| If you're new to SharePoint, or if you're working with people who are new to SharePoint and you have a hard time explaining what it is, the SharePoint in Plain English video might be just what you need.
Taking a friendly approach, this video shows how SharePoint can help you work with others in more efficient ways. For example, SharePoint can help you plan and work on a project online instead of sending files back and forth in e-mail.
You can watch this video here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s12Jb5Z2xaE&feature=youtube
For more details on getting started with SharePoint, see Getting Started with SharePoint Server 2010.
To see more videos in this style, browse the Videos on Technology in Plain English on the Common Craft web site.
I hope you like the video.
Cheers,
Toni
|
| by Ben Tedder
International School of Beijing
One of the most powerful features of SharePoint 2010 is its search capability. In addition to being able to search entire site collections for pages, documents, and list items, SharePoint users can take advantage of a customizable feature of search called search “scope.” Learning to use search scopes effectively will save you a lot of time, especially within intranets that have tens of thousands of items for you to sift through.
Search scopes and how to use them
Search scopes are simply search options. Out-of–the-box, SharePoint 2010 gives you three search scope options:
All Sites (the default) – Search all sites in your network for a specific string This Site – Search the current site for a specific string People – Search the list of people in your network for a name
But in addition to these three, site collection administrators may have created others to refine search results. It’s always wise to take a look at any search scope options (whenever they’re present) before hitting the search button.
To choose a search scope on a SharePoint site:
- Click the drop-down menu to the left of the search box at the top of the page and select a scope.
- Enter a string of characters that you want to search for, then press ENTER or click the search icon.
Site collection administrators have the option of narrowing down and focusing search results. They can focus on property values of documents, on specific sites, or within individual lists and libraries.
To define search scopes, site collection administrators:
- Choose Site settings from the Site Actions menu
- Select Search scopes under the Site Collection Administration heading
- Fill out the scope definition form (you can follow the guidelines in a separate article I’ve written on how to create a new search scope)
Search scope focused on document values
For example:
- All PDF documents
- Documents modified in the past fiscal year
- Documents created by a specific author (think smaller team site where you have several major authors of documents)
Search scope focused on a specific site
For example:
- All excel documents in the business office subsite
- All HR material created by the HR Director
Search scope focused on a specific library or list
For example:
- Employee master calendar
- Policy manual so employees are able to find out information about vacation days quickly
Best practices for defining scopes
As well as focusing on those properties, the site collection administrator can also exclude results based on those same properties. Once you start to combine includes, excludes, and requirements, you’ll probably begin to realize the endless possibilities with search scopes. But there are a few important things to remember.
- Try to find that delicate balance between being useful and becoming unwieldy. There might not need to be a search scope for a result set that can be filtered using out-of-the-box filters.
- Learn what search scopes your end users need; use search analytics to see what people are searching for - and respond with excellent search options.
- Finally, don’t rely on search scopes alone. Remember the other tools in your belt: metadata filters on search results; Best Bet suggestions; and well-designed navigation.
Happy searching!
Ben |
| Operating in more than 180 countries, NetHope and its 33 member organizations use SharePoint Online to support a variety of humanitarian relief efforts.
This video shows more details about NetHope and how its members use SharePoint to share information, technology resources and best practices across their organizations to better support healthcare, education, agriculture, natural resource management, emergency response, and microfinance programs.
NetHope is a nonprofit collaboration of IT leaders from around the world that serve tens of millions of people each year in over 180 countries and that manage more than $30 billion (U.S.) in aid. Humanitarian relief efforts span many facets of humanitarian relief: disaster response, hunger, water sanitation, conservation, human rights, and more.
Thanks!
Toni
SharePoint Content Team |
| You have proudly created a list with many assorted views. People love it so much they want the list for their sites in the same site collection. Trouble is, it’s not easy to make another list show up on other sites these days. You could use REST (Representational state transfer) or even Web services, but you don’t quite have the skills to do that. Fortunately, there’s another approach that’s much easier. All you have to do is save your list as a Web Part and then add the Web Part to any other page on your site. It’s surprisingly easy to do and doesn’t require any code. In the following example, I’ll assume you are working with a typical customer list.
Note The following procedures are for typical non-publishing team sites. The instructions vary with publishing sites. Part 1: Save the List View to a Web Part file
Note You only need to do this procedure once.
- In the browser, go to the list and display the default view.
