SharePoint has been the buzzword lately around the water cooler in our office. More and more of our clients are deploying it as their intranet system of choice. This popularity is reflected in its sales: Microsoft expects SharePoint sales to hit $1 billion this year, and more than 100 million licenses have been sold since the product was launched in 2001.

This doesn’t necessarily mean it’s the best system out there. Using SharePoint straight out of the box can be frustrating for site administrators, as small oversights in usability means it can take longer to complete a straightforward task. Furthermore, SharePoint’s site statistics administration is weak and inflexible, which makes it difficult to gather meaningful useage analysis.

But although the execution of some aspects may be lacking, the intention behind SharePoint is solid. Follow our advice to get the most out of this feature-rich and complex system.

1: Think beyond typical static content

SharePoint can do so much more than simple text and images. Much of the functionality in SharePoint comes from ‘web parts’, which are essentially blocks of content on the page, and from ‘application templates’, which provide further solutions for specific uses. There is a range of web parts available. For example, one will automatically display a list of site users, and whether they are online.

The application templates allow for a range of activities right out of the box. Say you run a business selling coffee beans. You could easily set up applications to track your inventory of beans, and submit and manage your expense reports. Other templates would allow your staff to submit their annual leave requests and get them approved, or to reserve meeting rooms.

Is Sharepoint right for your company?

Furthermore, using ASP.NET, developers can code web parts and applications to meet practically any need, making the whole platform not only customisable, but incredibly versatile.

2: Extend your search capabilities

SharePoint allows you to index your site, which means users can search anything on it – even the contents of attached documents. The search functionality is able to correct misspellings, prevent duplicate results from appearing, and is customisable, so you can specify which content sources should be searched and the scope of those searches.

The 2007 edition of SharePoint (commonly known as MOSS – Microsoft Office SharePoint Server) comes with integrated search engine capabilities, but if you are running an older version of SharePoint (WSS – Windows SharePoint Services), you can install SharePoint Server 2007 for search functionality. This year, Microsoft is releasing an upgraded version called Search Server 2008.

3: Encourage collaboration

SharePoint is not just a place to save files and distribute information. Providing a platform for two-way communication allows your users to contribute and share information too. You can do this by extending permissions to determine who can upload documents to where, and by including features such as wikis, discussion boards and blogs.

We always recommend that you remain aware of your corporate culture, which can inhibit users, and start by building on small user content generated successes, rather than expecting everything to work from the word go.

4: Plan your document management

One of the key features of SharePoint – and a reason why it is so popular – is its document management capability. Sort this out before you build your document libraries, and you can make best use of the document storage and retrieval features, which includes the ability to check-in and check-out documents and create version histories. You can specify metadata for every document library, which are viewable in multiple ways.

For instance, you could easily set up a library to store a set of presentations about your coffee beans. You could create a field with a drop-down menu to select the bean flavour, a field to enter the country source, and a ‘date roasted’ field. Then on the page view of the library, you can select which fields you want displayed – title, document type, document size, who created it, when it was last modified, and so on.

Manage documents and files easily on SharePoint

To parallel your document management, MOSS also includes solutions to create and manage workflows; for instance specifying who needs to approve content before routing it to the appropriate location on the site.

5: Integrate with Microsoft Office

As you may expect, Microsoft Office programs work natively in SharePoint. Users can open, edit and save documents from within the site. You can use what is known as a ‘document workspace’ to add team members and assign tasks in relation to that document, which helps to streamline processes. Team members using the workspace can see tasks, links and related documents, and communicate with each other. Team calendars and contacts on SharePoint can also be automatically synchronised to users’ Outlook calendars and contacts.

6: Stay alert

Set up alerts and encourage yours users to set up alerts too. This way, whenever something of interest to you happens, SharePoint will notify you by email. For instance, you could be alerted every time a new article is posted, or receive a daily digest of updates to your coffee bean inventory, or simply be notified when someone makes a change to a particular piece of content you created. It’s a useful way to know what’s going on in the areas that concern you most.

SharePoint can send you updates on the areas that concern you most