The social tools of SharePoint have lately faced a lot of criticism from executives. It is a fact that these social tools are considered as a major distraction and well as productivity hindrance. Moreover, many executives might also believe that these tools can usher in the threats of loss of intellectual property, cyber-attacks as well as corporate embarrassment. From their point of view, these tools are probable disasters which should better be completely done away with.
Many of these concerns might be legitimate, but that should not be the reason to shun SP social tools totally. Globally acclaimed SharePoint expert Richard Harbridge, has worked with a number of companies helping them to cope up with this problem. According to him, once the executives' concerns are understood and acknowledged, ways to reduce the risks can be demonstrated.
Major concerns of executives and means to alleviate them
1. Fear of negative comments: One of the things that executives worry about most is the situation wherein a dissatisfied employee might say something negative on the blog. Such corporate embarrassment can be avoided by adopting certain simple measures such as the addition of an approval feature within the blogs. Here the main issue is that executive or other supporting staff might not properly understand how these features can be used effectively. In that case, some amount of education will help.
2. Fear of wrong information usage: With SharePoint's social tools, executives often dread the fact that information might fall in the wrong hands. In the executives' opinion, loss of trade secrets and intellectual property is a huge risk. This can be addressed by amending or appending the existing policies pertaining to intellectual property, that are present in employee agreements or employee manuals. Any social technology including the intranet should not be exempt from respectful and ethical employee behavior as well as acceptable technology use practices.
3. Fear of wastage of time: According to many executives, once SharePoint social tools are introduced, a large number of people would be wasting time on what can be called as a 'Corporate Facebook'. But it should be noted that the tools have some substantial business value which most executives do not know. For instance, each time a user shares, rates or tags a piece of content, the same is noted by SharePoint and its search relevancy is increased. This enables people to easily locate what they are looking for, thereby mitigating the risk of obsolete or incorrect content being used.
In case executives are still concerned about productivity loss, setting the employees' expectation that, like their web browser or email, this is also a work technology, can do the desired job. In order to make the use of these SP tools by employees more effective, guidance, training or illustrations may be given on the means to utilize the technology within a work setting. Often, making use of stories to elaborate this can help immensely, particularly if the stories revolve around corporate culture or things like any practical use of the tool specific to the business.
4. Fear of viruses and cyber-attacks: Many are of the opinion that using SP social tools will make the systems vulnerable to cyber-attacks and viruses. These can be conveniently reduced by implementation of an enterprise ready social technology. A plethora of them have constraints imposed for preventing people from adding scripts as an instance to discussion boards, tags, status updates or embedded in any other social content.
5. Fear of employee harassment: Many feel that enhanced collaboration paves the way to increased employee harassment. It is significant to consider the matter of employee harassment, hence ensure that you append or amend the existing policies related to sexual harassment within employee agreements or manuals. Moreover, so far as ethical employee behavior or acceptable technology use is concerned, all social technologies including the intranet should not be exempt from the same.
The concern of your executives is valid, and cannot be denied. However, once these concerns are addressed through implementation of effective and simple safeguards, these types of situations can be done away with. And once accepted with open arms, SharePoint application development would help you leverage the power of social media.
We provide SharePoint webparts development services. If you would like to talk to one of our certified SharePoint developers, please get in touch with us at Mindfire Solutions.
A consistent increase is noted in the number of companies investing in SharePoint application development. However, each organization also explores option to optimize the performance of the SharePoint application. In addition to developing and deploying the application properly, it is also important for a company to provide consistent and quality support. If you are planning to outsource the SharePoint application support, it is important to select the right partner. Along with comparing the cost of support services, you also need to consider on a number of important points to ensure that your SharePoint application gets consistent and customized support.
How to Choose the Right SharePoint Support Partner?
1. Skills and Innovation: Similar to other tech support partners, your SharePoint support partner also needs to possess adequate knowledge, skills and platforms. At the same time, you must evaluate the nature and type of the services offered by the company to ensure that these are effective in optimizing the performance of your application. In addition to adding value to your existing team of developers, the company must be effective in providing fresh and innovative ideas to the overall IT functionality.
