Transcript Slide 1

Managing Content in SharePoint: Design construct and
case study
Gilbane Conference on Content Management
April 10, 2007
Craig St. Clair
TKG Consulting LLC
Agenda
• Background: TKG and SharePoint
• SharePoint brief and recent history
• Designing the platform: merging user requirements and content
delivery mechanisms
• Case Sudy: Content lifecycle management (CLM) and SharePoint
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TKG Consulting and SharePoint
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TKG is strategy consultancy focused on the ways that knowledge
and information are transferred in organizations
TKG’s approach is:
– Establish business and user requirements >>
– translate to functional requirements >>
– apply functional requirements to a specific technical solution
SharePoint is one of our technical competency areas
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SharePoint (very) brief history 2001
• SharePoint Team Services (STS) for collaboration features created
as a separate “add on” to Office 2000
• SharePoint Portal Services (SPS) version 1 (2001) started life as a
document management and indexing application:
– Limited document sharing and versioning (Web Store)
– Digital Dashboard interface (non asp.net development
environment)
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SharePoint (very) brief history 2003
• STS renamed WSS v. 2 (2003)
– Team and project oriented
– Collaboration store
– Web parts as distinct page “building blocks” carrying specific
functionality
– Standalone sites that could be set up quickly using pre-defined
templates and web parts
• SPS v. 2 (2003)
– Built on top of WSS v. 2
– Adds enterprise-wide view designed to knit together individual
WSS sites
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Indexing search
Personalization
Enhanced administrative management and taxonomy
Document profiles and workflow left out
• MS CMS continued on its own path with poor integration
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SharePoint (very) brief history 2007
• WSS v. 3 (2007)
– Breadcrumbing and configurable navigation linking together
collections of hierarchical sites
– Supports for blogs, wikis and RSS improves bottom-up authoring
• SPS v. 2 becomes MS Office SharePoint Services MOSS (2003)
– CMS merged with portal to create seamless content
management capabilities across multiple sites and platforms
– Front page imbedded into MOSS as SharePoint Designer
– Truer ECM capabilities with MOSS envisioned as the single
platform for team, intranet, extranet, and internet sites
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SharePoint weaknesses and limitations
• Continued confusion around differences between WSS and MOSS
• WSS started life as a team collaboration tool, not an information and
functionality aggregation tool
• WSS as a stand alone application is not an enterprise intranet
• MOSS sits on top of individual WSS sites
• Look to WSS for page level tools: web parts, intra-site information
architecture, out of box collaboration functionality
• Look to MOSS to knit together WSS sites: search, personalization,
enterprise content management, global navigation and information
architecture
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Developing a user driven design construct
SharePoint Toolset
Business Needs and Goals
Overall Design Concepts
Specific Business
Requirement
Specific Business
Requirement
Specific Business
Requirement
Functional
Requirements
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SharePoint toolset
Personalization Features
SharePoint Architecture
•Audience Targeting of content items, web parts, and sites
SP Content Management Tools
• Web part selection
• Web part arrangement on page
• Web
• Native
part distribution
SharePoint
across
authoring
pages
tools
• Page
• SharePoint
hierarchy within
designer
sites
for webpage design
• Site• CMS
collection
functionality
hierarchy among sites
• Site• Integration
and site collection
with other
navigation
MS Office applications
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Site architecture design variables in terms of
SharePoint
Audience Targeting
(MOSS)
Content
Items
(WSS)
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amet,
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Web
Parts
(WSS)
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amet,
Page Hierarchy
(WSS)
Site Collections
(WSS + MOSS)
Site Hierarchy
(MOSS)
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Content management activities related to the
SharePoint tool set
Content element
SharePoint tool
Content item
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MS Office apps
Web part
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WSS out of box functionality
Native SP authoring tools
SharePoint designer (replacing
FrontPage)
Integrated CMS functionality
Page design
Management of page level static
content
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MOSS demo: MS CMS and SharePoint integration
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Case history: Enabling CLM within MOSS
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Project overview
• Create a more maintainable KM structure and environment
– smooth the transition from project working documents to
documentation of lasting value
– create structured summary documentation that is easier to
produce and maintain
– describe a content management lifecycle that is sustainable
across the organization
• Improve “findability” for KM documentation across service areas
– create a single platform for KM
– create multiple access points to individual documents
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Project approach
• Interviewed six consultants working on projects within a single
practice area
– Understand current practices for information creation,
consumption and maintenance
• Reviewed the current WIKI and SharePoint environments
– Derived existing taxonomy structures and types of content
• Defined a high level content lifecycle framework
• Applied findings by extending the current SharePoint platform
– Proof of concept demonstration
• Identified exemplary documents
– Demo population and testing
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Information and knowledge maintenance
challenges
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Content is additive (it never goes away)
Manual content maintenance does not scale
It is often regarded as “job scope creep”
It never stops…. it requires constant vigilance
Building in owner accountability in the face of “immediate business
need” is extremely difficult
It is probably the most pervasive knowledge management problem
Good reliable content maintenance often defines knowledge
management success
We are much better at creating information than we are at disposing
of it
The value of a knowledge base dramatically decreases as out-ofdate information increases
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Project focus areas
• Document creation
– Collaboration and iteration around team based project
documentation
• Document and knowledge maintenance
– Identification and promotion of project information and learnings
to a central knowledge base
– Combine summary level information with native project
documentation
• Findability
– Browse, search and retrieval of information in the knowledge
base
– Provide views across sites in the system
– Add structure and improve search results via a more robust
search engine
– Use audience targeting to further refine views and results
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Content lifecycle
AUTHOR
ITERATE
FINALIZE
Sharepoint team site
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PROMOTE
ACCESS
ARCHIVE
Sharepoint knowledge base
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Proposed site structure
Advanced
search and
personalization
filters
Knowledge
base
Organizational
administration
Archive
Team or project
sites
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Proposed site content flow
Knowledge
base
Archive
Team or project
sites
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Team site > Knowledge Base > Archive
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Questions? Comments? Discussion
Contact:
Craig St. Clair
TKG Consulting LLC
Web: tkgconsult.com
Email: [email protected]
Tel: 857-919-6061
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