SharePoint Online Capitalizes on Consumer File Sharing
November 21, 2013
Security concerns plague the enterprise when employees turn to unsanctioned cloud-based file sharing. But for years, the convenience of services like Dropbox could not be matched by sanctioned enterprise services. SharePoint Online hopes to change that by offering convenient and safe cloud storage options for employees. CMS Wire covers the story in their article, “What Consumerization of IT Means for SharePoint Online, SkyDrive Pro.”
The article begins:
“BYOD has taken over the enterprise, whether the enterprise likes it or not. But it’s not just BYOD. Employees are turning to consumer versions of file sharing cloud solutions like DropBox, Google Drive, SkyDrive (not to be confused with SkyDrive Pro) and others to access their documents no matter where they are. IT needs to resolve this problem, and it won’t be done by banning the use of these devices and apps. There’s a smarter way.”
ArnoldIT.com, a service run by longtime search expert Steven E. Arnold, is skeptical of SharePoint’s continued relevance in the changing enterprise environment. Arnold often argues that SharePoint is not capable of its main function, search, and has diluted its mission by focusing on add-ons. Regardless, SharePoint is still a large portion of the market and is worth following.
Emily Rae Aldridge, November 21, 2013
SharePoint User Training Cannot be Overlooked
October 11, 2013
SharePoint is a huge deployment for any organization. Most will just focus on implementation and many make the mistake of overlooking user training. CMS Wire gives many reasons to invest in SharePoint user training in their article, “Don’t Overlook the Importance of Effective SharePoint User Training.”
The article begins:
“While most of the recent stories about SharePoint revolve around the latest buzzwords and hot topics — gamification, cloud, mobile, social, Yammer, etc. — one component of a successful SharePoint rollout that is often overlooked is an effective user training program. Although talking about training seems to be out of fashion at the moment, it’s still very important.”
User training is so important for SharePoint because it is a huge, complicated deployment. User satisfaction is pitifully low for the enterprise search solution, and training can only help improve those numbers. Stephen E. Arnold, a longtime expert in search and the brains behind ArnoldIT.com, is a critic of SharePoint. He recently covered a story that revealed that only 6% of enterprises found their SharePoint deployments to be successful. There is clearly room for improvement.
Emily Rae Aldridge, October 11, 2013
The SharePoint Network
October 7, 2013
SharePoint and Yammer are going to work together to bring social networking features as well as mobile to the collaborative content management program. CMS Wire has a recap on a webinar that details how the relationship is progressing: “Webinar Recap: Yammer + SharePoint + Mobile – Oh My!” During the webinar, Keith Long of ICF Interactive said that workers spend 61% of their time collaborating, but Yammer might not be the ideal solution because it is not as customizable as SharePoint. This is one the reasons why SharePoint’s Yammer deployment has been slowed.
Another topic was mobile and another interesting statistic is that 95% of workers bring their own device to work, which means it is a big business need. Cloud is taking control of IT budgets by over 70% said Long again, and it is shifting resources. SharePoint is a helpful tool for mobile management, but it is not ideal for smaller companies.
Gasification came up in the Q&A:
“Long noted many of the staples of gasification are available in SharePoint like badges and earning the rank of expert in a given field, for example. Besides onboarding people, gamification can help workers bond a bit more, Long said, something that can actually go a long way in retaining people. In a similar vein, a question came up about overall adoption trends, and Long pointed out that the companies who made the most effort in getting people to use SharePoint were the ones that were successful.”
Getting people to deploy SharePoint sounds like it is taking a bit of bribing. Steve Arnold of Arnold IT, leading expert in search and content management, would suggest forming a team who would issue deadlines and keep companies on task.
Whitney Grace, October 7, 2013
SharePoint Deployment Makes Users Angry
October 3, 2013
A simple rule of thumb is that when a program is hard to deploy it makes users angry. Bad news for Microsoft, says CBR Online, because “Users Struggle To Implement Microsoft’s SharePoint 2013.” What does SharePoint 2013 do differently than any of its other versions? It is not surprising that the issues deal with security and Cloud technology. It is the same old routine we have heard before. What is even more depressing are the numbers from an AIIM survey: 28% of SharePoint users have stalled their deployment, and one-third are having troubling implementing it. Even more depressing is that 43% will not even use the Cloud to store information and only 6% of users claim to have had success.
Does Microsoft feel the pain yet?
