Sharepoint - how do you use it?
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@Dashrender
OneDrive is basically a fileshare. Sharepoint is that and a bag of chips.At my last full-time job, they had WSS 2.0, the original SharePoint which was crap and they really didn't use it well. So I made it a mission to learn it. Basically started with a test site. Main sections are pretty easy to setup. They are lists, document library, calendars, links, and announcements. Those you get out of the box. Before I built their site, I went around and talked with everyone. My background was process, so I wanted to know what they did and where their pain points were. Some things were obvious like a company contact list, a shared Company calendar, announcements, and a link list. From there I dabbled and learned about setting up workflows where necessary, web parts, and using SharePoint Designer. But, most of the sites I create you can use the built-in tools.
One big thing I did was find all of those word and excel list things that individual and departments use (and don't share by the way) and redo them with lists and whatnot in SharePoint. Setting up permissions is fairly easy too.
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We have a few customers who use Sharepoint for their front end websites. One has cluster of Sharepoint servers, as in 5 or 6 sites a pop behind three servers in a load balancer with two or three SQL instances driving it. I've also worked for a guy who put in Sharepoint sites for lots of people and now he's effectively retired in Tijuana.
Sharepoint can be more than just a repository. As a matter of fact, it's usually a bad choice for a straight up file repository. When you have a large amount of data, the database gets wild and sprawling.
Administering Sharepoint is easy as [moderated]. There isn't much to it. It's the design element and workflow that makes it powerful. The more advanced stuff requires lots of SQL knowledge, as it's all driven through it. The only limit is your imagination.
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I use it under duress.
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i'm not sure of it's function for me yet. i've had one client that used it as a file dump on sbs, but i've never really looked into it. shame on me i suppose
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@Dashrender said:
I have a small business I just transitioned to Office 365 (thanks NTG).
This interests me... You seemed like you were against Office 365 in the other thread. What changed your mind?
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SharePoint is a platform. Everyone will use it differently. I would grab some books. High level ones. The end user experience is so varied.
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As a robust file server with version control, online editing, check in / check out and over the Internet mapped drives is one way. This is basic, out of the box functionality and really useful.
We use SP for all of our documents.
Live, multi-user Excel is pretty sweet.
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OneDrive is a consumer service. OneDrive Business is just part of SharePoint.
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SP contains a very powerful wiki. Using it as your wiki is a great way to start using it.
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SP has built in blogging capabilities too. It's pretty neat.
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You can use SharePoint as a database and an application layer. Really interesting stuff there.
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We use a picture gallery on there for company pictures.
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SP has some really powerful shared calendar stuff.
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Workflow functionality is a big deal in SP. That's stuff that most SMBs are not used to having.
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You can actually use .NET and build whole applications on top of SP.
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We use it as a backend for our 365 e-discovery and archive/legal hold portal. Our partner built it for us - took 2-3 days. Amazing stuff they give you in Office 365 that few people realise is in the solution
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@IRJ said:
@Dashrender said:
I have a small business I just transitioned to Office 365 (thanks NTG).
This interests me... You seemed like you were against Office 365 in the other thread. What changed your mind?
I've never been against Office 365, as long as you have nothing today. Or you're already hosted today. This particular client of mine was hosted with a local company for $18/user/month with a 15 user minimum (they only needed 10) with none of the extra features that Office 365 offer. Not to mention the fact that their old hosting provider was still on Exchange 2007.
They've moved to the E1 plan for $8/user/month and gained access to Exchange 2013, Sharepoint, etc. and save $10/user/month.
and with the new features (which was originally outside the scope of the move, and now I'm scrambling, ug) they want to see what new things can help their business.
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@scottalanmiller said:
SP has some really powerful shared calendar stuff.
This is something they might be (probably are) interested in using.
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We've been using SharePoint internally at NTG since the original 2003 release. We went 2003, 2007 and 2010 all hosted internally. Then we went to 2010 hosted with Rackspace and then 2013 with Office 365. So we've been using it a long time. We use it for everything, once you get used to it you will be addicted. It is really amazing once you start to leverage it as your central repository for everything.
