back in the cloud June 9, 2009

A long, long time since my last post…and why so you may ask?   As a contractor working as a Project Manager I get the opportunity to work for a wide variety of companies and their use & maturity levels with regard to technology influences how and when I use technology.
Take for example my most recent project.  I was working in the IT division of an outsourcer in the life & pensions industry.  As is often the nature in this industry sector, the technology was a few generations old and had grown organically over the years leading to a complex and hard to manage solution. As is typical, there is a high dependency on key individuals who know the system inside out.

So how does that effect my use of technology for social networking such a blogging, twittering etc.?  Well firstly, as many of these sites were locked down, that ruled out using them!  For the purists (and the not so pure!)  among us, this is a short sighted strategy – how can an IT organisation evolve and ensure long term gains if they are not willing to let their staff access the latest technological innovations that will change (and are changing) the way people work and interact.
Could I have picked up my blogging time out of the office? No doubt yes, but my motivation for social networking is mainly business driven so when I’m out of the office, I’m doing other stuff. 
So now that I’m back in touch with the technology, I can get back into blogging and hopefully my next contract will enable future blogging.
I’m back!

SharePoint and Document Scanning II October 24, 2008

Following on from my previous post on this subject, I promised an update once I’d seen the Kofax demo.

Kofax works in a similar manner to the other more advanced solutions I’ve looked at.  I did learn a thing or two from this demo though that I thought I’d mention:
1. To improve the metadata on the document, use a reference database to ensure you’ve got the correct information.  So for example, if the Client Number is a piece of metadata and you have an Access database with all your Client numbers, you can connect to this db and retrieve additional Client information (e.g. name, address or whatever else you want to map from the db)
2. OCR is possible but limited.  For the forms my client wants to scan, all of the information is handwritten.  While the various advanced solutions I’ve looked at all use OCR, there is a lot of work to get it right and it’s only 60-80% correct at best.  So this is not suitable for bulk scanning on the scale I’m looking at (200,000 pages).  The one case in which the accuracy of OCR could be improved is where the data on the document is written in cells or boxex.  OCR has a better chance of determining this.

For bulk scanning, we’re outsourcing this to a 3rd party who will bring scanners & people to get it done.  All we need to do is ensure that the metadata used during the scanning is mapped into SharePoint correctly….but that’s a post for another day.

SharePoint and Project Management October 22, 2008

As with much of the ootb functionality with SharePoint, when it comes to project managment it provides you with about 60% of what you need.  Once you’re not trying to do anything too complicated, you could get away with SharePoint as your project managment tool.  So what does it give you ootb? Here’s a few examples:

• Tasks – you can set up tasks and view them in a Gantt chart, assign tasks to people with target dates and % complete fields.
• Issues – you can record issues for a project and again give them assignees, dates etc.
• You can of course have a document library for your project to store any relevant documents
• Email correspondance – set up a Discussion site and you can start storing your project related email in this area
• Team Member – provides a list of the team member and their presence information (if you have Messenger working)

Of course there are lots of other webparts you could add (Calendars, etc.) but essentially the key thing is that the project team can collaborate easily.

Having worked with a number of Project/Portfolio managment tools over the years e.g. Business Engine (now part of Planview), Mercury Interactive (now part of HP) and of course MS Project, I can safely say that SharePoint has a long way to go to come near any of these solutions.

I’ve used SharePoint and Project and that solution looks very good.  I was impressed by the ease of integration with SharePoint and the sites it created with out much user intervetion.  I see that this combination could be very powerful and would be interested in hearing from anyone who’s use these two solutions.

So in short, for simple project collaboration use SharePoint (with an added bit of creativity) and for more complex stuff (e.g. portfolio management, resource managment) go for a higher end solution.

Connectivity…if it’s not working, you’ve lost the game October 16, 2008

I am working with a client on a pilot implementation of SharePoint and connectivity is rearing its ugly head as a major issue.  The client is a small engineering firm and many of the users are off site, often in remote locations with little coverage.   Even in those are where coverage is available, the use of 3G dongles are not reliable and there is nothing worse from a user’s perspective than losing a connecting half way through uploading a document to SharePoint.
We are going to do some testing over the coming weeks on this, but I’m getting a sense that with this, as with other SharePoint projects, it is often the non-SharePoint issues that cause the real headaches.

SharePoint in the Legal Industry October 16, 2008

There are a number of SharePoint for legal firms solutions on the market and one of the top ones is XMLAW. I met with these guys for a presentation in London a few months ago and was impressed. Then can expose data from a number DM solutions for legal firms on the market as well as a number of Matter Management systems and financial systems. Well worth looking in to.
On the DM side, Interwoven, Documentum and Opentext are the main players as I understand it on the legal side.

p.s. Lexis Nexis is another DM solution in the legal space.
p.p.s. Other legal solutions based on SharePoint include
Metastorm
Macroview
Workshare
Handshake
Opentext

SharePoint Usage Reports cont’d… October 16, 2008

You may have read my previous post about ootb Usage Reports in SharePoint and how limited the are.  I came across a great resource that explains what the Usage Reports actually mean.  The reports are still limited but at least we know now what the limited amount of information therein means.
Thanks to Mark Arend for putting this together.

SharePoint and Document Scanning October 15, 2008

The number of opportunities using Sharepoint and document scanning software that I’ve seen has increased of the last short while.  With this in mind, I’ve been looking at the solutions out there that provide document scanning into SharePoint in a simple, streamlined manner.  As you might expect, there are a number of solutions out there, some better than others.

