In April, we hosted the first in a series of SharePoint webinars. We received an enthusiastic reception with over seventy people registering for the event.

The webinar introduced SharePoint 2013, talked through best practices for implementation, and demonstrated some of the impressive new features. View a recording of this webinar here.

We will continue the series on June 13th with SharePoint Business Intelligence.

• Analyze your critical business data with interactive dashboards and key performance indicators
• Integrate with Excel for interactive charts, graphs, and spreadsheets within a SharePoint window. Automate business processes with workflows
• Expand your access to company information when traveling with robust mobile access through tablets and phones
• And more...

There is no cost for the event and it is open to all.

Register here.

SharePoint 2013 has many new and enhanced features. This recording of our April 18th, 2013 Discovering SharePoint 2013 webinar demonstrates some of the changes Microsoft made to SharePoint with the new edition and discusses several SharePoint Business Intelligence features.

MCS provides SharePoint training and consulting to businesses in Colorado and across the country. Please reach out to us for more information about SharePoint or our services.

Join us April 18th for our free webinar Discovering SharePoint 2013

SharePoint 2013 is a considerable upgrade from previous versions of the software. Whether you are new 2013 or to the software in general, join us on April 18th for our free Discovering SharePoint 2013 webinar.

What does SharePoint do?

Microsoft SharePoint is an intranet platform for solving communication problems electronically. It's been very heavily adopted since 2007 because it is intuitive to use and can solve complex business problems inexpensively.

Companies frequently use SharePoint to manage common documents and information, to create automatic workflows, and to host collaboration space for meetings, documents, events, clients, or anything else.

See our article 3 big uses to see how SharePoint solves business problems.

What's new in SharePoint 2013?

SharePoint 2013 is a significant upgrade from previous versions because of its improved usability and the addition of several new features.

• SharePoint 2013 offers better mobile device support than previous versions.
• Searching and general usability have also been improved.
• SharePoint MySites, the social computing part of SharePoint, has also been improved. It's now easier than ever to discover coworker competencies and engage in online collaboration.
• Project site templates make managing projects and collaborating easier.
• SharePoint 2013 more seamlessly integrates with Office 2013.
• Dashboards and BI have also been upgraded.

Our Discovering SharePoint 2013 webinar

Join us for our Discovering SharePoint 2013 webinar to learn what's new with this release and how the product can help your business.

• What does SharePoint 2013 do out of the box?
• What are the new features in the 2013 release?
• How can this be applied to my business needs?
• When is SharePoint not the right answer?

This webinar is free of charge and open to anyone. Register now as enrollment is limited.

The paradox of SharePoint is that it is an IT system, but its successful deployment depends almost entirely on decisions made outside of the IT department.

High adoption has more to do with the way end users are supported and their enthusiasm for the product than it does with anything in the back end, but creating that enthusiasm isn't just a matter of "selling" it.

If end users see SharePoint as just another unwanted change, they will resist or ignore it. Make them enthusiastic by proving its value as a business problem solving tool.

When to start

Many companies delay deploying SharePoint until some fabled break in their schedule when they have time to work on non-essential projects, but that time never manifests and the portal is perpetually on the boards.

A better approach is to make it a priority by finding an essential problem to solve. SharePoint can solve many productivity issues that affect the bottom line, and by addressing these issues in turn, one by one, SharePoint can gradually ease into its role as the centralized place for collaboration.

Where to start

SharePoint is commonly introduced to a company as a document management system, a function that it does very well from a technical perspective. End users are often skeptical, however, when making such a big change to something as critical as how and where they store their documents. Introducing SharePoint in such a high profile way invites resistance.

Starting with a less critical issue is often the more prudent approach. For example, a project of automating the vacation request form with a SharePoint workflow will touch every employee but keeps the stakes low. If there are any hiccups, no one's day is ruined.

A different form or process that is important but not urgent may be a better choice. For example, the benefits form and calendar, the expense report, and the sales literature library are important but not urgent. If an employee can't access them for a day, there aren't any serious consequences, but employees still have ample reason to be exposed to the new system.

Building toward full adoption

Each department will use the portal in a different way, and IT rarely knows how exactly it will be applied. Give each department an excuse to try it out by addressing a specific need. Once exposed to the possibility, users will volunteer opportunities for automation and business problems that need to be solved.

After collecting buy-in by solving a series of smaller problems, End users will be more enthusiastic to use it for high profile projects.

The best way to eat an elephant is one bite at a time. The best way to roll out SharePoint is one problem at a time.

Please contact us with any questions about SharePoint Consulting or SharePoint Training.

Over the last few years, we've helped a number of businesses adopt SharePoint to solve many different business problems. The product has gradually become the standard way to store and share information within a company.

Each client uses SharePoint a different way, but 3 primary uses stand out: Document Management, Workflows, and Collaboration.

[More]