Following on from comments raised from James Lappin's post back in February our Consultant Edward Taylor had the following comments:
Personally I do agree that SharePoint is capable of substituting a file plan to a certain extent, provided you are not hoping SharePoint will give you the functionality to carry out EDRM. In many cases an organisations main aim of using SharePoint is to enhance collaboration; and the combination of using Content Types and Columns allows enough metadata to be gathered when uploading new information to meet the needs of most users. For this to be a success those implementing SharePoint must understand the different types of content they are managing through SharePoint and assign a suitable strategy to gather the information and where to store it via document libraries etc. It is also important to consider the needs of the user and not to expect them to enter a vast array of metadata to satisfy the needs of an information worker to upload a document – speak to the users, carry out piloting on sample groups and try to understand what is important metadata that must be entered and data that is nice to have but not required.
I also agree with the opinion that SharePoint Sprawl has the potential to cause SharePoint to become ineffective and therefore it must be governed accordingly (this cannot be stressed enough), ensuring that there is consistency in how is it managed and used across all departments. For example an organisation must ensure that when new Team Sites are created existing content types are used rather than creating new ones, this allows information to flow across the organisation effectively. If SharePoint is ungoverned information silos can develop along with problems that are more often associated with shared drives.
In terms of applying retention schedules and the ability to put records on hold; this is possible and requires the use of the SharePoint Records Centre, however its functionality has not be well received and fails to meet the needs of most users requiring an EDRMS. We will be keeping a keen eye on the release of SharePoint 2010 later in the year to see what changes they have made to RM. Further information on this topic has been written by a good friend James Lappin who has provided an excellent piece on Records Management in SharePoint which is well worth a read - http://thinkingrecords.co.uk/2009/04/19/how-records-management-works-in-sharepoint-2007/. As for the other areas in SharePoint I would say keep trying new things with the users to see what is popular and what is not. At TFPL we have been trying out the Wiki pages to allow our consultants to brainstorm and develop ideas and strategies for different sectors that we work in which is proving to be useful and a handy way for our consultants to collaborate.
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