- To open the list in SharePoint Designer, in the ribbon, on the List tab in the Manage Views group, click the arrow next to Modify View, and then select Modify in SharePoint Designer (advanced).
- In SharePoint Designer, position the insertion point on any part of the list.
- Do one of the following:
- If you have contribute permission and want to save the Web Part as a file, in the ribbon, click the Web Part tab, and in the Save Web Part group, click To File, click Save, enter a meaningful Web Part filename, such as Customers.webpart, and then click Save.
- If you have site-level permissions and want to add the Web Part to the site Web Part gallery, in the ribbon, click the Web Part tab, and in the Save Web Part group, click To Site Gallery, click Save, enter a meaningful Web Part filename, such as Customers, and then click OK.
- When SharePoint Designer displays the following message:
Click Yes. This ensures the list is accessible from any site of the current site collection.
Part 2: Add the Web Part to another page- Go to the site you want to add the Customers Web Part to, click Site Actions, click New Page, enter Customers List in the New page name box, and then click Create.
- Do one of the following:
- Add the Web Part from a file
Under the Editing Tools tab group, click the Insert tab, and then in the Web Parts group, click Web Part. To make the Customers.webpart available to the page for insertion, click the arrow next to Upload a Web Part, click Browse, locate and select the Customers.webpart file created in Step 4 of Part 1, click Open, click Upload. Under the Editing Tools tab group, click the Insert tab, and then in the Web Parts group, click Web Part. Under Categories, click the newly created Imported Web Parts folder, under the Web Parts section, select Customers.webpart, and then under the About the Web Part section, click Add.
- Add the Web Part from the Web Part Gallery
- Under the Editing Tools tab group, click the Insert tab, and then in the Web Parts group, click Web Part.
- Under Categories, click Miscellaneous folder, under the Web Parts section, select Customers.webpart, and then under the About the Web Part section, click Add.
- If you see an Information dialog box, entitled, Message from Web Page, ignore it, and then click OK.
- Click the arrow next to the Web Part menu, and then click Edit Web Part.
- In the Tool Pane, consider doing the following:
- If you want a different view than the default view to display, under Selected View, select the view you want.
- If you want to remove the Add New Item link at the bottom of the list, Under ToolBar Type, click No Toolbar.
- If you want the List View Web Part to look like a regular list, In the Appearance section, under Chrome Type, click None.
- Click OK.
- In the ribbon, click the Page tab, and then click Save & Close.
- Mark
|
| Recently, I got some good news. An old calendar that we'd been using to schedule document publication was being decommissioned. I rejoiced because the old calendar was on another site with different usage parameters, including a separate permissions list from the SharePoint site that I was managing. Besides having to jump from our working site to log onto the calendar, I had to go through an involved process to add permissions for team members who needed access to the calendar.
Now we could use the calendar options provided with our team site. To my surprise, I found I had two calendar options: I could create a calendar (actually a Calendar list) by using a Calendar template, or I could use a Calendar view of the existing list. I needed to choose the option that supported my minimum requirements:
- Ability to schedule dates in the future.
- Ability for all contributors to view and edit calendar entries without special permissions.
- Connection with our existing list of documents if possible.
- Ease of use for all of us.
- Minimal work on my part.
I chose the Calendar View option because it met all these requirements and did not require me to re-enter the existing list of documents for the calendar.
In SharePoint 2010, you can easily create a calendar view of an existing document list that includes dates. Here's what I did These are the steps I followed (your step details details may vary, depending on your site design):
- Open a library or list with items that you want to schedule and display in a calendar format.
- Click the Library or List tab.
- Make sure that your list includes at least one Date column with values in it (such as the date 'Created').
- Under Current View in the ribbon, click the view list. If a calendar view already exists, select it and proceed to step 7.
- If you don't see a calendar view in the drop-down menu, create one by clicking Create View from the ribbon, then selecting Calendar View.
- To create a simple calendar view that shows a title entry whenever a document is created in the list, fill out the fields as follows, using the example below for reference:
- Enter a View Name (PubsCalendar in the example). I wanted the list view to be the default view, so I ignored the option to make this calendar view the default.
- Enter the View Audience, public or private. I chose Create a Public View so that other authors on the site could also use the calendar view.
- Define the Time Interval by selecing the column update that places a list item into the calendar. To create a calendar entry whenever a document is created, I selected the column that displays the Created date, for the Begin and End text boxes.