2. Solid Working Relationship: When you are hiring a SharePoint support partner, the company will work with your team over a longer period of time. Therefore, it is important to check the services offered by the company to ensure that a solid working relationship can be built. Along with checking the compatibility of the company with your existing team, you also need to check if the company is ready to offer customized support according to the needs and objectives of your organization.
3. Professional Accreditations: When you are outsourcing SharePoint support, it becomes essential to hire the best professionals. Along with the qualification and experience of the members of the support team, you also need to check if they are Microsoft certified. As each professional has to work hard to obtain Microsoft certification exam, the team consisting of such accredited developers can provide higher level of service by identifying your specific requirements.
4. Location of the Company: You have option to choose from several local and offshore SharePoint support service providers. Similar to other companies, you can avail high quality yet cost-effective support for your application by outsourcing the project. But the offshore company will require you to work with a distributed team. Also, there are chances that you have to implement a comprehensive strategy to overcome the constraints related to language and time zone. It is also a good idea to discuss with your in-house team about their willingness to work with an offshore company.
5. A Concrete Service Level Agreement: Once you decide to hire an offshore company, it becomes essential to ensure that it will assist your team in resolving any problem without causing any delay. At the same time, you must hire a service provider who agrees to sign a concrete service level agreement drafted according to your specific business needs. The service level agreement will make it easier for you to avail consistent and high quality SharePoint support, in addition to evaluating the service based on key performance indicators.
6. Credibility and Reputation of the Support Partner: The websites of the companies offering SharePoint support will help you in understanding the nature and type of services offered by them. However, you cannot hire a partner without checking his professional credibility and reputation. It is always a good idea to contact the existing clients of the company to gather information about the quality and promptness of the support service provided by the company. At the same time, you also need to evaluate the information gathered from various resources to ensure that the company has adequate manpower and financial strength to become a long-term support partner.
7. Cost: The hash economic conditions have made it essential for companies to avail high quality SharePoint support on a budget. So you must compare the prices charged by each shortlisted company. However, it is also important to do a cost and benefit analysis by keeping in mind the value the company will add to your existing IT system and functionality. As each service provider promises higher ROI, you can always ask the company to prove its claims. When a support partner agrees to deliver higher ROI, it will remain more committed to optimize the performance of your SharePoint application.
While selecting a SharePoint support partner, you cannot ignore the significance the feedback and recommendations of other users. It is a good idea to search the web to read the information shared by other companies related to the quality and reliability of SharePoint support provided by each of the shortlisted companies. If you are contemplating a SharePoint site migration project, you can put the points above into action to find a reliable development partner.
We provide SharePoint bespoke development services. If you would like to talk to one of our certified SharePoint developers, please get in touch with us at Mindfire Solutions.
Each edition of Microsoft SharePoint comes with loads of innovative features and functionality. In addition to being a web publishing platform, SharePoint is also used widely by enterprises to manage content and documents stored on their intranet and the web. But each company has to make and implement a comprehensive strategy to migrate to SharePoint smoothly. An organization can easily migrate to the innovative content management system, if it does not have any paper record.
But the companies with loads of paper records must implement a comprehensive SharePoint scanning strategy. Along with scanning each documents, file and folder, the strategy also needs to consider how to sort and store the scanned records logically. At the same time, the strategy must consider a number of quality assurance steps to optimize SharePoint scanning.
SharePoint Scanning Best Practices
1. Automate the Scanning Process: Similar to other manual process, SharePoint scanning is also prone to several types of errors. So you must use innovative technologies to automate the collection and storing of data. You also have option to choose from a variety of tools like Database Lookups and Advanced Data Extractions to make the data collection and entry process flawless. Along with eliminating errors, the tools will further make it easier for you to store the data at a much faster pace.
2. Check the Scanning Hardware: The documents can be scanned using several types of scanning hardware available in the market. But you must check the hardware to ensure that it is designed with double feed detection feature. The feature will ensure that the each page is scanned by eliminating the chances of pages getting struck while going through the feeder. As you have option to choose from several scanners, it is important to pick the right device after evaluating the pros and cons of each system.
