Protected: SharePoint People Are Cool People
March 23, 2012
Accessing Unstructured Data across Various Platforms of Digitally Published Content
March 23, 2012
One of the key components to successful collaboration is the accessibility of the digitally published content in the information environment, whether it is a wiki, portal, document, blog, etc. In “Communities vs. Portals, Blogs, Wikis, Documents, and More,” the author weighs-in on the issue as it relates to providing relevant and dynamic information to users in an effective way.
The author had this to say:
Communities encourage participation by definition as much as they allow for consumption. And activity streams provide an easy and efficient way to aggregate, consume, share, and engage. With that said, some people like to see a bunch of boxes on a web page in a dashboard / newspaper type view. Fair enough…Of course the value of that information in the portal becomes much less because people can only consume in a traditional portal vs. taking some type of action to collaborate on or share the information & knowledge you have just gained.
The author argues for providing all users, even the ones that don’t yet embrace social business and stick to static publishing, with the ability to subscribe and share. If you have vast amounts of unstructured data in your organization, look to increase the value of your information assets with a third party solution, like Fabasoft Mindbreeze.
No matter where your information is held, on-premise or in the Cloud, Mindbreeze search allows users to easily find and access business knowledge. Here you can read about the user-friendly interface that your tech-laggard users will appreciate.
The Fabasoft Mindbreeze Enterprise user interface is based on Web 2.0 technology and combines simplicity with elegance. The operation is self-explanatory. Work just as you are used to. Access your data from anywhere. Also on smartphones and tablets. Elegant design, easy operation. With you wherever you are. Find and access your enterprise and cloud information straight away.
So while experts in the field continue to discuss ways to increase user adoption through dynamic portals, Fabasoft Mindbreeze is a comprehensive search solution with an intuitive interface out-of-the-box that you can deploy now.
Philip West, March 23, 2012
Sponsored by Pandia.com
Kenesto Leading the Way in Business Process Automation
March 23, 2012
Manufacturers are constantly faced with new trials and tribulations. Business process automation is helping ease that burden. As discussed in “Solving PLM Process Problems with Kenesto” , Kenesto, an automation company, is “challenging the traditional solutions by offering something valuable yet less complex.”
Kenesto focuses on effective and efficient communication. They aim to keep things simple and their solutions are designed “to make it very easy to implement ad-hoc processes.” So what does Kenesto do?
- Product development / product lifecycle management involve lots of people, and they need to communicate. Kenesto does that.
- That communication benefits from the ability to share information with the group. Kenesto does that through attachments (and some level of data, that I still need to understand a bit better).
- The communication benefits from having a status and named participants, with knowledge of what has been done and who is due to act. Kenesto does that.
Communication is the key to successful product development. Product data also needs to be shared in a similar way. Like Kenesto, Inforbix is focused on sharing product data throughout a company in a simple and effective manner. Their software helps find, share and reuse engineering and manufacturing data. Kenesto and Inforbix are making huge strides in communication and we expect the best is yet to come.
Jennifer Wensink, March 23, 2012
Sinequa Rings Up eCommerce
March 22, 2012
Enterprise search software company Sinequa has posted a recent news release, announcing that Sinequa Business Search has been selected to facilitate customer product searches, entitled “INFOMIL, a Subsidiary of E.LECLERC, Selects SINEQUA to Facilitate Consumer Choice in Group Stores.”
According to the article, Sinequa Business Search linguistic and semantic capabilities can propose relevant product references based on questions that are vague or specific. It does this by creating: a specific search structure, better access to cultural and food products, and structured auto-completion to support customers.
When discussing the specific search structure, Denis Dargelos, Design and Development Manager at Infomil states:
With Sinequa Business Search, we offer consumers and aisle managers quick, flexible access to the products of their choice. We could even say that we guide them from a vague idea to a specific product. Merely adding an interface layer on top of SQL queries to search in our product database would not have provided the same level of flexibility and user service.
Sinequa Business Search is an excellent new offering to help both customers and businesses alike with their enterprise search needs. Sinequa has become quiet in the last few months. Our question is, “Is the company in transition or for sale?” We are monitoring the news or lack of it.
Jasmine Ashton, March 22, 2012
Sponsored by Pandia.com
Protected: Launch SharePoint Services with Collaborative Solutions
March 22, 2012
Navigating SharePoint Trials
March 22, 2012
SharePoint has almost become a corporate mandate, but how can you tell if and how SharePoint will work for your organization? Many companies want to run a trial to see if SharePoint is a good fit. CMSWire covers some SharePoint trial options in, “Office365 or SharePoint Foundation – What’s the Best SharePoint Trial?”
Chris Wright covers some of the major pros and cons:
But the world is slowly changing. The Cloud is now everywhere, and many enterprise applications and services are happily migrating. SharePoint is one of them, included as part of Microsoft’s wider Office365 offering. SharePoint Online, available as a free trial for 30 days, is now another way to investigate the world of SharePoint. However it is important to realize that Online differs from Foundation, and indeed all the locally installed versions, in a number of significant ways. So for the new users wanting to evaluate SharePoint, which is best — SharePoint Foundation or SharePoint Online?
