Already put a professional ticket system, to support requests in your companies to support the IT support? Most users use Email or the phone, to report incidents or request support. If such requests exceed a certain volume of, will it quickly cluttered, especially when at the same time, several employees of the IT Department with the processing of support requests can be employed. If in addition a multi-stage processing of support requests for first-level/second-level and ggf. Third level is required, is a supporting IT system essential.
Comparison of professional and open-source ticket system Larger organizations use professional ticket- or help desk systems, the sometimes called “Issue tracking systems” be described. In Wikipedia are already over 40 listed different help desk systems, both commercial and open source vendors. This list does not include Microsoft SharePoint, but modular system can easily be used as a, to introduce a completely adequate for most purposes ticketing system. This is often easier to implement than the acquisition and adaptation of a commercial software or developing the necessary know-how, to an open source solution such as z.B. OTRS (http://www.otrs.org/) to introduce.
Microsoft SharePoint has virtually built the ticket system
With Microsoft SharePoint, you are able, quickly and easily implement a ticketing system, without additional license costs, If you are already working with a Windows Server environment. With this environment you have Windows: SharePoint Services or. in SharePoint 2010 the SharePount Foundation, you are perfectly adequate for the implementation of a ticket system, already with licensed. continue reading…
You want to improve the team collaboration, Better manage documents, Find information faster, again, Map approval processes automatically, and a functioning Knowledge management introduce? You could find no solution so far? You are in good company! After more standardized business processes in inventory management, Accounting or inventory management z.B. well mapped by ERP solutions, do software vendors with knowledge- and document-based processes still hard. IT platforms such as SharePoint here allow a huge productivity surge in the companies, with almost immediate return in investment.
Do already have blogged? What do you know about Twitter? Look up information in Wikipedia, have but still no entry edited? The tags Blog, Twitter, Wiki, Web 2.0 are available almost every day in the press. Now there is even talk of companies 2.0, a new kind of information processing of knowledge workers in the enterprise, with more interaction, faster communication, better Knowledge management and of course a significant productivity boost through the use of modern Internet technologies. What is the promises, and what measures can be implemented in medium-sized companies simply?
First, a definition of Web 2.0, less is much more the changes in the way the tags in the foreground, how people communicate with each other and go to.
Web 2.0 all options known as a generic term, on the Internet and interconnected computers, Mobile phones, Consoles, etc., interactively to communicate and to exchange information or knowledge.
Which in itself sounds yet not too spectacular, can we send E-Mails in seconds around the globe for many years yet. What does however change, is that Presence and Diversity information, continue reading…
All over the world talking about Cloud computing, medium-sized companies but are, with regard to outsource their IT in the cloud, rather reticent. And there is an alternative to issuing of all corporate data, Setting up your own “Cloud” the company with its own (or leased) Hardware. Although you cannot get the benefit from an outsourced solution for high availability with backup and archiving, remains but independent and has the data and documents in the own House. With MicrosoftSharePoint Server 2010 or the free version of Microsoft SharePoint Foundation 2010 put on an internal server as an Enterprise Portal, He is good not only as a replacement for the traditional file server, but also the Document management, Approval processes, Communication and collaboration in teams in various ways supported.
What is cloud computing?
The video by a Salesforce.com shows very nice principle, What is at stake. Of course, it is about Salesforce.com, To outsource IT activities on own platform. This is associated with risks but, in particular, the risk of dependence. You want to later switch to another cloud provider or retrieve the data on their own systems, can it be difficult. An alternative is the Cloud computing in your own company Dar, especially if first to centralized document management and information processes.
Microsoft Windows Server environment with a SharePoint Server or SharePoint Foundation (so far SharePoint Services) are capable of, to centralize many information processes of the company on a platform in the own House. Your Windows/SharePoint, they use almost as corporate cloud. The following example illustrates the benefits of a first traditional transaction processing:
Clerk Mr. Meier from the quality Department created a first version of a documentation of process, begins on the first page with an entry for the version history and adds a status “Design”
He sent the document via email to his team with a request for feedback
Several team members to respond and answer the email with comments or a modified document file as an attachment
Meier works the changes and sends the document with the request to release to his superior Mrs Müller
Mrs Müller approved the document
Mr. Meier places the document in a central location in the network and informed staff as with the note, This document is the valid now.