- Click the list column entry that you want to appear for each calendar entry. I wanted each calendar entry to display the document titles, so I chose Title for the Month, Week, and Day view titles. Then I chose Created by as a Week and Day subhead.
- Define the default scope. I chose Month so the calendar would display a month at a time.
- Fill in remaining fields as necessary, then click OK.
- From the Current View menu, select your calendar view (PubsCalendar in the example below). You'll now see your list items as calendar entries. Changes that you make in the list view will appear in the calendar. However, the reverse may not be true. For example, in my case, I can move dates in the calendar view and they are reflected in the list view of our document library. But I cannot create new items from the calendar view, to schedule future publish dates, for example. Instead, I create a list item 'stub' or place-holder in the list view of documents in order to see a corresponding item in the calendar. This worked perfectly for my team because it encourages committing to a topic as well as to some future date. If you need more flexibility in your calendar, consult your site administrator.
- When you're finished, you can return to the list view by clicking Current view and selecting All items.
You can create a Calendar List for your site by clicking the Site Actions menu , clicking More options, then selecting the Calendar list template. For more information about creating lists, see: Create a list by using a list template.
Use the following table to help you decide which you need, a Calendar list or Calendar view:
| Supports direct creation and editing of calendar entries. |
Yes |
No |
| Supports calendar overlays and group calendars. |
Yes |
Doesn't apply |
| Supports future dates without requiring creation of a stub. |
Yes |
No |
| Can view future dates once 'stubs' are created in the library or list. |
Doesn't apply |
Yes |
| List or library updates affect the calendar. |
No |
Yes |
| Calendar updates affect the list or library. |
Yes |
Not typically |
| Simplest option if you already have a list that includes a date option. |
|
Yes |
For details about creating views such as calendar views: Create, Modify, or Delete a view
For information about creating calendar overlays: http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/outlook-help/view-and-update-a-sharepoint-calendar-HA010354986.aspx#_Toc300818993
mp
|
| Part 2 of 4
by Audrie Magno-Gordon
To start off this series I had chosen to focus on the SharePoint Survey. This is a good example of a complete solution (includes an input and output structure, as well as reporting and analysis features). The good news is that right out of the box it is useful for polls and surveys, and can even be stretched to be an end-user form generator. On the other hand, it has a few surprising 'flaws' which may cause you to argue my definition of 'simple.' Part 1 broke down all the elements and covered several general Survey best practices and tips. If you didn’t read Part 1 yet, you can read it here. This second discussion will talk about options for extending the Survey to include further customizations that the End User may perform on their own. I will keep this as ‘simple’ as possible per my original promise.
Where’s the beef (creating/editing views!)?
No, I’m not hungry. I asked “Where’s the beef?” because to me the bottom line for SharePoint Level 100 reporting is ‘List Views’. It is the one thing that you come to expect once you start digging into SharePoint and heading toward ‘Power User’ status (smiles). Well, the first disappointment you’ll find on SharePoint Surveys is it appears that you can’t create your own views. In fact, it doesn’t work like any other list type when it comes to using views either! Starting with the fact that Surveys have their own dedicated section of your site, and are not listed under lists:
To get beyond what appears to be an intended bottleneck (somewhat only kidding), and to illustrate what you can do once you get beyond that; here is the low-down in three more parts:
URL Hacking is Fun! (Blog Post Part 2) ODC Liberation! (Part 3-February) Charting Web Parts – Oh My! (Part 4-March)
URL Hacking is Fun!
Ok, all those security fanatics can relax; I’m going to discuss two very legal hacks on SharePoint. Nothing you should report to the FBI or anything. Two URL string formats will enable you to both create, and to edit views, in a SharePoint Survey.A. The CREATE View URL Hack Format: All the grey text above is static, and what is in brackets must be edited (don’t include brackets in the final URL). It starts out easy because the beginning of this URL (up to the arrow) is just whatever precedes “/Lists/” in the URL (aka internet address) of your Survey.
Finally you have to dig up two encoded elements again. There are a few ways to get these – but I’m sharing what I think are the easiest (IMO):
[EncodedListID] - This is the encoded (browser-friendly) GUID of the Survey. You can get it by opening Survey settings. It will be at the end of the URL of the settings page.
