Sharepoint Development
What the heck is Sharepoint and how can your company use it? We speak to Sydney-based Sharepoint developer and consultant Marcus Dervin, director of WebVine, about its uses …
By Catherine Blum
When did you first get interested in the internet and technology? Did you do a course in web technology? What course was it and where did you do it?
I completed my uni degree in 1994 and started working for Apple in 1995. That’s where I discovered Netscape 1.0 and the Internet. No-one even spoke about it in Ireland (where I am from) at the time, and I think there were only 50,000 websites at that time. I was enthralled, chatting to people from around the world, building my first website, it was really exciting
Were there other sharing applications that you were initially interested in or worked with before you discovered SharePoint?
I worked with all the usual web applications – dreamweaver, photoshop and then worked with a lot of CMS products – Vignette, Kentico, WordPress, Joomla etc.
What are some of SharePoint’s best characteristics compared to other applications in its industry?
There’s no other application that quite compares with SharePoint for its broad range and depth. It’s a platform more than an application, as you can develop applications on it as well as use its many features.
Document management, business intelligence, content management, search, forms, workflows, Sharepoint has it all.
What size companies can benefit from using SharePoint?
I think to get the most from sharepoint, rather than just using it for documents, you really need to run an intranet on it with automated processes, dashboards etc so a company with at least 30 staff upwards.
Does it require training to use it? How much staff training is required to get people working on it?
General users do not need training, its like visiting any website. But authors need training, no more than half-day, and power users would need 2-3 days.
What is a typical scenario for a company using SharePoint e.g. how do they use it?
It’s the home page when staff open their browser, and typically has company news, a staff directory, HR section with ability to apply for leave. It can have social information, there’s no end to the content that can go on sharepoint.
Then many companies use it for document management, so all of their documents are stored there rather than on the share drive.
The benefits of this are many – version control (it keeps a history of changes so you don’t need to duplicate files), email a link to a document instead of attaching the document (so not creating more copies), using search and metadata to find documents rather than a million nested folders – and more.
Then you have forms and workflows for automating processes, so instead of using paper forms to get things approved, you get forms on the intranet, tasks are sent to the appropriate people to approve and go to the next stage. This can cater for complex processes or simple ones.
Some companies then start using Business Intelligence features, displaying information from other systems into SharePoint in a dashboard, so management can see how sales are going – without anyone preparing reports, even if it’s from another system altogether.
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