Asif's Blog

SharePoint in Energy Sector

May 11

Asif RehmaniSharePoint No Comments

Last month, I started to focus on specific industries and how SharePoint provides value to each of them. The focus of the first blog in this series was how SharePoint is used in Education sector. This week’s blog is going to focus on the Energy sector and how a properly leveraged SharePoint instance can greatly improve the business processes/workflows and employee effectiveness for companies in the Energy sector. I will outline some common issues that companies in this industry encounter and some thoughts on how to resolve these issues. While doing so (and when applicable), I’ll point to the SharePoint video tutorials that complement the points.

Challenges in Energy Sector

The energy and utilities sector is one of the most heavily regulated industries in the market. Numerous regulations govern how business is conducted, and how information maintained by companies is handled and audited. From regulations to emergencies, energy companies are constantly looking for new ways to improve on practices for the benefit of their customers and employees. According to U.S. Department of energy there will be a 54% increase in energy consumption by 2025. There is a huge challenge for the energy companies to efficiently match production to match demand.

With growth, come new challenges. The focus of most enterprises is to improve plant efficiency, improve compliance and reduce downtime, allowing an overall improvement in competitive positioning. Planning, control and education are essential to managing efficiency. Having effective and auditable change management processes is critical to business. Utility organizations that generate and deliver power have to maintain personnel and medical files for thousands of employees at multiple locations. Compliance to regulations requires a central storage to maintain all employee details with work locations and proper audit trail. All policies, procedures, process workflows have to be maintained for instant review when required.

How SharePoint can help
Energy companies attempt to reduce their capital exposure by partnering with others on capital-intensive projects. Effective collaboration among owners, operators and vendors in these partnerships is essential. It is critical to ensure that everyone is maintaining the same data sets and complying with regulations. When utilizing Microsoft SharePoint as a mission-critical collaboration platform and digital asset repository, organizations must have the tools they need to satisfy these constantly evolving regulations comprehensively and with procedural rigor.

Following are some of the proven ways of maintaining consistent processes and sets of records:

• Consolidate disparate web presence sites into a single solution saving potentially millions of dollars annually (the value of SharePoint explained in plain English)
• Simplify investigation, analysis and reporting by storing data got from devices designed to detect impending failures (use SQL Reporting Services to report data).
• Geographically dispersed geophysicists, reservoir engineers, drilling engineers are empowered to collaborate on similar projects (simplify Project Management with SharePoint team sites)
• Cost reduction of vital engineering documentation by enabling search and versioning features. (control and manage Document Versioning)
• Collaboratively manage content and enable authoring permissions and review (Secure and enable content for the target audience)
• Metadata allows users to search and navigate to the right information (Manage Metadata and Taxonomy for all applications)
• Publish schedules for shutdown & maintenance of refining facilities to ensure co-ordination between staff (Use publishing site to broadcast information)

Note: In addition to the links above, you can browse through the index of our complete video library of 409 videos.

How we at SharePoint-Videos.com can help
We offer remote consulting and on-demand training solutions for SharePoint. When you are ready to learn more about how we can help your organization, contact us online or give us a call at +1 630-786-7026. We can walk you through the possible solutions to see if it’s a good fit for your needs.

Provide Read and Write access to your Line of Business Applications through SharePoint with BCS (Business Connectivity Services)

Apr 20

Asif RehmaniSharePoint BCS No Comments

What do you think of when you hear the word SharePoint? Usually the answer to this question is: Collaboration. Which is correct! However, SharePoint is so much more than a group/team of people collaborating on their intranet. Today, I want to take a few minutes to describe how an organization can expose their line of business application data in SharePoint.

Here’s a common scenario:
A business currently has a home-grown system that they use. The interface has gotten outdated, but the information interfaced is still valuable to the organization and its employees. All the data is stored in databases (either SQL, Oracle, DB2 etc.). The question now is whether to build another home grown system from scratch?

A possible solution:
Use SharePoint as it was meant to be used – serving as the main presentation layer that interfaces data from various sources in the organization. All you need is SharePoint Server 2010 and SharePoint Designer 2010 and you’re ready to define your data sources using a functionality called Business Connectivity Services (BCS) – no programming required!

