SharePoint Improves its Style
December 23, 2013
SharePoint frequently takes hits for its user experience, or lack thereof. And user experience can mean a lot of different things. Sometimes it just comes down to what users see on the screen and how pleasing it is to work with. The latest CMS Wire story gets at this very point in, “SharePoint, This Old House Style – Interior Design, Decorating.”
The article explores style options for the latest version of SharePoint:
“SharePoint ‘branding’ used to be a more esoteric science of hand tooled features and CSS files. SharePoint 2010 introduced the seldom-used ability to define custom site themes by using PowerPoint. That was an interesting step (no one ever used it), but now you can make key changes directly from the browser using Composed Looks. With Composed Looks, a site owner can restyle a site with custom layouts, fonts, colors and background images.”
Stephen E. Arnold of ArnoldIT.com, is a long time leader in search. He devotes a lot of research and writing to SharePoint, and has frequently reported that most user complaints come down to user experience. While cosmetic changes don’t solve every problem, it can be a small gesture by Microsoft that truly goes a long way with customers.
Emily Rae Aldridge, December 23, 2013
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Augmentext
SharePoint Consolidates Mobile Apps
December 11, 2013
SharePoint is bolstered by its acquisition of Yammer, and now a mobile app seeks to improve user experience of both components. EIN News Desk brings the news in their article, “Mobile Workers Can Now Tap Yammer and Microsoft SharePoint in One App.”
The article begins:
“With new integration of Microsoft Office 365, Microsoft SharePoint and Yammer, harmon.ie, the user experience company for the mobile enterprise, today announced the industry’s first comprehensive mobile collaboration app. Combining the most popular Microsoft document sharing and social applications into a single mobile app, harmon.ie now gives mobile business users the power to share documents and collaborate with colleagues using SharePoint Online or on-premise, SkyDrive Pro, email, telephone and, now, Yammer social within a single native app on iOS, Android and BlackBerry 10 devices.”
Mobile business tools are more and more valuable, improving user experience and satisfaction. Stephen E. Arnold, a longtime leader in search and the expert behind ArnoldIT, often covers SharePoint, its components, and promising add-ons. His recent coverage shows that SharePoint is turning more and more attention to mobile. We think this is a trend that will continue.
Emily Rae Aldridge, December 11, 2013
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Augmentext
SharePoint 2013 Hybrid Governance Support
December 6, 2013
SharePoint grows in breadth and depth with every update. SharePoint 2013 offers more features than ever before. However, the time and expertise it takes to customize those features is becoming more and more demanding. For that reason, organizations are looking for add-ons and intuitive customization options without a lot of hassle. PRWeb gives another good option in its latest release, “Microsoft SharePoint 2013 Hybrid Support Highlights New Release of AvePoint DocAve Governance Automation Service Pack 4.”
The release begins:
“AvePoint, the leader in governance, compliance, and management solutions for social enterprise collaboration platforms, announced today the latest version of its flagship product for automated service and proactive governance enforcement, DocAve Governance Automation Service Pack (SP) 4, with support for Microsoft SharePoint 2013 hybrid deployments.”
Finding and analyzing all the latest add-ons and SharePoint supplemental services can be exhausting. Many would benefit from a news service that boils down the important stuff. That’s just what Stephen E. Arnold does with ArnoldIT. A long-time leader in enterprise search, his recent attention has turned to enterprise search, and his expertise is invaluable.
Emily Rae Aldridge, December 6, 2013
LeadFerret Publishes SharePoint Directory
December 5, 2013
With the growing complexity of enterprise search, SharePoint is of course growing more and more complicated. Enterprises struggle to find the best implementation and the best means of customization. In order to meet that need, many are turning to enterprise experts. LeadFerret is hoping to connect organizations with appropriate experts. Their efforts are discussed in the NewsDay article, “LeadFerret Publishes Directory of SharePoint Professionals.”