3. Make the Scanning Task Specific: Many professionals do not understand the requirements and significance of SharePoint scanning. So they often ignore to check the quality of the scanned images and documents. You can always improve the quality of scanning by making the entire process task specific. Instead of deploying a dedicated employee to scan all documents, you can divide the task among several employees. When the task is assigned to specific employees, they will scan the documents properly while checking the quality of both data and images.
4. Check the Quality of Image and Data: You can always optimize the SharePoint scanning by introducing a QA system. Under the QA system, each image and information will be checked by an independent person, before storing these in the database. As an alternative, you can even consider using an interface that is designed with dual view feature to see each side of a document, folder batch or image structure. At the same time, the interface will also use a spreadsheet to ensure that the all each document is scanned and sorted in an exact and logical way.
5. Use Count Validation: When you are converting existing business data stored on papers into digital format, you must remember that there are always chances that some documents, pages and folders may remain non-scanned. So you must use a validation interface to ensure that each page, document and folder is scanned and counted properly. In addition to physical to digital validation, the interface will further ensure that the prepped or poorly stacked papers are scanned without skipping any record.
6. Check the Way Documents are Stored: Along with scanning each paper record, you also need to ensure that the digitalized records are sorted and stored logically. When the information are sorted and stored in a logical order, it will be easier to access the details immediately in future. Similarly doing QA while scanning the documents, you can further consider introducing QA of the end resting place. The second level of QA will ensure that the data are stored in the right rules. Also, the data will be stored according to the right rules, and in right data fields.
7. Improve Quality through Reporting: Many enterprises use a dual stream output to optimize the scanning and storing of paper record. Along with storing the images and metadata in the repository, you must feed the data and scanning statistics into a reporting DB. The reporting DB will make it easier for you to track the entire scanning process, and ensure that all documents are digitalized. The reporting will further help you in identifying the missing documents and exceptions.
Many organizations outsource SharePoint scanning to save time, effort and money. If you are planning to outsource the project, it becomes essential to keep the above mentioned factors in mind. It is also important to hire a company that has adequate experience in scanning, classifying and storing a wide variety of business records using SharePoint. Custom SharePoint development teams with proper experience in scanning can help immensely in this.
We provide SharePoint webparts development services. If you would like to talk to one of our certified SharePoint developers, please get in touch with us at Mindfire Solutions.
Lotus Notes, a prominent application development platform, became popular in the 90s. Most of these platforms helped in catering to the varying demands of the departments. The rapid development of the platforms led to the production of a variety of applications that were implemented without proper governance. Eventually, this led to the necessity of migrating from Lotus to SharePoint.
Now, the switching from Lotus Notes to SharePoint can be carried out using various paths. The precise ways and the process revolving round the migration needs to be considered to allow this to be successful. Here is a list of few ways of migration from Lotus applications to Microsoft SharePoint.
Migration of Standard Lists: This is the first point that needs to be taken into account. SharePoint, at the time when it was designed, came with several templates designed to execute precisely the same job as the numerous Lotus Notes’ mostly used standard application templates. The templates include task lists, calendars, discussion databases, contact lists and more. The basic functionality is same in spite of slight differences between the interfaces.
Migration of Custom Lists: Very much like the standard lists, the most essential thing to be considered while migrating from custom applications to custom lists is that of mapping all the database fields of the Notes to the suitable custom list columns.
Migration of Document Libraries: When it comes to Libraries, there are many things common between Lotus Notes and SharePoint with slight variations. The documents are actually binary files with several associated data properties. Considering this, the binary files attachments should be extracted and put in the library. This needs to be done during the Notes database migration.
Conversion of Microsoft Word: There is no denying the point that Microsoft Office, which is the dominant standard for creation of documents, integrates closely and effectively with the SharePoint libraries apart from being easy to handle. Now, the integration of Lotus Notes and SharePoint enables building of powerful applications. Additionally, users have the option of opening, editing and saving documents from the libraries without any hassles whatsoever.
