Category Archives: AvePoint

AvePoint, Collaboration, Content Management, DocAve File Share Navigator, Guest Post, Microsoft, Microsoft SharePoint, SharePoint

File Shares & Microsoft SharePoint: Collaboration Without Limitations

Guest Post by Eric Burniche of AvePoint.

File Shares can be a blessing and a curse when it comes to storing large quantities of data for business use. Yes, you enable a large number of users to access the data as if it were on their local machines, without actually having the data stored where disc space may be at a premium. But native management capabilities of file shares aren’t always ideal, so a third-party solution is necessary to fully optimize your file shares.

The primary benefit of file shares is simple, quick, and easy access to large volumes of data for large volumes of users at marginal infrastructure cost. With little or no training required, users can easily access file shares that consist of individual documents to large files and rich media like videos, audio and other formats than can range up to gigabytes (GB) in size.

The Simple Truth: Organizations are quickly realizing native file share limitations, including notoriously poor content management capabilities for search, permissions, metadata, and remote access. As a result, many have turned to Microsoft SharePoint to manage and collaborate on their most business-critical information and valued data.

The Problem: Organizations have various types of unstructured content on their file servers, which is data characterized as non-relational data– e.g. Binary Large Objects (BLOBs) — that when uploaded into SharePoint, are stored by default with the platform’s Microsoft SQL Server database. Once file share content is uploaded, the overall time taken to remove unstructured content from a structured database is inefficient, resulting in poor performance for SharePoint end-users and exponential storage cost increases for IT administrators.

Difficulty often arises when determining what content is business critical and should be integrated with SharePoint as compared to what content should be left alone in file shares, decommissioned, or archived according to business need. File types and sizes also create difficulty when integrating file share content with SharePoint because SharePoint itself blocks content types like Microsoft Access project files, .exe, .msi, .chm help files, and file sizes exceeding 2 GB violate SharePoint software boundaries and limitations.

The Main Questions: How can my organization utilize SharePoint to retire our legacy file share networks while avoiding migration projects and performance issues? How can my organization utilize SharePoint’s full content management functionality if my business-critical assets are blocked file types or larger than Microsoft’s 2 GB support contracts?

One Solution: Enter DocAve File Share Navigator 3.0 from AvePoint. DocAve File Share Navigator 3.0 enables organizations to increase file share activity and take full advantage of SharePoint’s content management capabilities, all while avoiding costs and disruptions associated with migration plans.
With DocAve File Share Navigator, organizations can:

  • Expose large files, rich media via list links, including blocked files more than 2 GB, into SharePoint without violating Microsoft support contracts to truly consolidate access to all enterprise-wide content
  • Decrease costs associated with migrating file share content into SharePoint’s SQL Server content databases by accessing file share content through SharePoint
  • Allow remote users to view, access, and manage network files through SharePoint without requiring a VPN connection
  • Direct access for local file-servers through SharePoint without burden on web front end servers
  • Increase file share content discoverability by utilizing SharePoint’s full metadata-based search across multiple, distributed file servers
  •  Allow read-only previews of documents for read-only file servers

The native capabilities of file shares are unlikely to improve, but fortunately there are third-party solutions such as DocAve File Share Navigator that can help turn your file share from a headache to an asset, allowing you to continue to collaborate with confidence.

Eric_Burniche

Eric Burniche is a Product Marketing Manager at AvePoint.

AvePoint, Microsoft, Microsoft SharePoint, SharePoint, SharePoint 2013, Social

AvePoint Releases SharePoint Meeting Organizer App

AvePoint today announced the launch of AvePoint Meetings, the latest addition to its line of Productivity Apps in the SharePoint 2013 App Store.

AvePoint Meetings, a free interactive SharePoint 2013 app, brings order and efficiency to an organization’s meetings by allowing business users to track notes, actions, and decisions made in meetings against agenda items. While conventional meeting tracking generally involves hand-written notes that must then be typed up and emailed to be shared, AvePoint Meetings enforces a more structured information tracking process that ensures all meeting information is readily available and organized for those that need it. AvePoint Meetings utilizes the “My Task” feature of SharePoint 2013 by creating “Actions” as SharePoint Tasks so your organization can discover all assignments, tasks and relevant statuses within SharePoint or Microsoft Outlook 2013.

AvePoint Meetings allows business users to collaborate with one another in real-time before, during, and after meetings by:

  • Creating single or reoccurring meetings
  • Allowing meeting attendees to adjust and update meeting agendas as well as discussion topics
  • Capturing meeting information and notes with multi-user support
  • Tracking meeting minutes with full auditing, allowing for historical search capabilities
  • Assigning, aggregating, and synchronizing tasks and actions

AvePoint, Collaboration, compliance, Information Management, Microsoft SharePoint, SharePoint

AvePoint DocAve Update Adds SharePoint Governance Automation Features

AvePoint, announced the latest version of DocAve Governance Automation Service Pack (SP) 2. DocAve Governance Automation SP2 allows business content owners to make content move or copy requests directly within SharePoint or through a newly enhanced graphical user interface that promotes a more intuitive, user-friendly experience.

