Uses of SharePoint

As a SharePoint Consultant a common problem when trying to sell SharePoint is actually explaining what it can be used for. You see, the fact is that SharePoint has an infinite amount of uses. Nearly every day we at Office Talk hear of somebody using SharePoint in a different and unexpected way. This week Office Talk has designed a Football Template on SharePoint to monitor a Premier League team’s performance during the 2010/11 season, but you will have to wait until the end of this blog to find out how to get it. So what are the basic uses of SharePoint?

I have put together my Top Twenty basic uses of SharePoint and placed them in order;

1. Document Management
SharePoint is one of the best Document Management Solutions. It is ideal for managing manuals, policies and procedure documents.

2. Record Keeping
With easy to create and customise columns SharePoint can be used to keep electronic records of customers, employees or suppliers.

3. Inventory Management
SharePoint can be used to quickly keep track of equipment or supplies.

4. Helpdesk Systems
Easy and cost effective way to manage and monitor Helpdesk Requests. These could be IT Helpdesk or service requests from customers.

5. Websites
More and more companies are using SharePoint to not only manage content of their Websites but also to be their website.

6. Electronic Forms
Forms can be quickly created with SharePoint making it easy to automate systems like Expense Claims, Travel Requests, Holiday Requests or Purchase Orders.

7. Reference Centre (Wiki)
SharePoint can help store and share information. Information that an employee found helpful can quickly be available to other employees.

8. Reporting
SharePoint can take data from many different data sources including SQL and Oracle databases. This means it is easier to compile reports that even Senior Managers can quickly understand.

9. Contact Details
An easy way to store as much information as you need about either internal or external contacts. Saves the issue of the company telephone directory stuck by your desk always being out of date.

10. News Distribution
The Announcements section in SharePoint lets you easily share company or department news. Quickly let everyone know that Jane from Purchasing has given birth to triplets or that the staff car park is closed next Tuesday.

11. Surveys
To get feedback from a training course or the performance of a department SharePoint can create surveys that can be distributed in seconds.

12. Appointment Management
The Calendar feature integrates with Outlook and allows you to have shared calendars. It can be used to display weekly movements of key members of staff.

13. Catalogues
SharePoint allows you to list items and view them in customised ways. As it can also include thumbnail pictures in the list it is ideal for cataloguing.

14. Discussions
Employees can use the discussion boards to chat on various subjects and share ideas.

15. Storage of Digital Media
SharePoint can be used to store many forms of digital media including photographs, videos and podcasts.

16. Information Searching
Every word of every document on SharePoint can be indexed meaning that suddenly it is much easier to search and retrieve company information.

17. Projects Management
SharePoint can be set up to monitor and track multiple projects. Making it easy for managers to see which Projects are falling behind schedule.

18. Time Management
To record time taken on individual projects or to manage contractors SharePoint is ideal.

19. Meeting Management
With its Meeting Templates you can use SharePoint to plan agendas, create minutes and check on follow-up actions.

20. Blogging
Blogging is becoming more and more popular with an increase in internal business blogs. SharePoint allows site members to easily comment on these blogs.

These are just a selection of the business uses of SharePoint, but many companies are also using SharePoint to add some more social and light-hearted aspects to their company. The idea is that a happy staff will be a productive staff. SharePoint installations Office Talk have been involved in recently have included sections like ‘Coffee Break’ where employees can win prizes and see some funny pictures of themselves on company outings. These kind of social pages can not only help morale but also get employees using SharePoint.

Office Talk had great demand over the summer for their free World Cup SharePoint Site Template. Even if England were a letdown the SharePoint Template was very popular. So with the new English Premier League season now only two weeks away Office Talk have been busy again and now we are offering a new exciting SharePoint Football Template. We are giving away a ‘My Team’s Premier League’ Template that allows you to keep track of your favourite team throughout the coming season. You can keep track of your team’s transfers, fixtures, goalscorers and even see why the great Aston Villa are only the second team to have completed hundred seasons in the Top Division.

To receive the free ‘My Team’s Premier League’ SharePoint Template please visit the Office Talk website at http://www.office-talk.com/index.php?id=160

As part of the ‘My Team’s Premier League’ site you can predict the final places of all the Premier League Teams so here are my predictions;

1. Chelsea
2. Manchester City
3. Manchester United
4. Aston Villa
5. Arsenal
6. Liverpool
7. Tottenham
8. Birmingham City
9. Everton
10. Blackburn
11. Bolton Wanderers
12. Sunderland
13. Wolverhampton Wanderers
14. Fulham
15. West Ham
16. Newcastle
17. Stoke City
18. Wigan
19. West Bromwich
20. Blackpool

So don’t forget to claim your free Football Template and use it as many times as you want in your organisation.

Blog Bonus Video - The best penalty kick ever !!

SharePoint On Trial

Wherever you look these days people are trying to save money. My own football club, Aston Villa, are no exception with American owner, Randy Learner, tightening the purse strings. The Villa manager has been told he needs to reduce the wage bill before we can buy anymore players. Many companies are putting a block on any new spending. So projects which were in the pipeline are now being shelved. This has meant that a number of companies, both in the ‘Private Sector’ and ‘Public Sector’, have postponed SharePoint Projects. Even though long term SharePoint would offer considerable savings to these organisations it is the initial project costs that are making them think twice.

In English football, unless you are Manchester ‘Moneybags’ City, you have to watch how much you are spending. Sometimes it is better to use the loan system and take a player on loan for a few months to see if he is really going to improve your team. It is even possible to share the cost of the wages with the club he plays for as they are just keen to reduce their wage bill. If only there was a way of loaning SharePoint!

Perhaps Hosted SharePoint could offer a short term answer. Hosted SharePoint can be a way to try SharePoint out in your organisation without having to make any major investment and also without affecting your current computer environment. The advantage is that you can experiment with SharePoint and see how you could use it to streamline some of your business processes. If you only want to try it for a handful of users the monthly prices of Hosted SharePoint can be very cheap. It would probably cost less than replacing the toner in one of your laser printers.

There are so many companies worldwide offering Hosted SharePoint that it can be confusing knowing which one to choose. Although, as long as you are not paying too much each month and there isn’t any long tie-ins it doesn’t really matter which one you chose. Mind you, I would get in trouble at work if I didn’t mention the Office Talk Hosted SharePoint offering ‘Office Manager’. We even offer a one month free trial (pity some teams don’t do this with players Villa are interested in) and include over ten useful pre-configured department sites. Visit http://www.office-talk.com/index.php?id=159 to try it for free.

So don’t let lack of money stop you trying out SharePoint because you will soon discover the many ways it could start to save your organisation money. Or you might after trying it decide it isn’t for you.

Now, I wonder if Liverpool would loan Villa Steven Gerrard for the next eight months.

Great News : 'My Team’s Performance 2010/11 Season’ SharePoint Template is available FREE OF CHARGE by clicking here.