I have to tell you that one of the most frustrating things to office workers is having to remember which application to use for which purpose. It doesn’t have to be that way. If you have invested in SharePoint already (or planning to), make that a one stop shop for your end users by presenting and interfacing all line of business application data (such as SAP, Siebel, custom databases). It’s all possible with the power of BCS.

Here are a couple of video tutorials to get you started:

• Define reusable connections to your external line of business applications by using External Content Types
• Expose the external data on SharePoint web pages by using Business Data web parts

These videos and plenty more are in the BCS video package DVD developed by Raymond Mitchell (co-author of book SharePoint 2010 Six In One). These video tutorials demonstrate the step by step processes you would need to make proper use of Business Connectivity Services in your organization.

SharePoint in Education

Apr 11

Asif RehmaniSharePoint SharePoint Videos 2 Comments

Today, I want to focus on SharePoint in academic organizations.

1. How does SharePoint help educational institutions?
2. How do on demand educational tools align to empower them?

The usual educational staff and teacher complaints stem from frustration with the time it takes to get access to needed data. More often than not, too many systems need to be utilized to get access to required data. This also subsequently requires remembering access information and passwords to all those systems.

SharePoint has been deployed at many K-12 and higher level educational institutions. Many of them have been our customers over the years. There are many different ways in which educational institutions can use SharePoint to provide a one-stop shop for all their constituents. Some of them are:

• Staff Collaboration – Staff members and teachers can share resources and ideas using SharePoint lists and libraries. Documents can be shared across various grade levels.
• Notice and Announcement board – Staff announcements and special notices can be surfaced up on SharePoint team sites.
• Access to class specific data – Student attendance and evaluation reports on teacher portals.
• Classroom and resource booking – An easy way to view and book availability of classrooms and resources directly through the teacher portal.
• Students accessing their class materials – A student portal where students are able to see their own class schedules, assignments and other related material.
• Email alerts for teachers – when a lesson plan is due, a teacher is alerted through email automatically with a link back to where the lesson plan needs to be submitted.
• Substitute teacher management – Display to teachers which substitutes are available. If a substitute is assigned to a class already, display the scheduling details.
• Analysis of data – Class reports, student reports, and class subject reports can be generated to understand the return on investment.

The one important thing that Universities and K-12 schools need is a firm set of best practices for SharePoint that is easy for administrators, teachers and students to follow. This is where on-demand education can help. With access to a SharePoint video library depicting the ‘How-to’ of SharePoint with keeping best practices in mind, users can:

• Use document libraries to share documents with staff effectively
• Customize announcement list views to display announcements and notes
• Display web parts on SharePoint pages to surface list/library or custom data
• Take advantage of Business Connectivity Services (BCS) to fetch data from other systems and show them within the SharePoint portal
• Make use of the Chart web part to display powerful charts of data from lists, libraries or even data external to SharePoint
• Utilize Reporting Services to generate class and student reports
• Setup email alerts to get notified of important events
• Manage schedules using shared calendars
• And much much more…

Also feel free to check out the entire video library.

When it comes to maximizing the value of a SharePoint deployment, awareness and education are two of your greatest assets. When you are ready to learn more about how we can help, contact us online or give us a call at +1 630-786-7026. We can walk you through the possible solutions to see if it’s a good fit for your needs.

SharePoint and SQL conference in Berchtesgaden on May 8-9, 2012

Apr 06

Asif RehmaniEvents Conferences No Comments

In case you are wondering where Berchtesgaden is, here is a map for it:

http://g.co/maps/mpu7w (not far from Salzburg, Austria)

Lots of great SharePoint and SQL sessions are planned for the event. If you are in that area, come and join us

Recording of webinar on Project Management using SharePoint 2010

Mar 08

Asif RehmaniSharePoint Webinar No Comments

The recording of the webinar on Project Management using SharePoint 2010 Foundation is now available on the site.

Many other previous webinar recordings are also available on the site.

Here is the information about this webinar recording -

Presenter:
Eric Eaton – SharePoint Architect.

Audience: Project managers, site collection administrators, team leads

Session Abstract:

Nearly every organization already uses SharePoint at some level for simple things like document management, but many times all of the other things SharePoint does really well go unused. This webinar shows how to leverage features like discussion boards, task lists, shared calendars, roll-up web parts and more to manage most or all of your projects in one place! We discuss ways for providing self-serve status updates that automatically roll-up to the summary pages per each project (and even across all of your projects).