That URL is hella-long, but it will return the ‘create view’ dialog we have all come to know and rely upon:
My suggestion to beginners: Stay on the left side of this dialog box (click on either Standard View or All Responses). My suggestions to others who are acquainted with SharePoint Designer*: If you need to, go ahead and use the “Custom View in SharePoint Designer” link, and remember that ‘you reap what you sow’ there! :)
*If you own development on both MOSS and SharePoint 2010, be sure to open the appropriate SharePoint Designer version first. You must use SharePoint Designer 2007 for MOSS, and SharePoint Designer 2010 for SharePoint Server 2010 (not mutually compatible).
B. The EDIT View URL Hack Format:
All the grey text above is static, and what is in brackets must be edited (don’t include brackets in the final URL). It starts out easy because the beginning of this URL (up to the arrow) is just whatever precedes “/Lists/” in the URL (aka internet address) of your Survey.
Example: http://contoso/sales/Lists/eBook%20Survey/overview.aspx
As you did before, you will have to dig up two encoded elements:
Either: I’ve found a very easy solution (that you can download and install in just 3 minutes) that looks up the List and View IDs (as well as List Attribute Names). I really like it. (MOSS and 2010 compatible). You can download it here. (Please remember: It’s a small download to your desktop, ‘no promises’ from anyone (including Microsoft), no support, run client-side only, and at will application).
OR, open SharePoint Designer, browse to the Survey (under Lists and Libraries), open the view you want to edit on the right, and you’ll find the View ID in the code view.
Click “code” on the bottom after opening the page to find the view name (as ID).
Close and don’t save anything when done writing down or copying the View ID.
Ok, now you have all that you need to create the full URL string. Here is what my sample would look like:
That URL is even hella-longer, but it will return the ‘edit view’ dialog we have all come to know and rely upon (truncated screen shot). Bad news: This can be a VERY WIDE dialog box because each column name is the entire question! Good news: You don’t lose any functionality of editing standard views.
Resulting View Changes (truncated right and bottom)
Please come back next month as I continue to explore how you can leverage new views like this one to create useful Pivot Tables and Charts based on your SharePoint Survey Data.
In the meantime, enjoy SharePoint's Surveys and making your own powerful views!
Audrie Magno-Gordon
Senior SharePoint Consultant & Office Specialist
|
| By Gregory Frick, President, Puget Sound SharePoint Users Group
Happy 2012 everyone! This is the second post in a series designed to help you increase SharePoint adoption and support innovation by building a SharePoint training environment. My hope is that this series will encourage you to set up a training environment in your organization that will get users excited and enthusiastic about using SharePoint. I believe that once users learn what they can accomplish with SharePoint, and how SharePoint skills can benefit them professionally, they will find SharePoint engaging and fun.
Groups and Permissions
Users need enough freedom to learn new skills without worrying about breaking anything. This is one of the reasons a training environment is so important. I recommend that you set up a site collection that is three levels deep:
- Training
- Department (e.g. HR, IT, Finance, Facilities etc.)
- Personal Training Site (e.g. Greg, Susan, Bob etc.)
For the first two levels use the default SharePoint Groups and permission inheritance. For example:
- Training Visitors, Authenticated Users, Read
- Training Members, All Trainees, Contribute
- Training Owners, Me and You, Full Control
When you create the personal training sites, create them with unique permissions and add the trainee to their Owners group but leave the Visitors and Members groups empty. For example, my training site would have the following groups and permissions:
- Greg Visitors, empty, Read
- Greg Members, empty, Read
- Greg Owners, Greg, Full Control
Make sure that the Owners Group is assigned ownership over the groups so that the trainee can view and manage group membership.
For training and support purposes I have found it very useful to have multiple accounts with different permission levels. In my current environment I have an administrative account (site collection administrator), and my regular account (same permissions as the trainees). I log in as the site collection administrator to create the training sites and SharePoint groups and I log in using my regular account to perform demonstrations. I also use my regular account when I create training exercises so that my instructions and screen shots match the trainee experience.
Site Templates
At the top level of my training site collection, I chose the Enterprise Wiki template so I could use the Managed Metadata Service to provide choices for the page categories and to expose the page ratings. For the second and third level sites, I kept it simple and chose the Team site template. I considered using the Blank site template for the second and third level sites so the trainees would have the experience of creating all the lists and libraries from scratch, but I decided to provide that as an exercise for students after they learned a little about using lists and libraries.
