[kictanet] Reminder: SharePoint Saturday - Nairobi - Sept 15, 2012

[S.M. Muraya]

Reminder: SharePoint Saturday - Nairobi - Sept 15, 2012

http://spsnairobi.eventbrite.com/

This is what an older (2007) version of SharePoint was being used to
accomplish 4 years ago....

http://www.cio.com/article/print/397263
Microsoft SharePoint: Project Management Answer for a Multi-Million Dollar
Construction Effort

– Meridith Levinson, CIO

*June 16, 2008*
Matt Fahrenkrug and Bill Culhane get paid to handle the nuts and bolts of
complicated construction projects. As the owners of Culhane & Fahrenkrug
Consulting, they facilitate every aspect of commercial construction
efforts, such as the second phase of a three-year, $170 million building
expansion for the Van Andel
Institute<http://www.cio.com/article/346763/How_Microsoft_InfoPath_Is_Helping_Cancer_Researchers_Go_Paperless/1>,
acancer research <http://www.vai.org/> facility based in Grand Rapids, Mich.

Culhane and Fahrenkrug are overseeing every detail of this project for the
Van Andel Institute. As the Institute's "owner representatives," Culhane
and Fahrenkrug write the contracts for all of the architects, engineers,
construction managers and subcontractors involved in the building
expansion. They get building permits and approvals from the city of Grand
Rapids. They make sure the Van Andel Institute is adequately insured, and
that all of the consultants, contractors and subcontractors follow federal
and state safety standards.

It's a big job with lots of stakeholders and moving parts, and one that
generates reams of paper, including contracts, drawings, specifications,
maps, requests for information, cut sheets and meeting minutes. To manage
all of the project's documentation, logistics and participants, Culhane and
Fahrenkrug are using Microsoft
SharePoint<http://www.cio.com/article/357313/Understanding_Microsoft_SharePoint_in_a_Web_._World/1>
.
MORE ON SHAREPOINT
SharePoint Demystified <http://www.cio.com/article/169750>
Understanding Microsoft SharePoint in a Web 2.0
World<http://www.cio.com/article/357313>
Should IT Put all of Its Eggs in the Microsoft SharePoint
Basket?<http://advice.cio.com/c_g_lynch/should_it_put_all_its_eggs_in_the_microsoft_sharepoint_basket>
Why Microsoft Should Bring a Facebook-like Look to
SharePoint<http://advice.cio.com/c_g_lynch/why_microsoft_should_bring_facebook_like_look_to_sharepoint>

SharePoint has grown to incorporate so many features that some IT shops
still have a hard time understanding exactly what it does. (See Sharepoint
Demystified <http://www.cio.com/article/169750>, for an up-to-date primer
on SharePoint's pieces, parts and capabilities.)

But the product's capability around the storage of unstructured data is one
of its strengths, says Rob Koplowitz, a principal analyst with Forrester
Research <http://www.cio.com/article/397263/subject/Forrester+Research+Inc.>
who
specializes in information and knowledge management tools. "Organizations
see SharePoint as a backbone for getting more control over large amounts of
unstructured data," he says. "All of the things that would have previously
been put on a file server or e-mailed around as attachments are great
candidates for moving into a more structured environment [like SharePoint]."
Why SharePoint

When design of the Van Andel Institute's new building began in January
2006, Fahrenkrug and Culhane met with Bryon Campbell, CIO of the Institute,
to find out if there was any technology they could use to store all of the
documents the construction project was going to create. Fahrenkrug figured
they'd use an FTP site, having used them for previous construction projects.

Campbell recommended
SharePoint<http://advice.cio.com/c_g_lynch/why_microsoft_should_bring_facebook_like_look_to_sharepoint>,
having used SharePoint Team Services in 2005 on another unrelated project.

Campbell told Fahrenkrug and Culhane that his IT department could use
SharePoint to create a secure, private website that the architecture,
engineering and construction teams could use to store and share documents,
create threaded discussions and post meeting minutes. Anyone to whom
Fahrenkrug and Culhane granted permission could access the site with a
username and password.

To date, SharePoint has proven to be an effective solution for the Van
Andel Institute's building construction project. It's provided a lot more
capabilities than just document storage. Culhane and Fahrenkrug have used
SharePoint's calendaring function to track contractors' vacations. They've
set up alerts so that people know when documents are ready for approval.
They've used discussion boards for brainstorming, and they've used
SharePoint to share specifications.