Conversion of PDF: For businesses that have large amounts of Notes Databases incorporated with rich ext documents, PDF is the most suited platform for switching. Searching of PDFs in SharePoint requires installation of a free add-on from Adobe. PDF conversion leads to a satisfactory user experience, which may not, however, be as good as the one offered by Microsoft and SharePoint integration.
Conversion of InfoPath: InfoPath is considered an essential tool for switching for certain reasons. The applications might include complicated data structures, disabling them from getting stored in a list. The applications, on the other hand, encompass complex form designs along with ranges of difficult features.
Use of Document Sets: Document Sets come up as an essential way of storing several related files in a single and logical document group. This is like storing the entire thing in a single folder. In a document set, one can version, approve as well as secure the files while also presenting them in a usable and versatile interface.
Web Part Pages Migration: Web Part Pages Migration is the best option for exercising extra control over the manner in which the various elements in the web page are placed.
Migration of Publishing Pages: The reason behind this is precisely the same as Web Part Pages Migration. The only difference is that publishing pages require separate visual layout and styling from the authors of the content.
Migration of Wiki Pages: Creating a new page in SharePoint from the create menu leads to the wiki page. Now, wiki is the most popular page type when it comes to migrating Notes content. It is easily doable with proper migration tools.
Keeping these issues and their solutions in mind would assist you in getting a successful sharepoint site migration done from Lotus Notes to SharePoint.
We provide SharePoint porting services. If you would like to talk to one of our certified SharePoint developers, please get in touch with us at Mindfire Solutions.
Every time a software company brings out a new technology or product in the market, the focus is directed towards the endeavor of catering to the demands of users/customers concerning a specific functionality. Owing to such a need, companies often take route to creating an all – inclusive administrative solutions with the aim of selling a complete package. However, it must be noted that all documents and data created within the system often holds onto an importance, which reaches beyond commercial lifetime of a particular application of creation.
The importance of documents and data often surpasses the actual scope of parent or main application. For instance, documents that have been created in a proprietary system of document management might require an access from a corporate intranet or data present within system of custom relationship management might serve as an input to process of business documents creation.
Now, introduction of SharePoint 2013 has brought into fore the prospect of an effortless integration between a particular application and other external systems that has been implemented within technologies that are not of Microsoft. Well, in such a scenario, the RESTfull web service of SharePoint API increases communication with web application of Java. The chrome control of SharePoint enables the web application of Java to feature a similar kind of styling to that of hosted website.
The Layer of Communication with SharePoint
The web application of Java communicates to a car list in the hosted web, which is referred to as the Interopl and the data list is named as the Cars. The list features columns referring to the model, bran, and price. This particular application is named the Cars App and here is a quick look at the dependencies of the same within Java implementation.
- json-lib 2.4 – helper classes influencing Json objects
- resteasy-jaxrs 2.2.1.GA – RESTEasy enabled an easy access of the RESTfull SharePoint API
- commons-httpclient 3.1- dependent on RESTEasy
- httpclient 4.1.1 - dependent on RESTEasy
- spring-web 2.5.6
- spring-core 2.5.6
- spring-webmvc 2.5.6
- commons-logging 1.1.1
The Car service has been defined in order to write and read into Cars list featuring declaration file CarService.java. The implementation of Cars service features a member variable, which define parameters of authentication along with web service URIs endpoints pertaining to SharePoint and Cars list field names.
The particular service also incorporates a number of helper methods. The callRestEasyService helper methods read the data by conducting a HTTP Get as against the RESTfull API of SharePoint. The URI that is given in the req parameter defines just what is being recovered and retrieved. It strictly follows the protocol syntax of OData. In this particular scenario, it would refer to the items of the Car list.
To go for object creation in SharePoint through the RESTfull API, which refers to the Cars list items, it is required to provide a Form Digest, which can easily accessible via a POST To the hosted web endpoint “/_api/contextinfo”. The addRestEasyRetrieveDigest helper conducts the posts and goes through Form Digest. The actual definition of URI is given in the urlDigest of the variable.