This webinar focuses on building project management processes directly on any flavor of SharePoint 2010 (Foundation, Server or even SharePoint Online within Office 365).

This webinar was sponsored by SharePoint-Videos.com.

Pre-requisites:
Fundamental knowledge and experience of SharePoint 2010.

Date presented:  February 23, 2012

Coupon Code for SharePoint Connections March 26-29 2012

Mar 08

Asif RehmaniEvents Conferences No Comments

If you or anyone you know is going to SharePoint Connections conference on March 26 to 29 2012 in Vegas, use the coupon code Asif to get $100 off the price of the conference. If you have already paid for the conference, sorry, I can’t help get a refund .

Here’s the URL for the conference:

http://www.devconnections.com/shows/sp2012/default.aspx?s=186

Webinar on 2/23/2012 at 12pm Eastern – Manage Projects using SharePoint 2010 Foundation

Feb 16

Asif RehmaniSharePoint Webinar No Comments

We’re back with another webinar (and of course as always, there is no cost to attend the webinar. All we ask is that you provide feedback at the end that can help us improve).

Reserve your Webinar seat now at:
https://www1.gotomeeting.com/register/288189920

Presenter:
Eric Eaton – http://www.sharepoint-videos.com/about/#eric
SharePoint Architect

Eric is the author of multiple SharePoint training courses, and has worked for, consulted, programmed, and taught technical and end users in businesses ranging from 50 to 130,000 employees.

Audience: Project Managers, SharePoint Administrators and Developers

Session Abstract:

Microsoft Project and Project Server not required! This webinar will focus on building project management processes directly on any flavor of SharePoint 2010 (Foundation, Server or even SharePoint Online within Office 365).

Nearly every organization already uses SharePoint at some level for simple things like document management, but many times all of the other things SharePoint does really well go unused. This webinar will show how to leverage features like discussion boards, task lists, shared calendars, roll-up web parts and more to manage most or all of your projects in one place! We will discuss ways for providing self-serve status updates that automatically roll-up to the summary pages per each project (and even across all of your projects).

This webinar is sponsored by SharePoint-Videos.com. During and after the webinar, we’ll take your questions and try to answer them to the best of our ability.

Prerequisites:
Attendees should have basic understanding of SharePoint 2010

Date: Thursday, February 23, 2012
Time: 12:00 PM – 1:15 PM EST

After registering you will receive a confirmation email containing information about joining the Webinar.

System Requirements
PC-based attendees
Required: Windows® 7, Vista, XP or 2003 Server

Macintosh®-based attendees
Required: Mac OS® X 10.5 or newer

Space is limited.
Reserve your Webinar seat now at:
https://www1.gotomeeting.com/register/288189920

Preview of Video Tutorial DVD on Project Management using SharePoint 2010

Feb 15

Asif RehmaniSharePoint DVD No Comments

We’ll be officially releasing the new video tutorial DVD on “Project Management using SharePoint 2010 Foundation – No Microsoft Project required!” in a couple of weeks at the SharePoint-Videos.com site.

Here’s a preview of the content of the DVD:

• Project Management in SharePoint – Introduction and Overview
• Task Tracking
• Tracking Summary
• Managing the whole project
• Centralized Project Reporting
• SCRUM – Sprint Planning
• SCRUM – Storyboarding
• Scaling up – Templatizing
• Scaling up – Permissions

Sign up for our newsletter to take advantage of the pre-release sale starting next week or simply stay tuned for more details…

Increase SharePoint Adoption at your organization with End User Video Tutorials

Feb 13

Asif RehmaniSharePoint Videos No Comments

The list of our 105 SharePoint end user tutorials.

Why SharePoint Fails

If you do a search on the internet for ‘SharePoint Fail’, ‘SharePoint Problem’ or anything similar to that, you will find the various reasons why SharePoint deployments fail to take hold in organizations. Consider this article from CMS Wire for example. It points out the top 10 reasons why SharePoint projects fail. Some of the reasons pointed out are:

• Not knowing what SharePoint is
• Lack of information and knowledge management skills
• User adoption

I completely agree with these reasons. What about you? How are things going in your organization? Any of these sound familiar?