“AIIM President John Mancini said: ‘There are many benefits to tapping into the power of SharePoint 2013, specifically the mobile and social aspects, yet as our research indicates, many business and IT leaders are wary of security issues around cloud technology. While using SharePoint can help companies of any size, as a collaborative platform and even a records management tool, it’s clear from our research that, based on a variety of factors, deployments and adoption of the technology has not reached its original goals.’ “
Content management is only as useful as the program storing it, as Stephen Arnold of Arnold IT, has explained many times. If the software does not do what it is supposed to then it slows productivity and frustrates users. This does not come as a surprise from a Microsoft product. The advice that should be followed is to wait a few months, until Microsoft fixes the bugs.
Whitney Grace, October 3, 2013
SharePoint Not on the Radar
September 26, 2013
Microsoft recently updated its SharePoint Cloud services to include more options that allow more flexibility for mobile users. While the PR for this update has been well received, “AIIM Research Indicates SharePoint Has A ‘Cloudy’ Future” says PRWeb. This reminds me of something Stephen E Arnold of Arnold IT notes in many of reports about how upgrades may be good, but they do not solve the underlying problems, such as implementation and security.
AIIM conducted a survey and found that only 6% of its respondents found their deployments successful, while 43% are struggling with implementing SharePoint, and another 28% say that progress has stalled in their SharePoint projects. That only touches the shallow end of the SharePoint pool. Many companies are also running multiple versions of the software, which can only lead to compatibility issues.
And how is SharePoint Cloud security viewed?
“ ‘There are many benefits to tapping into the power of SharePoint 2013, specifically the mobile and social aspects, yet as our research indicates, many business and IT leaders are wary of security issues around cloud technology,’ said AIIM President John Mancini. ‘While using SharePoint can help companies of any size, as a collaborative platform and even a records management tool, it’s clear from our research that, based on a variety of factors, deployments and adoption of the technology has not reached its original goals.’”
SharePoint is a viable solution, but behind the shiny labels and screensaver there are many, many problems.
Whitney Grace, September 26, 2013
Image Rendition in Display Template for Content Search on Sharepoint 2013
September 12, 2013
The Sharepoint 2013 blog explains how to enhance image results in the post Sharepoint Search Vegas Style, Display Template with Image Renditions. Sharepoint 2013’s Image Rendition enables one to use specific image renditions combined with Channels. This is particularly important when using mobile devices, since smaller images used with Channels allow for a superior performance on websites for mobile devices. This article focuses on the steps needed to use Image Renditions in Display Template for Content Search web part. The article explains that after creating a page and configuring the web part to display only the images desired,
“I opened SharePoint Designer and made a copy of Item_Pictures3Lines.html.
I called the file Item_Picture3vegasLines.html. At line 50, there is a code: var pictureURL = $getItemValue(ctx, “Picture URL”);
I added: var vegasURL=pictureURL + “?RenditionID=5″;At line 71, I removed a class: <div class=”cbs-picture3LinesImageContainer” id=”_#= pictureContainerId =#_”> This removed class sets image to 100px width and 100px height.
The code looks like this: <div id=”_#= pictureContainerId =#_”>”
From there, the author adds an image title next to the image with the code: <div style=”float:left;margin-bottom:5px;” id=”_#= pictureContainerId =#_”>. (The article also includes the full code for Item_Picture3vegasLines.html.)
Chelsea Kerwin, September 12, 2013
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Augmentext
SharePoint and SharePoint Search: End of Life?
June 16, 2013
I had a chat with a former IBM executive. At lunch, an interesting emerged as we talked about the trials and tribulations large enterprise software vendors are facing. In addition to the embarrassing layoffs at IBM, there are signals that the financial screws are being turned at Hewlett Packard, Oracle, SAP and elsewhere. Part of the pressure is normal because the April May June quarter is an important one before the world goes on vacation in July and August. September, obviously, will be another flat out period for sales and marketing professionals. But there was one t hought which we kicked around in a post-prandial stupor.
A dilemma now exists in the enterprise software sector.
Stick with what works and has worked
Go in a new direction and improvise.
What happens if Microsoft does the Adobe thing and forces SharePoint licensees to embrace the cloud? What happens to the resellers? What happens to the integrators? What happens to the in house staff who know the intricacies of on premises installations of SharePoint but not the secrets of Azure?
Microsoft has a significant dependence on on premises sales. This is the client access license, the enterprise license, and the special set ups which make Microsoft the de facto choice for desktop computing workers worldwide.
Is an end of life play for SharePoint possible without making Microsoft even more vulnerable to the enticements of Google and others who want to supplant Microsoft as the “king of the desktop enter” and “baron of the back office”?
