SharePoint 2010 as a platform for document management

Members of working groups and projects create texts, reports, presentations and much more together on a daily basis. These documents are usually managed more or less unstructured on one's own computer and made available to the team members via e-mail or, at best, in a shared file system. As a cooperation platform, SharePoint offers much more extensive possibilities to create documents together and to store and manage them for the whole team in so-called team sites:

• Structured storage of any documents in document libraries with freely definable metadata

• Freely definable, role-based access rights to libraries, folders and - if desired - individual documents

• Version control with comments and possible access to all previously created document versions

• Simultaneous collaborative editing of Microsoft Office documents by multiple authors

• Customizable, content-based search in all accessible document libraries

• Creation of different views of the document libraries

• Easy access to offline copies of all documents with automatic synchronization in later online operation

• Edit Microsoft Office documents directly in the browser (no Office package on the client system necessary)
   

Other SharePoint features for teamwork

In addition to the document management options mentioned above, SharePoint offers a number of additional functions to support teamwork as standard, which can be activated on the team site if desired:

• Forums: On a team site, discussion forums can be created where team members can discuss different topics.

• Wikis: Team members can document and exchange their knowledge on wiki pages.

• Blogs: Team members can create blogs and let other team members comment on contributions.

• Contacts and appointments: Teams can manage contacts and appointments together and access them via Outlook or RSS feeds.

• My Website: Each team member can create a personal website, store their own documents, link and comment on SharePoint content, maintain a personal profile, and more.

In addition to the standard features described, there are additional options that can be enabled on a SharePoint site. All in all, SharePoint can be seen as a comprehensive construction kit with which special solutions of varying complexity can be designed and provided.

For example, the design of each SharePoint site can be adapted as desired and workflows can be created with the SharePoint Designer in a modular system and instantiated in the SharePoint server.
 

SharePoint team sites as a service of the ZIM

The ZIM offers working and project groups of the university the hosting of SharePoint team sites on the SharePoint Server 2010 as a service. This is part of the standard scope of services:

• Hosting the team site on a SharePoint server with redundant server components for maximum availability

• Integration into the ZIM server structure with the usual security standards and using the ZIM account and group management for authentication and authorization

• Daily backup of all contents and - if necessary - restoration of individual documents

• Initial consultation on setting up a standard team site and selecting the features needed to meet the needs of the group

More extensive use of the SharePoint offerings, such as hosting an in-house SharePoint development or support in setting up and designing more complex team sites, is possible by arrangement and within the scope of available resources.

For further questions please contact zim@uni-paderborn.de.