Fahrenkrug says one goal of SharePoint was to eliminate as much paper as
possible to reduce printing and shipping costs and support the Van Andel
Institute's environmental sustainability efforts. "We wanted to be as
environmentally friendly as we could," he says.

The collaborative workspace certainly helped: Culhane and Fahrenkrug have
shaved as much as $250,000 off the cost of the project because they were
able to reduce the amount of paper they had to print and ship around the
country to the various architects and contractors by 50 to 60 percent,
compared to typical past projects, says Fahrenkrug. Campbell also believes
the construction process has been expedited because architects and
engineers don't have to wait 24 hours or more for the documentation they
need to do their jobs.

"Turning documents around faster translates to building faster and that
translates into cost savings on labor," says Campbell.

"SharePoint has worked pretty well, adds Fahrenkrug. "It saved a ton of
time and a lot of money and trees, but it hasn't been flawless."
Specifically, SharePoint took some getting used to, and its workflow didn't
support the project's requirements out of the box, he says. Provisioning
proper access for users was also tricky using SharePoint TeamServices. But
the consultants and the Van Andel IT staffer who developed the site worked
around those difficulties and crafted a solution that has largely met
everyone's needs. Here's a inside look at their solution and what it
accomplished for Van Andel's building expansion.

Building a SharePoint Site

Kim Jeffries, an application analyst at the Van Andel Institute, began
developing the SharePoint site in February, 2006. She first met with
Culhane and Fahrenkrug's administrative assistant, who explained which
stakeholders were involved in the design phase of the construction process
and the associated workflows. The admin told Jeffries that the project was
going to have different teams focused on areas such as brainstorming,
parking, construction and sustainability, and that these teams would need
different levels of access on the site. She gave Jeffries a spreadsheet
listing all of the people involved in the design process and the levels of
access they'd need. Culhane and Fahrenkrug also wanted an area of the site
that only they could use.

"We drew it all out and we ended up with a home page that everybody hits,
with about five sub-sites off the home page, a couple of document
libraries, main contacts, discussions and at least one private site for our
owner rep team [Culhane and Fahrenkrug]," says Jeffries.

Because the Van Andel Institute was already using SharePoint Team Services
internally at the time, Jeffries had to build accounts for each participant
locally on the existing SharePoint server. Then she had to bring in each
participant page by page, library by library, and meeting workspace by
meeting workspace. She says provisioning access for users in Team Services
was "tedious" and "the most difficult part" of building the site.

It took about 40 hours over the course of a month to get the site up and
running, Jeffries says. When it was complete in March, she turned the
design and the content administration over to Fahrenkrug and Culhane's
administrative assistant. Jeffries continued to create accounts for new
teams and individuals as they came on board, because that process was
complicated and it needed to be done on Van Andel's local SharePoint server.

Fahrenkrug says it generally took users two to three weeks to get
accustomed to SharePoint. Jeffries hired a local training center to teach
the owner representatives and a handful of employees from the architecture
firm and construction offices to use Sharepoint. But, Fahrenkrug says, most
users learned the system on the fly.

Though the SharePoint site took some getting used to, Fahrenkrug says, the
user interface is more intuitive than an FTP site, which looks more like a
computer file than a web page and never offers enough storage, in his
experience. As such, SharePoint makes storage and retrieval of documents
easier, he says. Users can access the site whenever they want; and they
don't have to wait for Federal
Express<http://www.cio.com/article/397263/subject/Federal+Express+Corporation>
deliveries.
Jeffries adds that users receive alerts via e-mail whenever a new document
is added to the site.

When users need to find a spec, they can simply type the name of it into
the search engine on the home page, which takes them right to it, as
opposed to drilling through folders to find it, he notes.

Troubleshooting problems is also easier on SharePoint than on an FTP site,
says Fahrenkrug.

"If people couldn't get into an FTP site, it was pretty hard to figure out
why," he says. "With SharePoint, my admin can go in, figure out why they
can't get access, and if there is a glitch on our end, we can easily fix
it."
Tips for Getting the Most From SharePoint

*1. Train users.* "If you can't get people to use SharePoint, putting a
site together is not worth the effort," says Kim Jeffries, an application
analyst with the Van Andel Institute.

*2. Give novice users targeted tips.* "When I created an account for a new
SharePoint users, I sent them an e-mail with their user name and password
and some quick tips on how to access the account, what level of security
they had, and what that meant in terms of what they could and couldn't do,
how to use the calendar, and how to use a document library," says Jeffries.

