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Well we now have a Functional Spec for our SharePoint Portal deployment (to replace the intranet, integrate a knowledge repository, provide project sites....and one day be used to replace share drives on file servers) , and very interesting it is too.  Already it seems that we aren't quite up scratch for SharePoint, and equally SharePoint isn't entirely up to scratch for us.  Allow me to elaborate......

Where SP isn't quite up to it:
I already had the feeling that MOSS was 'jack-of-all-trades' rather than master-of-one, which is fine.  However, having looked at it replacing our current (somewhat archaic) intranet, it seems that the default HTML editor in it is pretty basic (and will frustrate the hell out of editors who are currently used to mostly 'Saving as HTML' in Word).  I can't help wondering if there are other HTML editors that plug-in and make it a must more rich experience for users.  Our Microsoft Partner is recommending RadEditor, but as this will cost us more money (AFAICT), then I'm curious to know if there are any good freebies out there?  I've search the usergroup forums and found nowt of great use on this one!  The benefits of the collective experience on here would be greatly appreciated. :-)

And our own failings?
Well, we really don't have good enough bandwidth for SP to be super-duper for our users.  Goodness only knows what it'll need (in both money and time) to fix that :-S  And as ever, we really aren't set up to give enough of a push to SharePoint happening - the people that are interested are scattered around the business and have scant time to put into it.

So our next step is to get real senior management buy in......watch this space!!!!

And the real fun to be had is:
Sorting out just how far we are willing to let SharePoint into our organisation (I was going to say 'penetrate us' but far too may euphemisms sprang to mind :blush:).  For example, we are also  looking to get a new Web Content Management system for our website.  A lot of those vendors are trying to steal some market share from SharePoint too.  As we aren't 'entrenched SP users yet' how do we decide where SP ends on the other tools begin?  It's a real 'brain-acher' which is proving very difficult when we haven't got a clear ECM or Information Management Strategy yet.  Your thoughts on what a good 'balance ' is would be good to hear!

Published 18 May 2009 16:22 by Karen Glynn

Comments

 

Matt Taylor said:

Hi Karen

I've probably done way too much consulting than is good for any dev to do but I would say that SharePoint is well accomplished in all the roles you mention; ECM, WCM (public facing and internal) and IM (and more).  And the real beauty is it all runs on exactly the same platform so although the learning curve is steep (as for any new system you would buy or develop for any of these roles) at least you only have to learn it once.  I would be the first to point out that even when using SharePoint each of these areas would ideally require someone with specialist knowledge and experience but the flip side is that there would also be a very high percentage of commonality across all areas; implementation, administration, development, support, etc.

Your HTML editing dilemma raises an interesting point.  It is of the utmost importance to capture as many user requirements (read requests) as possible however, don’t be too hasty or eager to translate every single last one of them into solutions.  Rich editing is a perfect case in point because it often conflicts and contrasts with governance requirements that are designed to prevent users straying from carefully researched and developed corporate style guides.  The point is, just because it’s what your users already have in an existing system and expect from a new system it doesn’t mean they should have it – ‘no’ can sometimes be the right answer.

Matt
May 19, 2009 00:32
 

cloud said:

We have used the RAD Editor at client projects and found it good, though as you say it isnt free. We haven't looked into whether are any other freebie editors out there.

Using SharePoint for the web is a common question that a lot of our NHS clients keep asking. As ever it comes back to the requirements, if collaboration is a key driver then SharePoint could well be the right solution. There are several good CMS' out there that we have worked with e.g. EPiServer which incidentally has a SharePoint connector.
This is particularly useful if you will be looking for the holy grail of seamless publishing from intranet to internet.
May 19, 2009 09:29
 

mrbun said:

Please expand on what you mean by 'not enough bandwidth'. Is this bottlenecks, LAN capacity or speed or all of these? Interest lies in our users appear to be suffering from slow delivery to browser and despite quality LAN and switching at only 100gb I'm thinking it's not enough, and like you infer the cost of that is scary.

Mike B
June 11, 2009 22:41
 

Karen Glynn said:

Not enough bandwidth is that our internet links to our distrubuted branch network are teeny tiny and priority in it is given to telephony.  This means anything delivered via a Browser is last on the list in terms of going down the line.  It's a mare.
July 17, 2009 16:06
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