Exploring How SharePoint Online, Office 365 Might Impact the Future of SharePoint Branding

Correct branding is a mission critical feature of, arguably, most, if not any successful implementation of SharePoint. In turn, adding an effective brand to SharePoint components — sites, libraries, lists, even newsfeeds — supports and hastens user adoption of the computing platform. So getting a glimpse of the likely future of best of breed branding […]

If improved collaboration is an objective for SharePoint implementation, consider supporting it with external data

Many organizations implement SharePoint to promote better collaboration between Lines of Business (LoBs). The notion is SharePoint newsfeeds, rating systems, and tags for items/people/events/whatever, will all contribute to better efficiency across an enterprise. Efficiency means not only a lower cost of operation (as the result of substantially less duplication of effort), but higher levels of […]

It makes sense to keep technical training for SharePoint end users as simple as possible

Because SharePoint end users often are responsible for tasks completely unrelated to SharePoint, but need to successfully process computing tasks within a SharePoint work space, it makes sense to keep the presentation of technical training materials for them as simple, and as direct as possible. Few interactions could be more difficult than the effort a […]

Function trumps form when SharePoint stakeholders consider how best to provision technical training content to end users

Branding should be an important consideration for SharePoint functionality wherever possible. A voluminous quantity of usability research has demonstrated the comparatively greater usefulness of technical features branded to appeal to end users. But for end users in need of technical training content to help them successfully complete work in a SharePoint computing environment, it may […]

Lots of interest in OneDrive for Business at Office 365 Summit, New York

At the Office 365 Summit in New York City, a lot of the discussion in the Adoption track focused on learning more about OneDrive for Business. Cynthia Wade, the leader of the track spent a lot of time fielding topics on OneDrive for Business. From the level of interest her audience exhibited in the topic, […]

Social Groups and SharePoint promise big returns, but require a substantial effort

SharePoint 2013 and SharePoint Online, Office 365 have been designed with collaboration as one of the primary out-of-the box feature sets. So organizations can benefit by implementing Yammer groups, but should plan on a lot of effort to ensure success. We’ve recently published several posts to this blog about a new set of video training […]

It make sense to incorporate risk management policies into SharePoint and/or SharePoint Online workflow architecture

Workflows designed to automate organizational processes should be designed to support approved risk management procedures. The potential for problems to arise from workflows designed without attention to these procedures is too great to proceed otherwise. Properly attending to this requirement means proposing applications of SharePoint’s out-of-the-box approval workflow not only “horizontally”, but also “vertically” within […]

How to capitalize on a hybrid sharepoint computing architecture, combining on premises and cloud components

Many organizations are considering how best to support parallel SharePoint computing efforts, both on premises, and SharePoint Online via a cloud SaaS provider. But what if it were possible for these organizations to get the maximum return on this effort by capitalizing on complementary features of both platforms, which can be safely interconnected? On October […]

Ask questions before leaping into an enterprise social effort for the best possible chance of success

Many of the same type of questions most subject matter experts recommend be asked about any plan to implement SharePoint 2013, or SharePoint Online, Office 365, should be included in any plan for an enterprise social effort, at least according to Naomi Moneypenny. Moneypenny presents these questions and her rationale for adding them into any […]

On the importance of Yammer groups and the need for formal planning to ensure their success

Two videos in a new set of video training content exclusively available to anyone with a subscription to SharePoint-Videos will likely be worth a review for any stakeholder in a plan to implement enterprise social computing via Yammer and SharePoint Online, Office 365. The title of this video tutorial set is SP 13-317 – Making […]