Navigation
The Enterprise Wiki template is a publishing site, so the Publishing features (Site Collection and Site) are activated. The publishing feature provides enhanced navigation and I want the top three levels of sites to share the same Global (aka “Top Links”, “Horizontal Tabs”) navigation. I also want my second level sites to display on the Global navigation and my third level sites to display as drop down choices. To accomplish this, go into Site Settings | Navigation Settings and make sure that “Display the same navigation items as the parent site” and “Show subsites” is selected.
Figure 1 - Configure Global Navigation
Configure the Training Site
Populate the Home page of the Training site with a simple welcome message and instructions on how to access training exercises. You can create the training exercises as Wiki pages or you can create a Training Documents library and upload training to the library.
On my training site I created a Training Documents library, a Discussion list called “Ask-Answer-Discuss” and a Training Calendar. I use the Training Documents library to store lab exercises and sample files to support the exercises. I added a couple of discussion topics to the training site and I set an alert on the discussions so I could monitor and respond to them. I am using the Training Calendar to schedule Lunch and Learn sessions based on the training environment and exercises.
The first exercise is designed to familiarize new users with SharePoint and have a little fun customizing their training site. In the next post in the series, I will provide an exercise on creating sites and how to invite colleagues to the site.
Lab 1 – Explore and Customize SharePoint Sites
Lab Objectives:
- Explore SharePoint Training sites
- Customize your site
- Edit a Wiki page
- Change the site theme
- Change the picture on the home page
Exercise 1 Explore Course Environment
Task 1 – Open Web Browser and explore sites.
1. Open Internet Explorer from your Start menu.
2. Navigate to your training site (provide the URL).
3. Hover your mouse over your department on the Top Link Bar and choose the student site assigned to you from the drop down menu.
Figure 2 – Example Team site, for reference only. Your training site will be different.
This site was created for training. Each student in the class has a site underneath their departmental site. The departmental sites are located on the Top Link Bar (where you see Sales Tools and Employee Resources in the above screenshot) and the student sites are drop-down choices from the departmental sites. Permissions have been set up to allow all students to contribute to the Training and Departmental sites. Students have full control over the content in their personal training site. Initially, students will not see any other student sites because SharePoint is security trimmed. In the next lab students will learn how to grant access to their sites.
4. Above the Ribbon, click the Page tab. The Ribbon “lights up” with a menu of actions you can perform in the context of the Page.
Figure 3 - Page Ribbon – Full Control Permissions
5. SharePoint is security trimmed, so the Ribbon “lights up” with choices that are available to you based on who you are logged in as. Since you have full control of your training site, you will see all the options.
6. Navigate back to your departmental site and click Page. The Ribbon “lights up” with a menu of actions you can perform as a Member of your Departmental site (Contribute Permissions).
Figure 4 - Page Ribbon Contribute Permission
7. Notice how some of the buttons are greyed out. The only actions you can perform are available to people with the Contribute permission.
8. Navigate back to your Student Site.
Exercise 2 – Customize your Training Site
Task 1- Edit your Training Site Text
1. Confirm that you are on your training site.
2. SharePoint sites based on the Team Site template (e.g. your training site) feature a Wiki home page and can be edited quickly.
3. On the Ribbon, select Page (you could also click the Edit this page link on the page).
4. Select Edit (notice how the Ribbon now displays editing controls).
Figure 5 – Wiki Home Page with editing ribbon
5. Select the text “Welcome to your site!” and make it bold using the text formatting controls. Experiment making some other formatting changes.
6. Move your cursor to the beginning of the line and press Enter to create a new line. Move your cursor to the new line and type Welcome Home.
7. Select the text you just typed and increase the font size and center it by using the rich text editing controls in the ribbon.
Exercise 3 – Replace the picture on your training site
1. Select the picture and notice how the ribbon displays a new tab called Picture Tools.
2. Select the control to change the picture, choose Select from computer.
3. Browse to a picture on your computer, select it, click Open and then click OK. This will upload the picture to the site Assets Library and replace the picture on the page.