The solutions I’ve reviewed are all based on the same principle:
a) Scan the document
b) Use the software to attach metadata and SharePoint document library location
c) Publish to document library

Some of the packages I’ve seen are more integrated that others.  The more integrated ones expose SharePoint doc libraries content types & metadata within the scanning software so it’s easier for the user to allocated the correct identifiers to the document. 
I’ve also seen solutions for use with Multi Function Devices where the user can interact with the LCD screen at the MFD.  Here the user can state where the document is to be stored in SharePoint and input the metadata.

For many clients I talk to, there is almost always a need for an initial bulk scanning process of existing paper documents, followed by an ongoing smaller volume of scans.  For volume scanning, again most of the solutions I reviewed have similar methods of doing this.   The use of OCR is important here to capture the metadata of the documents (this is of course used for non bulk scanning also).  If the documents are hand written (the case with one of my prospects) then the solution involves the use of barcodes. 
Most of the solutions enable you print off barcodes that will identify each document library and metadata for  a document.  The barcode print out is used as a cover page for each document and the software reads the scanned barcode page and directs the document to the correct location in SharePoint.  This is a tedious task when there is a large volume of documents (about 70,000 in the case of my client!).

Here’s some of the packages I’ve had demo’s of are:
Websio - I’d call this a cheap a cheerful solution but will do the job….and I’ll like their innovative approach (who ever thought we’d see barcodes within SharePoint!)
Dark Blue Duck - A solution that caters for most scenarios.  There is a Desktop version, Server version and a plug-in (similar to Websio)
Psigen - The most integrated solution I’ve seen.  One package fits all – no need for a separate desktop and Server versions. Does the most basic to complex stuff.
KnowledgeLake - Again another good solution, but not as integrate as psigen in my view

Other one that I’ve yet to look at:
Kofax

Will update once I’ve had a look at Kofax.

Happy scanning.

SharePoint : Content and Structure Part II September 17, 2008

In my previous blog about the Content and Structure page in MOSS 2007, I talked about how to move or copy documents from one doc library to another while maintaining the metadata and version history of the documents.

As promised, I’ve had a further look at the Content and Structure page to see what else can be done.  One very handy thing you can do is enable check-in / out of a selected number of documents at once.  I wanted to do this in order to update metadata for a number of documents using the “Edit in Datasheet mode”.  This is a really quick way of updating metadata of multiple documents at once.   So here’s what I do:

1. Access the Content and Structure page for the doc library your in (see previous blog for how to get there)
2. Select the docs you want to update and go to Actions > Check-Out
3. Go to your doc library and got to Actions > Edit in Datasheet.  This opens a datasheet view and you can complete/update your metadata directly here across all the documents that you need to update.  Note that it will show all  the documents in the library  i.e.  those that are checked-out and those that are not. This means that if you update the metadata for a document that is not checked out, when you come out of the Datasheet view you will get a message saying that you can’t update that document.
4. Now you’ll need to check those document back in so go back to the Content and Structure page and choose View > Checked out to me. 
5. Finally go to Actions > Check In

There you go!  You can now update metadata for multiple documents at once.  This comes in really handy if you want to upload multiple documents and associate metadata with them.

SharePoint Usage Reports September 17, 2008

I have not looked at ootb Usage Reports that come with MOSS2007 until the last few days.  On looking at them let’s just say I’m underwhelmed. 
Is this the best MS can do with such a crucial element of any web based application?  I’m not saying anything new by stating that the major criteria to assessing the uptake of any webbased application is the user stats.  In the old days before the web, we’d only be able to see who logged on …if even that.

I’ve done some g-search (that’s goolge research!) and it would seem that they only way to get better usage reports is programmatically or by purchasing 3rd party webparts  (e.g. Cardilog- named as such because the cost will give you a heart attack!) .  It’s dissapointing to say the least that there aren’t web parts ootb to enable better usage reporting.

Anyone out there got any other ways of improving or tailoring Usage Reports?

SharePoint: Moving or Copying from one doc library to another September 15, 2008

How to copy files from one document library to another in the same site collection?

There are a few ways of doing this (using the Explorer view with “drag & drop” or using “send to > Other location”) but I’ve just come across what I think is the best way.
By using the “Content and Structure” page you can easily move files and keep the metadata and  the version history.

Prerequisits : You need to have persmissions to access the Site Actions button on your doc library (see your admin for setting this).
Only available on MOSS 2007 (sorry all you WSS users!)

Here’s the steps:
1. Go to the doc library & click on Site Actions > Site Settings
2. Choose “Content and Structure” under the Site Administration section
3. Navigate to the document library you wish to move or copy from.
4. Select the document(s)
5. Click on Actions >  Move or Copy or Delete or what ever you want to do.
6. If you selected Move or Copy, you will be prompted to choose where to put the documents
7. Click OK and that’s it.  The documents are processed.

Note that if you Move documents, they are moved to the new location i.e. there’s isn’t a copy kept in the original location (you’d have to use Copy option for this).

Also note that you can’t action a document that is checked out – the Move option will show up as greyed out when you go try and choose it.

Finally, you’ll note that metadata and version history move with the documents to the new location. Magic!
I’m going to have a further look at “Site Content and Structure” options to see what other fancy stuff it can do.