Document storage in the SharePoint Enterprise cloud
This transaction processing remain important information in the on-premises mailbox of each user, and managing the current version is expensive. With Microsoft SharePoint is the storage of the documents from the point of view of the user as simple as before on the file server, but the documents are located in the Enterprise cloud.
Figure 1: Saving documents in the “Enterprise cloud”
As usual, the team members create their documents in Word or Excel, save them but directly to a SharePoint document library. Also a separate drive letter can be associated to this library, so with the file server trusted employees can continue to work as before. SharePoint offers a number of advantages over storing documents in the file system but. Additional information about the documents and the complete version history are stored centrally, d.h. You can find out at any time, who has made what changes when, and restore older versions of documents.
Check it out!
SharePoint supports the complete automation of the creation, Feedback- and approval process, eliminates manual managing versions and sending file attachments. User, want to edit the documents, check them out before. This will be noted and other users cannot edit a document, as long as it is checked out. Again, the user checks a document after editing, GGF. with the addition of a comment. And if feedback is desired for the document or a supervisor must approve a document, can a corresponding workflow be activated in SharePoint. Throughout the process, users while to work with their local Office installation, the edited document and any additional exchanged information as comments and approval status are to observe any server but centrally stored on the SharePoint. later evaluable. And through the process of a- and check-out is ensured, that at all times for all reviewers the latest Central is available, and that only one person can edit a document.
Figure 2: Document management with SharePoint
Also the integration with Microsoft Outlook works fine. Whether contacts, Calendar entries or tasks for a team of employees must be managed: all of these activities can be carried out on one central server via the SharePoint, on the other hand using the own Outlook installation. Locally for appointments registered in a group calendar automatically synchronize server and all other Outlook users with SharePoint, the same applies to centrally managed contacts or team tasks.
And even if any installed a Microsoft Word or Excel, the editing works. With the help of the Office Web apps can a user, who has installed a Microsoft Office, the SharePoint Server edit stored Office documents directly in the browser. In this case, the possibility of the cooperation goes so far, that multiple users can work simultaneously on a document.!
Employees on trips, are not always online, allows you to SharePoint workspace, Work packages (Documents, but also entire pages of SharePoint Portal) to charge the laptop to edit offline. Synchronization takes place automatically, Once again there is a connection to the SharePoint Server.
Conclusion
For companies, that deal with cloud computing and are looking for an entry, without to move directly to the dependency of a cloud provider, offers an interesting approach to SharePoint. Setting up a SharePoint system is indeed cost associated with, This is however limited and pays for itself by the almost immediate benefits in the use. With SharePoint 2010 is also a current version available, It was the functionality of a document management system offers and - Ric. in the license-free variant SharePoint Foundation - provides a very affordable entry into the cloud computing.
Microsoft SharePoint 2010 has positioned itself as a “The business collaboration platform for the enterprise & the Web” in the market for enterprise solutions. Steve Ballmer goes even further and positioning SharePoint as “the headquarters for the Cloud computing” (“SharePoint is at the center of the cloud.“). In this post we will try to give a first overview, What information specifically for IT managers are interesting, the deal already with SharePoint and want to know, What to expect in the new version and how to SharePoint 2010 in your companies should strategically position.
Overview - what's new
The most important thing for users of SharePoint 2007: When migrating to SharePoint 2010 be migrated and adapted to the SharePoint 2010 user interface to existing sites and pages complete with their design.
Operation and administration - the Office Ribbon
He left office 2010 known Ribbon (the Ribbon) consistently finds its way into SharePoint 2010. Although this control is something getting: who already with the Ribbon from Office 2007 is familiar, is the operation of SharePoint 2010 find significantly more intuitive (on the client side as well as the Central Administration). Many settings were difficult to find in the current Central Administration, the entry in the SharePoint Administration 2010 is much easier. U.a. is it no longer necessary, right-click to display the actions/options for documents, they are accessible via the Ribbon always ad hoc.
Social computing or Web 2.0 for companies
Steve Ballmer says: “There is no company in the world, which aims to implement not social aspects of computing. But the companies do not know, such as. If we can show managers and IT managers, consider how employees can communicate your ideas with each other and this privacy and security issues, then, staff will use social computing in the enterprise.”