 Figure 6 - Replace Picture on Team Site
4. On the Ribbon select the Page tab, click Save and Close.
Exercise 4 – Change the Site Theme
1. Select Site Actions | Site Settings | Site theme.
2. Select one of the available themes and select Preview.
3. When you find one you like, select Apply.
Figure 7 - Select a theme from Site Settings
Summary of Lab
In this short exercise you learned how to customize your SharePoint site by:
1. Editing the Wiki Home Page.
2. Changing the picture on your site.
3. Changing the site theme.
Additionally, the screenshots and explanations familiarized you with the way the SharePoint Ribbon works and how to move around a site.
To see part 1 of this discussion, visit Build a SharePoint training environment, Part 1. |
| by Maggie Swearingen
SusQtech
We’ve all been there. After many months, and hour upon hour of planning and coordination, your new -- vastly improved – SharePoint-based website launches. The site embodies SharePoint best practices for file storage and content dissemination, and its new user interface and information architecture leave no debate about the proper places to store content.
Fast forward six months.
The site sits quietly. Occasionally a new employee uploads a document or adds an event to a calendar, maybe even starts an event workspace, but other than that the site sits virtually unused while the V:// shared drive keeps humming away.
It’s no secret that a successful SharePoint implementation relies on user adoption, but how can we, as site collection administrators and content managers, effectively change user behavior?
Invite your end users to the project kick-off
Is it so ridiculous to have the people sitting around the table be a sampling of the people who will actually be using the site? No. But, time and time again we keep our website redesign projects close to our IT or Communications chests and we don’t take them to our information workers before it’s far too late. There are key end users in your organization. You know who these people are – they make things happen in your office. You need their buy in. Get it from the start. Five questions to ask your key end users at the project kick-off meeting:
- What one website feature would make your job easier?
- What concerns do you have about using this tool?
- What concerns do you have about changing your processes?
- How can we help make that transition better?
- Would you be willing to offer your input and feedback throughout this redesign process?
Trust me. They’ll be flattered you asked, and you’re already on your way to building an evangelist.
Define your governance plan and ownership early in the process
Governance is always an afterthought. When the site is near completion someone mentions that the team should document its processes and best practices -- maybe it happens, maybe it doesn’t. The project governance committee should be in place soon after the project kick off meeting, and the committee should work in tandem with the rest of the project team throughout the project lifecycle to draft and implement an effective governance plan. Governance doesn’t come easy, and a solid plan takes time to develop and even more time to socialize with staff and end users. The only way to do this effectively is to start early.
Three key elements of a good governance plan:
- Definitions of roles and responsibilities – specifically. 'IT will be responsible for monitoring the site servers' is not specific. 'The XXXX position on the IT team will be responsible for monitoring the servers and keeping accurate logs of the status on a monthly basis' is a specific responsibility.
- Guidelines for enforcement - guidelines that are actually enforced. If we never got tickets for speeding, would we think about driving the speed limit?
- Updates - the plan is not just emailed to users for posterity and never revisited. The governance plan is a living, breathing document and should be frequently revised. All staff should be acquainted, and re-acquainted with its key tenets on a regular basis.
Training, training, training
And not just training in front of a computer screen – “training” at town hall meetings, “training” during office happy hours, “training” in your weekly office newsletter. Unless a user is convinced that his or her job will be made better, easier, and more efficient by your new SharePoint site, that user isn’t going to give changing his or her behavior a second thought. For many of us the allure of a SharePoint implementation lies in its ability to offer a vast sharing and collaboration platform that’s compatible with much of the software we already have in place at our organizations. It takes users away from their C:// drives and forces them into knowledge sharing. On several projects, recently, I’ve seen the training process be the “make it” moment of the project. Users walked away from their training experience excited to use the new site, and bolstered by the ease of the system that was once daunting to them – training is as much about socialization as it is about actually learning new skills. A solid and comprehensive training plan will lead to user adoption.
Four keys to a successful training plan:
- Start really early, and the first meeting doesn’t even need to involve a computer. Your first training session should be a high-level overview of the project and the top benefits the new site will offer end users. Get them excited.
- Mix departments and users. In many ways SharePoint is about getting out of silos. Make that clear by mixing up your training sessions.
- Tough love. The old system IS going to go away. Give a date. Give a time. Whatever you need to do. It’s like taking away a baby’s pacifier. It’s very, very painful for the parents (maybe more than for the baby!), but eventually it has to be done. Communicate this during your trainings and ensure that you will do everything you can to make this transition easier on your users. But acknowledge that you’re all equal partners in this and that they will have to make changes and try new methods.