But what happens if a trial is run and SharePoint is not a great fit? The internet is full of content generated by SharePoint developers and users who give practical advice for customizing SharePoint to more effectively meet certain needs. If you determine that your organization cannot invest added time and money in customization, there is another option, third party solutions.
Fabasoft Mindbreeze is a strong enterprise search suite that is already tailored to the needs of end users and developers, cutting out the customization step and allowing more intuitive interfacing with all users.
Fabasoft Mindbreeze is more than a search:
Fabasoft Mindbreeze Enterprise understands you, or to be more precise, understands what the most important information is for you at any precise moment in time. It is the center of excellence for your knowledge and simultaneously your personal assistant for all questions. The information pairing technology brings enterprise and Cloud data together.
Read more about their offerings and see if Fabasoft Mindbreeze might be an asset to your organization.
Emily Rae Aldridge, March 22, 2012
Sponsored by Pandia.com
PLM Assists in All Phases of a Product’s Lifecycle
March 22, 2012
Product lifecycle management (PLM) has taken on a life of its own. 360 Enterprise Software breaks down a product lifecycle into five phases and explains how PLM can assist in each phase in their article “PLM Fundamentals: PLM’s Role in the 5 Phases of the Product Lifecycle.”
The first phase is planning and PLM applications can store ideas from “brainstorming sessions, collaborations and meetings.” Then the second and third phases are design and realize. CAD is often a major part of both phases and that information can be stored and distributed by PLM software. Support/service phase is the fourth and:
“When salespeople need information about a product quickly, they can turn to PLM’s collaboration tools to get in touch with the necessary and available product experts through an impromptu chat or discussion online. Also, technical support and service technicians can refer to product data stored in the company’s PLM applications…”
The final phase is retire/dispose can rely on PLM to determine if a “product can be safely disposed of and possibly recycled.”
CAD and PLM are virtually essential in a product lifecycle. Companies like Inforbix know this and are developing key software to assist in CAD data retrieval. Inforbix software helps users find, reuse and share product data throughout the company. We expect for PLM to become even more important as software development continue.
Jennifer Wensink, March 22, 2012
Protected: Time for SharePoint Reference Data Cleaning
March 21, 2012
Optimizing SharePoint 2010 with Powershell
March 21, 2012
For SharePoint developers who need to customize their infrastructure, Powershell can be a powerful appliance to achieve set goals. Craig Pilkenton offers his suggestions for maximizing the tool in, “Using Powershell to… Upload Documents in SharePoint 2010.”
Powershell is the tool for getting things done in all versions of SharePoint (and your servers/desktops too!). It has the capability to automate, monitor, notify, and even ‘react’ to results. Not only does it have custom compiled ‘activities’ to get work done, it has the ability to call any command-line executable or pull in .NET library’s to handle anything not already given to us by Microsoft (or even our own cmdlets). In this article we’ll go over how to use some of the new “manage content” SharePoint cmdlets to interact with the platform just as a user would.
Pilkenton is a Senior Microsoft Consultant at CDW, so his advice is credible and valuable. He even lists a couple of items for consideration before using Powershell, and breaks down the internal structure line by line.
But for those who are not Senior Microsoft Consultants, and even those who may be intimidated by a command line driven program, there are other options. Many third party solutions exist to make customization more intuitive, with less technical skill required.
Fabasoft Mindbreeze offers an entire suite of enterprise solutions to work alongside, or in place of, SharePoint. Read more about their quick, service-oriented, and cost-effective offerings:
The award-winning high-tech product is your personal assistant. 24/7, 365 days a year. Regardless of which data you are looking for and with which system you are working with – Fabasoft Mindbreeze Enterprise answers your questions with pinpoint accuracy.
SharePoint is a powerful and ubiquitous tool in the world of search, but for those who cannot devote the time and attention to such a large infrastructure, a smaller more intuitive solution may be just the fit.
Emily Rae Aldridge, March 21, 2012
Sponsored by Pandia.com
Service Finally Jumping on the PLM Bandwagon
March 21, 2012
Product Lifecycle Management (PLM) has long been used in manufacturing and engineering as a cost-cutting method of speeding up production times. Recently though, as more non-traditional industries have turned to PLM providers to help save money from design to finished product PLM has been introduced to a new market – service. As a recent article, “PLM Syncs Up With Service”, on Design News, explains introducing PLM at the service end of production has its benefits.
It would appear that as companies get better at utilizing PLM in the engineering and production phases they begin to see the value extending PLM to service would have. As the article explains,
“Service, in particular, is one of the more compelling extensions of PLM as it fosters improvement in two key business processes critical to a company’s success: improving its overall service performance for customers; and providing invaluable information and feedback to engineering that can help advance the development and quality of existing and future products.”
As the name implies product lifecycle management has always been intended to work through the entire lifecycle of a product including service. PLM providers dedicated to working with clients in new data management solutions like utilizing cloud technology have long been working with companies in the service area. Perhaps now that PLM as it relates to service is getting some press more providers will jump on board.
Catherine Lamsfuss, March 20, 2012
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