Governance Automation enables organizations to close the custom code gap created by homegrown governance solutions, by providing Service Catalog Offerings such as site collection provisioning, site provisioning, site collection lifecycle management, permissions management, and now, content move or copy requests.

Through an automated approval process and execution, business content owners can now request to move, copy, and restructure SharePoint sites, content, and topology within or across SharePoint environments while maintaining valuable metadata, security and versioning.

“An organization’s SharePoint environment is only as good as its ability to govern the users and content it supports. Governance Automation SP2 provides unique business advantages that redefine SharePoint as a service, allowing organizations the ability to more effectively deliver business-critical workloads and truly monitor and track what is being done in SharePoint on a daily basis,” said George Petrou, Chief Technology Officer at AvePoint. “Governance Automation is another piece to help solve the enterprise collaboration puzzle, providing organizations with the information management solutions to meet their needs now and in the future.”

Governance Automation SP2 addresses evolving information governance policies and organizational change management by enabling end users to submit content move or copy requests through an enhanced user interface or directly within Microsoft SharePoint via a webpart, giving business users the ability to submit requests on their own, increasing ease of use and productivity.

Enhanced features include:

  • Content Move or Copy Service Request: Within a single request and through a fully auditable approval process, business content owners have the ability to comprehensively move, copy and restructure SharePoint sites, content, and topology, along with their corresponding security settings and metadata, across SharePoint farms. Governance Automation also provides developers the ability to request sample production data for in development or testing environments for increased application reliability and improved quality assurance. Requests are then automatically executed by Governance Automation, optimizing operational efficiency and proactively protecting against compliance infractions, thereby enabling your IT resources to perform higher business value activities while ensuring content is only changed by those with the proper permissions to do so.
  • Newly designed graphical user interface (GUI): Designed to mirror SharePoint 2013 and Microsoft Windows 8 style, the newly designed GUI provides users with a simple but contemporary workspace that is effective either as a standalone tool or as a webpart in SharePoint.  Governance Automation’s new GUI was designed for improved usability and intuitive user interaction in order to promote end user adoption and resolve ambiguity around requesting services from IT administrators.

DocAve Governance Automation SP2 is generally available today, March 5, 2013. For more information visit AvePoint’s website.

AvePoint, compliance, Document Management, Lotus Notes, Microsoft, Microsoft Office 365, Microsoft SharePoint, Office 365, SharePoint, SharePoint 2013

AvePoint’s DocAve 6 Service Pack 2 Enhances SharePoint, Office 365 Support

AvePoint today announced the general availability of DocAve 6 Service Pack (SP) 2, the next generation of the management platform for SharePoint governance, with expanded SharePoint 2013 and Office 365 support.

Designed to increase business productivity without sacrificing on security and compliance, DocAve 6 SP2 will support the migration, protection, and administration of data in your SharePoint 2013 environment, whether it’s on-premises, in the cloud, or a hybrid deployment. DocAve 6 SP2 supports migration into the latest online or on-premises SharePoint release from a variety of legacy sources, including previous versions of SharePoint, file shares, EMC Documentum, Lotus Notes, and Open Text (Livelink).

Making the move to SharePoint 2013 is just the beginning. DocAve 6 SP2 extends SharePoint’s native capabilities, enabling application development, scalable storage, compliance and records management, and geo-distributed collaboration with confidence. New SharePoint capabilities such as business intelligence, eDiscovery, mobile device support, and social computing are also focuses of DocAve 6 SP2, as AvePoint continues its quest to enable customers to take advantage of the latest platform releases that Microsoft has to offer.

“As with each previous release, AvePoint is focused on ensuring that our more than 10,000 customers worldwide have all of the tools necessary to realize the full potential of Microsoft SharePoint 2013,” said George Petrou, Chief Technology Officer at AvePoint. “The landscape of business collaboration is ever-changing, and now more than ever organizations need a trusted solution to help them overcome any challenges that may arise. With DocAve 6 SP2, our customers can remove the roadblocks to enterprise-wide collaboration.”

DocAve 6 is built upon all Microsoft technologies and standards, including .NET, WCF, and Silverlight, utilizing only fully supported Microsoft methodologies and APIs. With robust protection, management, optimization, integration, compliance, reporting, and migration capabilities for SharePoint, DocAve is the enterprise-class management platform for SharePoint governance.

DocAve 6 SP2 is generally available to customers today, February 20. For more information about all of the new features and functionality in DocAve 6 SP2, please visit http://www.avepoint.com/docave6/.