- Don’t discount one-on-one training. Sure, it’s time consuming, but the best training plans offer several group sessions combined with options for further one-on-one training. A simple one-on-one session can turn a doubter into a believer in just a few short hours.
Users need a take-away post training so they know you aren’t leaving them high-and-dry once their sessions are complete. It can’t hurt to point out during any and all training sessions that there are tons of free training materials on the internet. For starters:
User adoption is never easy and rarely happens overnight. It needs to begin at the outset of a project to fully take root prior to launch, and continue well after a site has launched. Successful user adoption plans put the users first, and continually communicate the following: We chose SharePoint because, XXXXX XXXXX. It’s going to make your jobs easier because of YYYYY YYYYYY. And we’re 100 percent behind this project and our users. This technology is here to support you. |
| by Andre Menart
Mobolize Inc.
Users want three things when they interact with SharePoint:
Content availability—even with a slow internet connection or none at all Fast page loads—waiting for pages to be displayed reduces productivity Secure content—an essential requirement for every organization
SharePoint site collection administrators who support a team of remote users would be wise to consider enterprise cache management as a way of addressing these needs because it’s a simple means to achieve fast and secure access to SharePoint, guaranteeing that important work content will always be available. These requirements are especially important for field and remote workers who have to fight with limited network connectivity and employees located in areas distant from your SharePoint servers, where site access can be slow, and at times, not available at all. As a site collection administrator, ensuring that your SharePoint users are happy with application performance is difficult—particularly when they are based throughout the world.
Enterprise cache management
Caching is already used throughout the web to speed up the delivery of the pages and files you access. Web content is getting cached on your PC as well as at the server, and often there is caching at various other points in the network. Fundamentally, caching works because the closer the content, the faster it can be served to the user. The Internet is very much like our freeway system: the further the destination, the longer the trip and the more likely you’ll run into traffic. And that’s not to mention the on-ramp, which can get clogged and is often metered (e.g., cellular data). Unfortunately, web communications often requires a trip across the country, or even the ocean, to retrieve a web page or file. In fact, a single web page now typically requires 85 roundtrips to the destination server, and over 679KB of total data—often much higher when opening a file (Charzinski, J. "Traffic Properties, Client Side Cachability and CDN Usage of Popular Web Sites").
Here at Mobolize, many of us are remote and often mobile workers. So, we use an enterprise cache management solution to manage caches of web content as close as possible to our users: at the end-user PC. Our endpoint-based managed cache solution, which takes a few minutes to set up, resides invisibly on end-user PCs, and effectively eliminates roundtrips altogether. In both our development and real-world deployments, an average of 90% of a user’s web activity is served from local disk, reducing infrastructure load by 50%. A unique aspect of having managed caches on the end user PC is that they can keep working even when the user is not online or the server is down. This is analogous to not even getting into the car to go to work, since your data is already within arm’s reach—on your laptop’s hard drive.
In order to implement an endpoint-based cache management solution, a software client is centrally configured and deployed to each end-user computer, typically without any involvement from end users. The graphic below illustrates this setup. Once the client software is installed, these centrally managed application-specific caches immediately “warm up,” providing the following benefits:
- Fast page loads
- Access to content at any time—even offline
- 50-80% overall bandwidth reduction
- Server workload reduction, often by 50% or more
Fewer support calls
An added benefit to IT is reduced help desk calls. Enterprise cache management provides a long-lived application cache that guarantees over 90% of pages and files are delivered from the local disk, protecting content even when control of the delivery architecture is limited. As a result, application performance increases and help desk calls are reduced. Enterprise cache management also eliminates most customer complaints that “it is too slow,” which impedes user productivity and distracts help desk personnel.
Without a good user experience, both SharePoint adoption and productivity suffers. A strong cache management solution can increase worker productivity by mitigating the barriers of access and infrastructure performance.
Next steps
If you are interested in this solution, consult your IT representative to configure an endpoint-based cache management system to support your site collection. If you want more information about the Mobilize setup, you can email me amenart@mobolize.com. |
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People usually talk about SharePoint Workspace as an offline solution for SharePoint, and they're correct: take a list or library offline into a workspace, and you can access it when you're off your network. Updates automatically synchronize between the workspace and the server when you go back online. But as you'll see in the following video, there's a compelling case to be made for using SharePoint Workspaces even when you're connected.
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