel Web Access

Suzanne

Posted at 5:28 PM by | Category: Productivity; Compliance | Permalink | Email this Post | Comments (0)

9/11/2007

Dow Jones Moving to SharePoint

I found an interesting blog while searching around. It’s the blog of an information architect named Samuel Driessen. He mostly has posts on new technology and knowledge management, I found fewer posts on information architecture.

What drew my attention was his blog post about a talk he attended at the Gartner Portals, Content, and Collaboration Summit 2007 , given by Mary McCall, Director of Employee Communication at Dow Jones. It seems that Dow Jones is moving to MOSS 2007 to improve employee collaboration.

He also mentions a law firm, Linklaters, which moved to SharePoint because of the familiar interface and ability to share documents across multiple offices. It’s worth reading this short post if you work in a law firm and wonder how SharePoint will benefit your office. Compliance is a major issue affecting law firms, and many firms are building their businesses around helping companies adhere to new compliance laws passed at the end of 2006.