The article begins:
“LeadFerret users already enjoy free access to over 15+ million business contacts with complete information, including email addresses, social media links, and a robust set of search tools. Today LeadFerret announced the release of a specialized directory of SharePoint Professionals which allows users to search and see full contact information for them.”
SharePoint experts are in demand because of the growing complexities of SharePoint, but also because of the growing options for SharePoint customization and add-on solutions. Stephen E. Arnold is a long-time leader in search. He offers world-class advice and expertise on ArnoldIT.com as well as a subscription service, Honk, for effortless industry news at your fingertips.
Emily Rae Aldridge, December 5, 2013
SharePoint Planning with Office 365
December 3, 2013
SharePoint is perhaps the most expansive software that an organization will implement. At the same time, SharePoint touches almost every member of an organization. So when changes happen with SharePoint, anxiety is a given. CMS Wire covers the latest cause of concern, and gives a few reasons to relax, in their article, “‘Have it Your Way’ SharePoint: Two Paths, Many Options.”
The article begins:
“Many of the conversations I’ve had over the last year were filled with questions and concerns about the future of SharePoint and what the addition of Office 365 would bring to the mix. Microsoft answered some of these questions late last week and provided some insight into its plans going forward. With this information, organizations can breathe a little easier and plan a little better for the future.”
And planning is central to an enterprise search implementation, regardless of the software chosen. Stephen E. Arnold has made a longtime career out of critiquing the landscape of enterprise search. Follow him at ArnoldIT to keep up with the latest in the field and make your plans for the future of your enterprise.
Emily Rae Aldridge, December 3, 2013
DIY SharePoint Site Usability
November 27, 2013
There is always enough SharePoint chatter to keep enterprise experts at every level occupied. And a current popular topic of conversation is SharePoint usability. CMS Wire continues the conversation in their article, “The Missing Link in SharePoint Site Usability.”
The author writes:
“The topic of SharePoint site usability never grows old. With every new version of SharePoint that comes out, Microsoft has touted that it is extremely intuitive and easy to use, and judging from the number of licenses sold, many organizations seem to have bought into this myth. What they are not told is what it actually takes to make SharePoint sites user-friendly.”
Customization, customization, customization. That’s what it takes to make SharePoints sites user-friendly. And customization is costly. Most people just can’t make do anymore with a bare bones SharePoint implementation. Organizations are looking to third party add-ons to round out their installation. Stephen E. Arnold, a longtime enterprise expert and man behind ArnoldIT.com, relays this message frequently. Stay tuned to ArnoldIT for ways to enhance or replace a SharePoint implementation, depending on your organization’s needs.
Emily Rae Aldridge, November 27, 2013
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Augmentext
SharePoint Over the Years
November 26, 2013
SharePoint has come a long way since its inception in 2001 with SharePoint Portal Server. And while many criticize SharePoint for not being able to keep up with the times, it has made progress over the years. Chris McNulty of CMS Wire covers the history of SharePoint in his article, “SharePoint 2013, This Old House Style – Moving In and Living Together.”
McNulty says:
“SharePoint 2013 is not what it was 10 years ago. Its expanded capacity and security capabilities mean that your layout of sites and libraries — information architecture — can match actual usage patterns more closely, bringing content and stakeholders more closely together than before. Advances in sharing and publishing helps assure that your documents start out life in the right place, and minimize the degree of redundant or obsolete copies of the same document being randomly distributed around the farm. The introduction of user-friendly document lifecycle management helps assure the documents are automatically curated, retaining what’s essential and purging or archiving old information.”
And while the author outlines many improvements that SharePoint has made over the years, most users are reporting that in order to have full enterprise functionality, they are supplementing with add-ons. Stephen E. Arnold of ArnoldIT.com is a longtime leader in enterprise search. His recent research points to the fact that while SharePoint is widely adopted, it is also widely supplemented with add-ons to complete functionality.
Emily Rae Aldridge, November 26, 2013
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Augmentext
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
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