Transcript Slide 1
John Heintz & Ben Durrant
University of St. Thomas Libraries
What is SharePoint?
SharePoint is Microsoft's collaboration and document
management software often used for organizations'
internal knowledge management--your organization's IT
shop may already have this available for use.
In practice we see it as a hybrid - somewhere between a
website, Outlook, a file system and an Intranet.
SharePoint is web-based and users interact with it via
their web browser
Where we started
elaborate shared
documents folder
structure
Fragmented
internal
Knowledge
Management
structure
externally-hosted
wiki
e-mails
paper-based
reference &
instruction
statistics collection
moribund intranet
some public web
pages
Outlook public
folders: email,
documents, &
calendars
Where we started
Desire for more robust, online statistics collection
Group was evaluating software solutions, and added
SharePoint to that analysis
SharePoint used by tech student group, so folks had
some familiarity
SharePoint was the “official” supported IT solution for
intranets
Goals
Consolidate number of buckets for our internal content
Learn about and use collaboration features
Reduce paper-based processes and broaden availability of
stats collection
Develop criteria for what should be in SharePoint vs.
Deptstore (UST’s shared document storage location)
Explore using Announcement & Discussion features as
alternative to email, moving calendars from Outlook
Develop apps: dynamic forms & lists vs. static docs
Start with a manageable # of sites/functions/features
Process
Representative work group: reference & instruction,
circulation, collection management, digital initiatives
Test site, opened up permission for experimentation
Looked at other units’ sites
Consulted SharePoint manuals, online documentation
Lots of experimentation
Test site allowed us to goof up and learn, then move to
production site
Structure and Layout
Desired functional rather than based on org. structure
(e.g. collection management is a function engaged in by
people in multiple units: reference, tech services, dig.
initiatives)
Ended up with hybrid: work units often wanted their
own sites
Used color schemes/themes to differentiate
Internal only currently, staff and students.
System Permissions
Needed selected student access
But also needed to restrict to certain areas
Minimized complexity of permission schemes per
recommendation of our IT folks
Staff can see/edit all
Students can see only specific sites and edit only there
Used MS Exchange network groups to manage
permissions
SharePoint Components & Terms
Document Libraries
Shared files & folders, incl. photos
Lists
Announcements
Calendars
Tasks
Links
Discussions
Contacts
Custom
Web parts
Main area to view snapshots of content from lists & libraries, rss
feeds, etc.
Other Capabilities
Standard vs. custom views, filtering
Alerts
Connection to Outlook
Open in Explorer view for file management
Edit in spreadsheet or database view
Export list content to spreadsheet or database
All site content is searchable
Staff & student training
Staff meeting presentations
Special training on Question tracking functions
Informational documents
Home and Bulletin Board
Landing page and gateway to the structure
Bulletin Board includes events calendar and blog feed
Hope to use eventually for unofficial communications
Use announcements to reduce email traffic: birthday
celebrations, happy hours, where Ben’s band is playing,
etc.
Admin
Staff travel form from intranet
Custom forms/lists
Workflows
Staff contact list
Professional development & conference notes
Emergency plans
Conference room scheduling calendar
Eventually personnel evalution process forms &
policies
Circ/ILL
Policies and procedures
Student site
schedules
training materials
contact info
commonly used links
discussion boards
CollDev
Collection management materials
Liaison tool kit
Benchmark institutions link lists
Tools for selectors
Reference copies of e-resource licenses
Digi/Tech
Tech documentation from various sources
Links lists
Library/UST systems
Image resources
Web usage stats in doc library
Ref/Instruction
Doc libraries for assignments
Custom lists for reference question tracking &
instruction session statistics
Reference desk scheduling calendars
Research project collaboration site (visible only to
team members)
Question & Instruction Tracking
Replaced paper-based stats collection
Used by staff and student workers at all service points
More detail: librarian/student, actual q & a
Searchable: can be a knowledge base
Filters: quickly see items by person, library, question
type, etc.
Easily export stats for internal and external reporting
Can use to identify system/database/web site problem
areas, troublesome/recurring assignments, etc.
Question Tracking Issues
Technical:
how to build
capacity and
performance
filters and views
reporting
Policy:
who and what to count
daily and ongoing
monitoring and action
Oddities/Issues
Learning curve
Permissions
URLs of folders and files
Security groups and email issues
Rationalizing your buckets
New way of organizing
Typical MS product, many bells & whistles, 9 ways to
do things
Potential future projects
Need for public-facing functions?
Forms or requests
Pull more content/data in via data connections and rss
feeds: SUSHI data, statistics dashboards, changes to
subject guides, etc.
Rewrite some legacy applications
Conclusion
It’s a work in progress
Fewer buckets: have shut down the old intranet, old
wiki, old shared Outlook calendars
Some things have worked well and some not
Different rates of build-out of the various sites
One of more active user departments on campus
Anyone else using SharePoint? How?
Questions & Discussion
Screenshots of Selected Sub-sites