Thus, he is certainly right. The implementation of already known Web 2.0-Been the subject of criticism was repeatedly technologies such as WIKIs or blogs in SharePoint, are more specialized platforms like z.B. WordPress here already much further. With SharePoint 2010 but introduces a number of improvements:
Improvements in blogs, WIKIs and calendars
At the same time working on articles by several persons
Keywords (Tags) for content
Keyword cloud (Tag clouds)
Reviews
Bookmarks/favorites
“Smart profiles” and feeds for the personal Web page
Browser to search for colleagues and experts
Publish one's own side with “Share this site”
It is an introduction of Web - at least from a technical perspective- 2.0 in their company nothing more in the way. The holistic view of organizational aspects they find here more information (also as PDF-download)
Presentation and content editing
With the new “In context editing” editable content now finally directly on the spot in the browser. The change between edit mode and display mode eliminates. Completely WYSIWYG is not there yet, but it will be.
SharePoint workspace provides a “Rich client” with drag & Drop capabilities from Office hereaus and synchronization properties, to z.B. Content to work offline and then synchronize.
Finally is also FireFox adequately supported. So far, SharePoint was optimized for Internet Explorer.
At last! Pictures no longer must be stored in a SharePoint library, but can directly from the PC be uploaded
New Web parts You can now visually create (no/less individual programming required)
Through the AJAX integration the SharePoint pages appear much more elegant in the operation, When content downloaded to, not the whole site is rebuilt from scratch - chic!
The Workflow-Designer (previously only available for a fee and then free install) is now an integral part of SharePoint 2010. IT departments can now more easily and completely without programming workflows to create and customize than before. Even if the workflow designer not the intuitive usability of the Nintexx workflows offers, He however very well suited for most workflow tasks. Also, workflows once created can now be reused. Interesting: It is now possible with the Visio services, Visio to visualize processes directly from SharePoint out to use. And it goes further: Workflows created with Visio can be exported and imported in SharePoint. More about this in the post by Fabian Moritz.
Business intelligence
With the help of lists and links you could already in SharePoint 2007 simple data models represent, for example, in a list to display contacts from a central contact list. Once but more complex data relationships should be implemented, a separate database schema had to set up and z.B. be made through the business data catalog in SharePoint. SharePoint 2010 now supports:
The selection and display multiple columns from a linked target list. This could be for example next to the How to contact with at the same time displays the phone number in a range entry. This was in SharePoint 2007 just hard to realize
The concepts known from the development of the database of the “Restrict delete” and “Cascade Delete” (to subordinate records from a linked list when deleting a main list record equal to delete)
The direct Output of the ID field
New possibilities of the Excel Services (Slicer filtering pivot tables, new charts, Scorecards
Publish access databases about SharePoint (Access services)
Business connectivity services
Taxonomies and metadata
In SharePoint 2010 Approaches are of the Semantic Web implemented. Even if in practical business use for this purpose is still no use, It shows but, where the journey goes. SharePoint is becoming a kind of “Operating system for the Internet/web/intranet”. Who flirts with the introduction of Web 2.0 technologies within the company, has an alexsanders and future-proof platform with SharePoint.
Feature: Taxonomy (allows a kind of knowledge map on a specific subject with specific terms and relations between them). More information at http://www.twason.com/glossary.html
New column type: Managed metadata
Term sets, Term set Manager
Improvements in the search
SharePoint 2010 offers a number of improvements
FAST Search technology
Improved search algorithms
Phonetic search
Multilingual search
New interesting templates
Visio process repository: Represent processes and workflows in Visio out in SharePoint
Bugs / Bug tracker: Suitable for the management of internal IT support
Projects: A simple project management
Cost analyses
Application- and recruitment
Citizens management and citizen portals
Sales evaluations
Conference planning
Conclusion
A round thing! Microsoft much of the specialized suppliers copied from itself and successfully integrated into the new platform. The learning curve for SharePoint users both on user- as well as to administrative level is much easier to master. SharePoint and shows clearly the strategic future direction: To the Web, zur “Cloud”, to the “Operating system for the Internet” respectively “Operating system 2.0 for the entire company“. If you are looking for a holistic path, to all knowledge- and information processes in the company to reproduce better and future-proof, hardly come to SharePoint.
More information
Our focus is more on an economic and organizational analysis of SharePoint and other IT technologies. A more technical summary of SharePoint 2010 You will find under http://sharepoint.namics.com/2009/10/gesamteindruck.html, otherwise, the best German-language source for technical information is the SharePoint community under http://sharepointcommunity.de/
We have our Blog entry on the subject of contract management with SharePoint revised and published as a printable PDF Professional article. When you consider the electronic management of your contracts and agreements, can you download here free of charge the article:
