Let's Collaborate Brings You 3 New SharePoint Courses

I have designed 3 SharePoint courses for end users.

Lists - Why? Because as an end user, this is where you will find the most value. It’s relatively easy to learn, and once you get it, you will find endless uses for it. Most of your spreadsheets will become redundant, and if you need to fill in a form and send it to someone, you can use this too. You don’t have SharePoint Enterprise Features (Excel Services or InfoPath). You just need access to core SharePoint and Excel 2007.

Permissions - Why? Because as a site owner or site collection administrator, you have to understand how this works or you will end up redesigning your site. This is where the biggest confusion comes in for most site owners and administrators. In fact most guru's can't even agree how it should be done. I have come up with a unique way to make the penny drop so you can decide for yourself, and it involves you getting tied up! ;-) (Really).

Mentorship Program - Why? Because having a mentor for a couple of months can save you 2 years worth of work. If you have been tasked with becoming the resident SharePoint Champion this is for you, but take note of the pre-requisites. This is a unique program in the industry; there is nothing else like it out there. This is my specialty as this is where my biggest issue was when I was still learning, so I decided to provide this service.

What SharePoint Course to go on if you're an End User

Most newbies to SharePoint are advised to do the WSS or MOSS 2007 courses, 5060 or 5061 respectively, in conjunction with SharePoint Designer.

If you are going to be responsible for installing the product and maintaining it on the server (backups etc), then 5060 and 5061 are fine.

If not, do not do those courses. They are very technical and you are not going to understand a thing (unless of course you have a strong IT background). Do the 50227A SharePoint End User course instead, or a course at least based on some of that outline. Find out from your favourite trainer what they have on offer.

Wait 6 months or so till you take on SharePoint Designer. It is a developers tool and you can break your whole site if you don't know what you are doing. Be patient, learn the basics first.

What is SharePoint?

There are hundreds of descriptions for SharePoint because it can do so much, but basically it is each of the following :

A private web site for storing and collaborating on documents with your team.

Your company's external facing website.

The platform on which you build your company's intranet and extranet, (access for vendors, customers, partners, etc).

Profile pages for each of your employees that can be likened to Facebook.

The landing page (dashboard) when linking to a whole lot of other line of business systems, eg: SAP and client databases, to report on Business Intelligence.

An electronic forms solution.

A document, record and web content management system including workflow.

A search engine for people, documents and information.

All the above easily integrates into Microsoft Office and has built in security which allows you to decide who has access to what information. We will go into each topic in depth over time.

Everything is available to the end user depending on the version of SharePoint and Microsoft Office you are using, and what permission levels you have been granted.

Note to would-be developers : Although much of this product can be configured without any development, don't under-estimate the complexity levels in doing customised solutions. Don't try and custom build functionality without the guidance of a qualified SharePoint architect or senior developer. This product is incredible on many levels, but it gets tricky when you start messing with it. Rather get help from the experts if you have no relevant IT experience. Also don't under-estimate how long it can take to complete a customised solution. Use a reputable vendor with the correct experience in the field. Ask for references!

It's not a question of can SharePoint do it, it's a question of how complicated it is to build. SharePoint can do almost anything. But don't worry about any of that now, we are going to stick to out of the box functionality - stuff end users can do.