The addRestEasyPost helper enables object creation in SharePoint through POSTs as mentioned in the protocol of OData. This particular method helps adding cars to the particular list. The parameter req features the URI of object creation, which refers to the Cars list here. Another detail that is often regarded while creating objects is the need of stating the type. In the particular list, the items refer to the SP.Data.CarsListItem type, which follows the convention SP.Data.<ListName>ListItem.
The parseJsonDigestValue helper method integrates the JSON response from the “/_api/contextinfo” endpoint recovering the form digest.
The parseJson helper translates the response of the JSON to the payload class of Cars retrieving the list.The Cars service explains the method getCars to read the items; whereas, the technique insertCar is used to write the items.
Custom SharePoint development teams can help you build projects within allocated budgets and time schedules.
We provide Java and SharePoint Integration services. If you would like to talk to one of our expert SharePoint developers, please get in touch with us at Mindfire Solutions.
DotNetNuke Corporation, a premier provider of adaptive web software which keeps the online presence of a business effective and relevant, came up with the availability of an improved SharePoint integration in the year 2012. This new SharePoint Connector is capable of rendering support to SharePoint 2007 as well as the 2010 version. It offers seamless integration between outstanding document management and web content management solution of DotNetNuke. Here we bring to you certain best practices which you must consider for proper integration.
1. Document Management: SharePoint is the finest document management system that is applicable for all businesses irrespective of the size. Utilizing this system, which is built within the cloud in order to make room for maximum accessibility and storage, group members are able to collaborate and share an apparently unlimited quantity of data and documents. It effectively integrates with Outlook and makes use of social tools for amplifying the organized, collaborative, atmosphere. It also facilitates transformation of raw data into interactive, beautiful reports by team members.
2. Integration with SharePoint: Automatic integration of DotNetNuke is possible, which implies that if the system is operated, no additional work is needed. But, when it comes to DNN Community, it can also integrate quite comfortably through custom modules. The goal is to develop a system which enables SharePoint to go for effective communication from behind firewalls with the public-facing website. This indicates that you will be capable of pushing documents towards a portal efficiently as well as safely on your DNN website. Filter rules can also be designed in order to find out where individual documents are going.
3. The DNN Enterprise: For those utilizing SharePoint as the document management system, and wishing to integrate the same into their website, the Nuke Enterprise edition is a good choice. With the help of this edition, custom integration is possible at a highly affordable cost. Through the connector, firewall issues can be bypassed and the content can be kept fresh, while publishing directly from the Document Library. Every document that is published is offered protection by the DNN role-oriented security network.
4. Avoidance of Firewall: Many companies make use of SharePoint as the document library and DNN as the public-facing website. In most cases this implies that the SharePoint server resides within the trusted zone while the DNN is made available to the public. All communications that take place between the two servers begin from the SharePoint server. This feature can be used without making any kind of modifications to the security policy.
5. Leveraging filtering views: The built-in views provided by document management system for filtering facilitate the use of the Create View UI. The views that have already been created can be used without the requirement for maintenance of two distinct filter sets. More time can be spent for development of core features as the time spent on development of filtering and associated UI features is reduced to a great extent.
6. Extended web application: When there is already a SharePoint web application making use of Active Directory for authentication, the same can be extended to support users from DotNetNuke. For this a DNS or hosts file entry needs to be created for the upcoming SharePoint site.
7. Modification of web.config files: A number of changes need to be considered within the web.config file in the SharePoint application. Before making any kind of modifications, it is advisable to create a backup.
8. Taking care of file size: With respect to the file size, DotNetNuke possesses an option beneath the host settings which limits the file size on the website. The files are compared against that number by the Connector. Files bigger than the stipulated limits of the website are not published.
9. Deletion from the document management system: In case “propagate deletions” is selected, the file that is deleted from the document management system also gets deleted from DNN. However, if the deleted file possesses references from a module, it will reveal broken links.
