Category Archives: SharePoint 2013

Featured, Microsoft, Miscellaneous IT, SharePoint 2013

Increased Productivity & Design Flexibility: The Case for Migrating to SharePoint 2013

By Kevin Hall, Managing Director

 

Deciding when and how to migrate to SharePoint 2013 is not a small decision. If you’re on an earlier version than SharePoint 2010, Microsoft doesn’t offer an officially supported method for upgrading directly to 2013. Even if you are operating on 2010, upgrading the platform that so much of your business depends on creates risks and costs that must be offset by measurable business benefits.

 

There are already a significant amount of resources available around the benefits of migrating to 2013. At GreenPages, we have helped many organizations with SharePoint projects. This post will cover some real world examples of organizations migrating that we’ve experienced that highlight some of the key benefits.

Design flexibility to extend your public brand to the intranet

One client, a high-tech medical device supplier, has built its reputation on ease of use and modern mobile technology. With earlier versions of SharePoint, the client struggled to reinforce its brand promise and promote its high-tech, mobile culture among its employees on the corporate intranet. After they migrated to SharePoint 2013, the organization was able to take advantage of the improved design flexibility and standards compliance of the platform to create an intranet that truly reflected their brand and values. The site not only looks great on 2013, but it also uses responsive web design to allow access on any device.

Increased productivity with secure document sharing and predictive search

In the financial services industry, protecting sensitive client information is mission critical. Due to information security and compliance goals, a large financial services and analytics client decided to replace internal file shares with SharePoint. While SharePoint immediately helped better protect information, it was not until the migration to 2013 that this client started to see day-to-day business value from SharePoint. With the combination of cross-site publishing and the integration of FAST search, 2013 allowed for a single repository of documents to be indexed and securely shared with multiple intranet and extranet sites, all still governed by SharePoint security. Additionally, the built in predictive search capabilities available in 2013 greatly reduced the amount of time employees and partners spent searching for documents and information.

Out with the new and in with the old

We talk with a lot of clients about Microsoft and whether or not the industry has surpassed it from an innovation standpoint. Often times, a platform switch is under consideration as an alternative to migration. One of our clients, a hip technology firm, had some specific goals which seemed out of reach with Microsoft in general, and SharePoint specifically. In some respects, they had bought into the hype about the industry surpassing Microsoft and went with a competitive solution. GreenPages is now helping this client migrate back to Microsoft and SharePoint 2013 because our client found the product they went with couldn’t scale like SharePoint, required arcane technical skills to manage, and was difficult to brand and build a great user experience on. With 2013’s improvements to design and search, as well as the stability of SharePoint as a platform, the client is excited to get back to the “old way” of doing things.

Collaboration at scale with the technology and platform you already know

As I mentioned, sometimes the complexity of a potential migration opens up a bigger conversation about Microsoft and potentially shifting to a competing technology. Depending on your specific needs, leaving SharePoint may make sense. However, make sure you do not act too hastily. Microsoft as a company is doing quite well, and SharePoint 2013, along with Office 365, lies at the core of where Microsoft is heading and is enjoying tremendous success.

There is real business value to be gained from taking on a SharePoint 2013 migration. By migrating, you will ensure that your business is taking advantage of the improvements that Microsoft has made to the platform, and you will be well positioned to make a smooth transition once Microsoft makes the next version available.

Click here if you’re interested in learning more about the unique business benefits SharePoint 2013 can provide your organization.

Do you have any experience with SharePoint? What’s your opinion? Leave a comment below!

 

 

 

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, 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/.