Sharepoint - how do you use it?
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I have a small business I just transitioned to Office 365 (thanks NTG).
Now they are asking about Sharepoint. I've never used it before - man is it overwhelming!
Do you use it for more than a file dumping ground? What resources did you use to learn what parts to make use of?
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@Dashrender
Give me a moment and I'll give you tons of ways. I'm gonna look to see my responses from SW so I can cut and paste. Once you go SharePoint, you never go back.
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My basic Intranet has the following:
Announcements (Typically reserved for create new for higher ups) Office Calendar (Almost no brainer and everyone uses this with little or no training) A few lists Document Library (Here is where the HR documents can live) I've got a Dilbert Cartoon feed on the main page. (Varies, but everyone likes it. ) RSS feed to This Day in History (Can be customized to a feed that works for your industry) Birthday Calendar (Here is my How To) Weather Web Part Basic Links to relevant things. They can be folder locations on the network or Internet LinksLastly, I keep it as one site. I don't allow people to create sub sites willy nilly.
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Sorry, don't know why formatting is messed up. Here's one that Scott commented: http://community.spiceworks.com/topic/438747-how-do-you-use-your-it-sharepoint-site
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I'm finding myself bogged down in the details of setting it up. Am I making it more complicated that it really is?
What's the difference between Onedrive and Sharepoint?
For example, the client currently has a single shared drive that they store all of their files to. There is very little if any security on it (wither they want security I don't know at this point).
Denis, how did you learn how to use Sharepoint?
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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.