10. Handling permissions: Remember that permissions from a SharePoint to a DNN site are managed by DNN’s security model. It is not possible to manage permissions across SharePoint and DNN. This in because, in a number of cases, users and roles are different when it comes to the intranet and the public website.
Seamless integration, when effectively accomplished, empowers organizations to securely and effectively publish documents directly from SharePoint into their respective exterior-facing websites. Custom SharePoint development teams can help you build projects within allocated budgets and time schedules.
We provide SharePoint application development services. If you would like to talk to one of our expert SharePoint developers, please get in touch with us at Mindfire Solutions.
Incredulously, there are now well over 10,00,00,000 web users across the globe, around more than 500 companies using this multi-functional platform “SharePoint”. It’s one of Microsoft's large-scale enterprises and in past 5-6 years Microsoft sold over 36 million user licenses. It is an integrated suite of server capabilities that can help improve organizational effectiveness by providing comprehensive enterprise search and content management, accelerating shared business processes and facilitating information-sharing across boundaries for better business insight. Regardless of location and devices, we are able to log on to our collaborative, SharePoint-based environment to work with our colleagues on documents, projects or business processes.
SharePoint sites are quickly created and managed well by supporting specific content publishing, enterprise content management, records management and business intelligence needs. With Sharepoint one can conduct effective searches for people and documents, participate in forms-driven business processes. It even accesses and analyzes large business data. It offers a way for people to work together in a versatile way, working together in online and offline applications, in any location.
Capabilities of SharePoint Server
1. SharePoint sites deliver a single infrastructure to provide portal and collaboration capabilities across internet, intranet and extranet. It also brings all users together to share information and knowledge base across organizations.
2. Collaboration, Portal, Enterprise Search, Enterprise Content Management, Business Process and Forms, Business Intelligence and licensed for Internet/Extranet.
3. SharePoint search gives users the ability to find the people, content and information they need by combining an integrated, with enterprise search technology.
4. SharePoint communities empowers organization to work with people in ways that are most effective for them. Allow employees to collaborate in groups, share knowledge and ideas, connect with colleagues and find information and experts without difficulty.
5. SharePoint Insights enable users to access and act together with information across unstructured and structured data sources. It empowers users to discover the right people and expertise to make better and more accurate business decisions.
6. SharePoint Content enables users to participate in a governed, compliant content management lifecycle. SharePoint content makes it possible to skillfully balance user experience with organization policy and business process.
7. SharePoint Foundation is made for small business organizations or departments looking for a low-cost entry-level or a pilot solution for secure, Web-based portal.
8. An organization can use the SharePoint Foundation to coordinate schedules, share, organize documents and participate in discussions through team workspaces, blogs, wikis and knowledge base on the platform that is the underlying infrastructure for SharePoint Server.
9. It works perfectly with other technologies like MS Office, MS Unified Communications and MS Exchange Server. And it has centralized administration allows managers to access application management features, system settings, manage security settings, upgrade SharePoint, change general application settings etc.
10. It can customize application very easily and helps in organization branding. It also looks after the security issues, by managing permissions to sites, lists, folders, documents, web applications and more.
SharePoint Designer is a tool of choice, among developers, for rapid application development. With the help of SharePoint Designer, advanced users and developers can quickly create customized SharePoint solutions. Expert users can compose no-code solutions that encompass a variety of common scenarios, from many collaborative sites and web publishing to line-of-business data integration and business intelligence solutions.
These great solutions leverage the building blocks available in SharePoint in an easy-to-use environment. Additionally, developers can use SharePoint to get a rapid start on SharePoint application development projects. With its advanced features and tools, organizations can quickly respond to growing business needs by building ultimate effective solutions.
We provide SharePoint development services. If you would like to know more about our certified SharePoint developers, please get in touch with us at Mindfire Solutions.
Many of these concerns might be legitimate, but that should not be the reason to shun SP social tools totally. Globally acclaimed SharePoint expert Richard Harbridge, has worked with a number of companies helping them to cope up with this problem. According to him, once the executives' concerns are understood and acknowledged, ways to reduce the risks can be demonstrated.