The SharePoint End User Mentality

In my work, I get to interact with a variety of users – including end users. It is a sad fact, but very true, that I see a Lot of end users frustrated with SharePoint. They see this as something that has been imposed on them and they don’t want anything to do with it. When they come across tasks that they are asked to do, they do either one of the following (usually in this order):

1. Ask a co-worker for help
2. Call/email the help desk if one exists
3. Do the task with the best of their ability and understanding – which usually turns out to be anti ‘best practice’ in SharePoint. The results usually surface up only when it’s time to upgrade the environment to the next version
4. Find a workaround that does not involve SharePoint
5. Ignore the task completely

On the flip side (yes, there is a brighter side to the story ), I have definitely talked to many end users that love SharePoint. They see this product for how it is intended to be seen from an end user’s perspective: a place to go to find company information, share documents, assign or work on assigned tasks, view team calendars, upload pictures of company events etc. They love it because they didn’t have any other tool before which gave them such power and freedom to do things.

What SharePoint End Users Absolutely Need!

End user empowerment drives end user adoption. It’s a well known fact for any product and it’s not any different in the ‘SharePoint world’. The way to empower SharePoint end users is to provide them a place they can go to see for themselves how things are done – the right way! It’s like having the IT person right beside you showing you how to do a task. If you are saying to yourself "Not my end users. They will still end up calling IT for help on every small thing", your end users may surprise you if you guide them properly. I have seen it and it can be done!

How We Can Help

Check out the list of 105 end user videos on our site. Many of them are free to watch for now so check them out. Each is 2 mins or less and has visual text and cues on screen.They are short enough and easy to digest by end users. Each video is very focused and to the point.

We provide you all of the videos on a DVD or as a download with the guidance document on how to deploy it to your SharePoint site collection as a subsite. The total deployment process takes about 20 minutes. I would suggest watching the video titled ‘SharePoint End User Training’ to see how the deployed solution would look in your SharePoint environment.

Interested to talk further? Contact us electronically or feel free to call our VP of business development Michael Blonder at +1 630-786-7026. We can walk you through the solution to see if it’s a good fit for your needs.

Who are the SharePoint End Users?

Feb 01

Asif RehmaniSharePoint Best Practices 3 Comments

Who are the end users in the SharePoint world? This answer differs from time to time when I poll the attendees in my conference sessions and classes. Here are the three choices for you:

1. Readers, Members
2. Readers, Members, Subsite Owners
3. Readers, Members, Subsite Owners, Site Collection Administrators

What is Your answer?

Here is the breakdown of the answers I have received over the years:

• 70% of the people answer B

• 25% of the people answer A

• 5% of the people answer C

There is no wrong answer of course because the answer depends on your company culture more than anything else. Following are the three types of company cultures (IMHO) that correlate to the choices above:

Profile of type A organization

Large and medium size companies who are used to the traditional ways of conducting business in which the developers and IT administrators are the ones responsible for any type of structure management (site settings, permission setting, site branding etc) in SharePoint. SharePoint end users are the ones who consume the information on the sites, manage their documents and only sometimes actually create any other information for others to see on the sites.

Profile of type B organization

Companies of all sizes who have fully embraced SharePoint as the platform where their employees would come to collaborate as well as create new application solutions. These companies have empowered their users to manage their own subsites, user memberships, and the content.

Profile of type C organization

These are usually small companies where users wear multiple hats. Business users are expected to be more or less their own IT support. In a company like this, the end users have far more rights in the environment to build their own complete application solutions and share them with each other. Thus, many of these ‘end users’ are also site collection administrators.

Now I will tell you my own definition of end users. Even though I have been teaching, consulting on and using SharePoint since 2002, I cannot claim that my answer is the correct answer that applies in all situations. Just take it for what it’s worth to you.

I firmly believe that SharePoint End Users are the ones who are readers, members and subsite owners (B). My case against (A) is that if you wish to go the traditional route to managing your intranet and internal company information then you don’t really need SharePoint – just stick with the traditional ways of creating a website using developmental technologies (which is ASP.NET in Microsoft world). Similarly, I don’t think (C) is a great idea either just because site collection administrators have tremendous amount of power. So much so that they cannot be restricted in any way within the site collection, even if a subsite owner thinks he is restricting a site collection admin by removing their access. The reality is that the site collection admins have complete rights over the entire site collection no matter what. Period! I don’t think these admins can ever really qualify as ‘end users’.

In another article, I’ll focus on potential ways to train end users for a successful SharePoint deployment.