*3. Follow the three-click rule.* Within the SharePoint site, says
Jeffries, keep content as close to the surface as possible. "You should be
able to get done what you need to get done in three clicks," she says.

*4. Make sure you have enough storage.* By the end of the Van Andel
Institute's building expansion, the SharePoint sites might take up one
terabyte of storage, says Bryon Campbell, CIO of the Institute.

*5. Understand SharePoint's capabilities and limitations.* "SharePoint is
not the end all be all of software, but it works if you understand what it
can and can't do," says Matt Fahrenkrug, owner of Culhane & Fahrenkrug
Consulting. "By understanding that, you can manipulate the software and get
to the result that you want."

*--M. Levinson*
Upgrading to Microsoft Office SharePoint
Server<http://www.cio.com/article/397263/subject/Microsoft+Office+SharePoint+Server>
 (MOSS)

When the Van Andel Institute migrated to Microsoft Office SharePoint Server
(MOSS) in January, 2007, Jeffries had to update external users' security
levels because they could no longer access their specific site with the
local accounts she had originally set up for the previous version of
SharePoint, Team Services. (Security is set up differently in Microsoft
Office SharePoint Server than it is in Team Services.)
Drawing on research she had done about the best way to set up user access
on MOSS, she worked with the Van Andel Institute's server administrator,
Russell VanderMey, to create Active Directory accounts which she could then
bring into SharePoint. VanderMey created an external Active Directory
domain that's not on the Van Andel Institute's network, yet provides
Jeffries with a domain that she can use to create and maintain security for
SharePoint users who are not Van Andel employees.

"With MOSS, the maintenance is so much easier because I created security
groups for every level necessary on each page and sub-site and I created
security groups within SharePoint," says Jeffries. "Now, when someone new
joins, I go out to the external active directory site, I get their name and
plug them into whatever site they need to belong to."

Jeffries adds that it now takes less than five minutes to provision access
for users, because she doesn't have to drill through 30 sub-sites to
maintain security.
SharePoint Key to New Submittals Process

In June, 2007, Fahrenkrug came to Jeffries with a new request. A new phase
of the project had started—the submittal phase—and he needed technology to
support it. During the submittal phase, architects and engineers create
drawings which they release to subcontractors, who bid on the projects and
create new, more detailed drawings. These documents then get sent back to
the architects and engineers for review and approval.

"I thought this was a huge undertaking," says Jeffries of the submittal
phase. "If we could get a solution for them using SharePoint, it would be
huge."

Her first effort to use Microsoft Office SharePoint Server to automate the
submittal process ran into complications. SharePoint's workflow didn't
support the architects' and engineers' needs. They wanted to use a certain
naming convention for .PDF files, and they didn't want users re-naming
files. The problem, says Jeffries: SharePoint wants users to rename .PDF
files after they've checked them out of a library and are ready to return
them.

To fix this problem, re-coding SharePoint would take too much work and
would complicate software updates and patches. So Jeffries wound up
creating three separate sites—one called submittals out, where all
specifications are uploaded for review; a coordination site, where the
architects can review the contractors' changes and suggestions; and a third
called submittals in, where the architects submit specs to the owner reps.
She says creating three separate sites was much easier than customizing the
software. The beauty of SharePoint is that it makes creating these sites a
cinch, she says.

Setting up three separate sites also ensured that all of the versioning
that needed to take place during each phase of the submittal process
happened in the right site, and ensured that versioning was complete at
each phase of the submittal process, says Jeffries. The sites went live on
July 13.

Today, the Van Andel Institute has four SharePoint sites supporting the
construction project, with 18 document libraries for each of the three
submittal sites and 25 document libraries on the original SharePoint site
used for the design phase of the project, says Jeffries. Each folder within
each of the document libraries on the submittal sites can contain 100 or
more documents. "The paperwork alone being maintained here is amazing," she
adds.

The sites support 108 users and 200 or more gigabytes of storage according
to Fahrenkrug.

Fahrenkrug estimates that the new building, which is expected to be
complete late next year, is about 40 to 45 percent complete today. "It's
right on schedule. It's on budget," he says. And that's due in no small
part to SharePoint.

Says Campbell, "The fact that we used SharePoint for the submittal process
will definitely keep us on track."
© 2012 CXO Media Inc.
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