Thoughts from the field on WSS 3.0 and MOSS 2007

I just had to share this with everyone - this summarises ten months of evaluating Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 and a brief look into MOSS 2007.

Brian McKeon is the Deputy I.S. Manager in St. John's Hospital in Limerick in Ireland.  He sent me an email today with this content:

"Here is a brief outline of our experience with the SharePoint products to date:

In February of this year we implemented a Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 intranet.  Our previous Intranet was static HTML, secured by various means, with numerous styles, and the directory structure that underpinned the whole thing was a maze of historical amendments and ad-hoc reactions.   The overhead in terms of maintenance and development was un-sustainable and we needed an alternative.  The launch of the WSS 3.0 intranet not only dramatically reduced the department’s workload, but also revolutionized the organizations perception of what an intranet could deliver.

The main features of WSS that provided benefit to our users were:

- Site Creation:  We can create an entire departments/project team site and allocate permissions from Active directory accounts in a matter of minutes.  This has allowed us to let the intranet “evolve” in a structured manner, rather than development time being a constraint.

- Document Publishing:  Contributors to sites (our departments) can upload office documents to their own libraries.  The interface is so easy to use that even the most non-technical people are managing their own libraries.  Much more dynamic and useful information is being published because the hassle and time delay of going to the IT department is a thing of the past. 

- Electronic forms:  Using InfoPath we have developed some prototype forms that are proving very successful, reducing internal mail and providing direct entry into SharePoint/SQL Server for analysis.  Speed is an important factor here also, we can have a standard form developed and live in a hour or two (mainly spent prototyping and developing in real-time with the user beside you).

- Electronic Calendars:  We use the out-of-the-box calendars for booking meeting rooms, viewing organization-wide training and scheduling projects.  These calendars are easy to setup and uses the familiar “outlook” style interface.

- Customization:  Themes apply throughout the sites, allowing us to make a Christmas Theme in no time at all!.  We also use SharePoint Designer to add script, alter Master Pages and edit site pages. 

Recently we have been involved in evaluating MOSS 2007 through the IT Pro Momentum Program.  This product builds on the foundation of WSS 3.0 and we are looking to implement this product in 2008.   Two of the major benefits we have seen in MOSS are:

- Document Workflow:  This is the major driver for the implementation of MOSS.  The integration with Active Directory, ease of workflow creation, and the tight integration with Office products makes this workflow solution an obvious choice for our organization.  We hope to streamline and rationalize a number of document workflow processes within the hospital.  We are also keen on the flexibility to expand on the standard workflow capabilities in MOSS by using our current development platform (Visual Studio).

- Target Audiences: After taking the first step to WSS we are now looking to further rationalize the structure of our Intranet with a view to leveraging the Audience Targeting capabilities of MOSS.   The ability to automatically display clinical forms to nurses, or payroll forms to managers will lead to even greater electronic productivity.

There doesn’t seem to be enough hours in the day to fully dive into MOSS 2007, but other features we will be investigating are the integration between MOSS and SSRS, the Business Data Catalog (BDC), and further integration with Office 2007. 

The whole product has received great feedback from all aspects of our organization.  From a developers point of view, it removes virtually all the security, site development, and navigation overhead that’s associated with more traditional intranets and allows you to focus on information delivery through publishing and applications.  For users, it empowers them to own and control their own site structure and content.  I can’t praise the SharePoint product enough, I would even go as far a saying that it’s on a par with SQL Server as one of the best Microsoft products, and I’m looking forward to implementing MOSS 2007 in 2008."

Brian details an awful lot of business benefit from WSS (something that is a FREE product)!

Dave.