SharePoint User Group UK

Hi,

I'm looking for some help and advice. We are completely new to SharePoint and are about to stand up a MOSS pilot in the next few months. We have a small IT team managing a Service Provider. We need assistance in the setup and administration of the pilot, initially, but do not really want to use the Service Provider.

Can anybody point me in the right direction with two questions?

1.What do we really need to be aware of? Pitfalls, problems, lessons from everybody else's experience

2. Does anybody know of a good (relatively cheap) consultancy that could assist us? (We're based in Edinburgh)

We are a multinational Microsoft shop, 4.5k employees in the UK, looking at internal/internet/extranet collaboration. The pilot should involve around 100 users

Cheers,

Bobby

 

 

 

 

 

the first question is hugely open ended - there are many pitfalls, problems gotchas and lessons learnt. It all depends upon what you are looking to implement with SharePoint.

If you want a decent gold partner in edinburgh to help you out check out www.company-net.com

s.

 

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Cheers
Spence
www.harbar.net

We at Officetalk specialise in SharePoint and nothing else and are always interested in getting involved in  any sized SharePoint (MOSS or WSS) project in the UK.

You might find our free SharePoint Project checklist useful;

http://www.office-talk.com/pages/contactus.php?id=040708

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Regards,
Andy Dale
SharePoint Specialist
Email : andy.dale@office-talk.com
Website : http://www.office-talk.com
Blog : http://andydalesharepoint.blogspot.com/

Hello there...

I'd say the biggest pitfall you face is starting an implementation without knowing what you want to achieve.

SharePoint is a brilliant product, and you can do LOTS of things with it. But its flexibility means that you can go down all sorts of roads that may be irrelevant to you.

What are you looking for? Collaboration, document management, a new intranet, workflow, records management.... ??? My advice would be to work out what you want to achieve first.

Also, be aware that if you just want to gain some initial familiarity with the technology, there is plenty that you can do with Windows SharePoint Services 3.0, which comes free with win server 2003/2008.

Finally, I can warmly recommend 'SharePoint 2007 - Best Practices' by Bill English etc (MS Press) - this covers a lot of the kind of stuff that it pays to think about, with some great recommendations. Many of these recommendations could be included as part of your initial setup.

Good luck with the project!

Cheers, John

HI,

 

The biggest  pitfall for Sharepoint  is  its  Workflow  engine. it is  still in the  early  stages and cannot  handle  complex  scenarios.  Otherwise on the  other  collaboration features, Document  management , portal , Search works  pretty  fine.

 

We  can  provide  offsite services @  15  Pound  per hour. If  you  need onsite  consultant we  can work out the proposition also.

Thanks

 

Rajeev

r.modi@adapt-india.com

 

 

Hi,

I work with a Microsoft Gold Certified Partner who specialises in SharePoint projects. Over the last six years, we have built a wide range of solutions ranging from simple portals with a few users and business extranets, right through to multi-lingual trans-national corporate intranets with thousands of users. We have done this for a wide spectrum of both private and public sector clients.

To answer your specific points, MOSS is a really flexible tool with huge operating and business benefits but there are pitfalls for first-time users.

In my experience, the biggest problems usually arise through not fully understanding what your business and communications goals are and not engaging with key internal and external stakeholders at the very outset. Good interface design is critical too – using out-of-the-box SharePoint will almost certainly result in a poor user-experience. Negative user experiences will directly impact on how the deployment is perceived across the organisation. You mustn’t therefore overlook usability and accessibility aspects. These are very important and to not take these on board could result in your employer being in breach of the 2005 Disability Discrimination Act. Having technical competency alone is not enough to ensure a successful deployment of MOSS 2007.

To list the common pitfalls is like asking how long is a piece of string. A short initial consultancy is a good way of avoiding those that would be relevant to you. We have a local office in Edinburgh so would be well placed to help you with your MOSS pilot.

If you wish, please contact me and I can put you in touch with the most appropriate member of our business team.

Ray
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Raymond Little
SharePoint Specialist – B&D

Thanks to everyone that has replied. I'll be in contact with some of you soon

Bobby

 

Hello there...

>>using out-of-the-box SharePoint will almost certainly result in a poor user-experience<<

I must say that we haven't found this to be the case. We aren't using any customisations that aren't available using built-in SharePoint facilities, and our users are very pleased with what they get.

I know of some people who have been put off using SharePoint because they believe that it will need significant customisation to be usable, and for small organisations such time and expense isn't feasible. But I'd say out of the box WSS, let alone MOSS, is a great boost to productivity.

Cheers, John

Hi,

I agree that MOSS is an excellent tool that can help increase productivity but in my experience it doesn't always match what people are looking for straight out of the box. In most cases there are usually some requirements that can't be achieved with MOSS out of the box and this is where the customisation is required. If this is not taken into consideration then the system will not achieve what it is designed to and this is where you get the poor user-experience. At the end of the day its all down to what each individual business uses it for so what is true in one case may not be in another.

If you disagree then I would be interested to discuss this as it is always beneficial to listen to other opinions and ways of working.

Thanks,

Ray

Hello there...

You are right of course in that there may well be things that people want that they can't get out of the box. My point is that its is worth looking first at what you CAN do out of the box.

As soon as you start customisation of course you open up new avenues, but you also open up additional cost, complexity, and you have additional things to consider eg when you do a version upgrade.

Cheers, John