On one hand, the idea that SharePoint and its okay search solution, administrator employing mail and database systems, and its quirky collaboration and document management solutions could shift to the cloud is silly. Why give up those license fees? Why alienate service firms dependent on sales and support to hundreds of millions of SharePoint users? Why assume that a cloud business model will work for on site license customers? Organizations are conservative. Change comes slowly or not at all. Stick with the status quo.
Concept Searching Set to Sponsor SharePoint City Party at 2012 Conference
October 23, 2012
Concept Searching, a provider of enterprise-grade software products that aim to deliver conceptual metadata generation, auto-classification, and taxonomy management from the desktop, is sponsoring the ‘SharePoint City’ Party, to be hosted by Axceler exclusively for attendees at the SharePoint 2012 Conference, on November 14th in Las Vegas. Concept Searching provides basic enterprise-search capabilities, and this is explained about their additional product:
Going beyond a technology solution, Concept Searching’s Smart Content Framework™ for information governance is a toolset based on conceptClassifier for SharePoint that provides the enterprise infrastructure framework to mitigate risk, automate processes, manage information, protect privacy, and address compliance issues. The result is one set of technologies, running natively in SharePoint, which improves search, provides an enterprise metadata repository, automates records management, ensures compliance, protects and secures data, and facilitates migration.
If you plan to attend the conference, the party held at Tryst Nightclub may be worth checking out. A link to register for the party is provided in the article. If you’re weighing enterprise search applications for your existing SharePoint investments, you may also want to look up Mindbreeze. Fabasoft Mindbreeze Enterprise gains each employee two weeks per year through focused finding of data, a competitive business advantage and added bonus to employee satisfaction. In addition, their suite of solutions includes mobile and Web site search, a variety of connectors, and certified security.
Philip West, October 23, 2012
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Augmentext.
Familiar Architecture and Improvements in SharePoint 2013
October 11, 2012
J. Peter Bruzzese, a writer for InfoWorld’s Enterprise Windows blog, takes a look at what he terms welcome enhancements for SharePoint 2013 in his InfoWorld post, “SharePoint 2013: A Low-Key Update You’ll Love.” Bruzzese first points out that architecturally, the upcoming SharePoint release is similar to its predecessor, but with added benefit of increased support for touch based devices. He has this to say about the overall improvements:
SharePoint 2013’s social networking enhancements provide more interaction options for people in a company, such as via community sites and portals that offer a forum-style experience within SharePoint. The My Sites user interface…has been streamlined. New microblog and newsfeed features allow for shorter conversations and quick updates, similar to what Yammer provides.
He adds that overall SharePoint 2013 is an improvement, but also has this to say:
I only wish that SharePoint was released more frequently, not tied to the three-year cycles of the Office and server lines, so it could better keep up with the rapid changes in social networking, mobile, and other user technology spaces.
Bruzzese points out that greater scalability and integration of FAST Search, rather than being a stand-alone program, are also two improvements. But when it comes to taking advantage of social capabilities and search, we know that FAST has its gaps and users need efficient and easy access to information. Fabasoft Mindbreeze offers Enterprise Search with SharePoint Connectors so to easily snap into your existing farm. In addition to all-inclusive search, Mindbreeze creates relevant knowledge by storing data according to type and relevance while processing data in a comprehensible form.
Philip West, October 11, 2012
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Augmentext.
The Long Wait for SharePoint 2013
August 14, 2012
Microsoft has hyped the release of SharePoint 2013, with many enterprise junkies highly anticipating the public availability of the revamped product. ClearBox Consulting takes on the question of whether or not the new SharePoint is worth the hype, and the long wait, in, “Is SharePoint 2013 worth waiting for?”
While the author has many positives to highlight, he does have this to say in reference to the negatives:
By SharePoint 2010 the main challenges for an intranet manager had become governance and user adoption. Governance has definitely been improved, but adoption has been less substantially addressed. For example, the user experience for content owners is still over-fiddly and at the moment the mobile experience is well below what will be needed over the next 2-3 years. Moreover, the new version has done little to reduce the complexity involved in producing and managing a SharePoint-based intranet for business owners of sites and content.
It is no mystery that regardless of the changes that are made to SharePoint, it is a huge product that requires a lot of time, attention, and customization. So for many smaller organizations, a smarter, more efficient third party solution may be a better choice. A product like Fabasoft Mindbreeze Enterprise can work as a standalone enterprise search solution, or as an enhancement to an existing SharePoint infrastructure. Used either way, customers will marvel as the intuitive interface and increased productivity of Fabasoft Mindbreeze.
Emily Rae Aldridge, August 14, 2012
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Augmentext.
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