tfpl blog

The Annual SLA Winter Warmer Pub Quiz

by Helen Trudgeon, Contracts Recruitment Consultant

 

Last week saw SLA Europe’s Annual Winter Warmer Pub Quiz event take place, once again hosted by professional QuizMaster, AskTony and kindly sponsored by Swets and the Financial Times.

SLA President and TFPL Managing Director Darron Chapman welcomed the 16 teams, made up of SLA members and friends, all eager to be crowned Quiz Champions 2012.  So keen were staff at TFPL, that we were able to field 2 full teams – the IDOX Idles and TFPL & Back - competing not only for the main prize, but also to take home the honour of being TFPL’s own internal champion. Purely in the spirit of friendly rivalry, of course.

The quiz kicked off with an investigation of our knowledge of recent current affairs, which perhaps left a little to be desired, but the room soon warmed up as we were asked, amongst other things, to identify obscure television adverts, to get inside the heads of Sun readers  and to spot price an eyewateringly obscure range of commodities.  Smartphones were sadly banned, but our team nonetheless managed to achieve modest success, based on a sound knowledge of Asda pricing and at least one mathematical genius who knew the current price of Brent Crude.

The final round remains memorable, if only for the noise of over 80 people singing along to Chas n’ Dave and the Rocky soundtrack.  Possibly with more enthusiasm than any inherent musical ability. Or perhaps that was just me.

The eventual and well deserved winners were the Film Club, captained by Mark Haines, whilst both of TFPL’s teams managed a respectable mid-table ranking, with IDOX Idles pipping TFPL & Back by just 1 point.  We are already anticipating next year’s re-match.

Ultimate winners the Film Club https://picasaweb.google.com/asktony.co.uk/Sla2012?authkey=Gv1sRgCJrUv8Dvu5285AE#5698928439449238770

https://picasaweb.google.com/asktony.co.uk/Sla2012?authkey=Gv1sRgCJrUv8Dvu5285AE#5698928397971520194

SharePoint - how to manage groups across site collections?

By Shooresh Golzari

Reaching the conclusion of a one year SharePoint 2010 implementation at a government agency.  All in all, a successful venture delivered to time and on budget in partnership with our friends at SFW Ltd. 

Initially, I had specified for the use of just one site collection, however, the performance risks and potential future complications demanded a more robust set-up for the 150 or so users.  So the production set-up now stands at one site collection for the intranet and corporate reference sites, one for functions and one for programmes in addition to another for the content type hub (central control of metadata across all site collections).  The latter a very smart and useful improvement from MOSS 2007 where the management of metadata "out-of-the-box " across your deployment has to be done within each site collection.  Fiddly, tiresome and wasteful.

A similar feature as the content type hub but instead for the management of people, groups and permissions is lacking.  Modern matrixed organisations require that employees work across activities, projects and functions.  So in this particular set-up  we have people in the communications and information management teams working in cahoots with people at the business end of the organisation as well as in their own back office functions. 

This means that a Communications Officer will not only work in the intranet site collection publishing internal news articles, but she will also work in the functions and programmes site collections with other teams.  Therefore, instead of creating one communications group, adding her to it with the correct level of permissions across all three site collections from one place...  We have had to create three groups with the same name in each site collection, configure them and add her to them.  We are not talking duplication here but triplication - nevermind if she also happens to be a content editor for a particular directorate in addition to this...

For me this is an inexplicable oversight by Microsoft unless it is deliberate. 

So what's the answer?  Microsoft's Active Directory 2010. That is, centrally controlling groups and permissions in SharePoint from AD rather than in-place within SharePoint meaning that user groups will have to be managed by IT when new users join, move within or leave the organisation which turns the conversation towards governance - who is responsible?  Unfortunately for the IM team at this client, it is them until such time as they procure, implement and configure AD 2010, long after we've gone.

 

 

Recruitment Update: Agency Worker Regulations, by Tracey South, Recruitment Manager

The regulations came into force on 1 October 2011 and give agency workers the entitlement to:

-  the same basic employment and working conditions as if they had been recruited directly;
-  if and when they complete a qualifying period of 12 weeks in the same job.

We have taken immediate action to ensure compliance with this new legislation:

-  Updated all of our contracts and procedures in line with Recruitment and Employment Confederation guidelines;
-  Updated our recruitment system;
-  Worked closely with current contractors and clients to ensure that they are aware of these changes and how they will be affected;
-  Trained our team and have been out to various AWR conferences and events;
-  Ensured all new vacancies are dealt with in accordance with the AWR regulations.
It has been a challenging couple of months for the team but we're confident that we are well prepared and fully briefed.

For more information about AWR, you can go to the information page on our website. For information about contract opportunities, please contact Tracey South - tracey.south@tfpl.com.

Report on the CLSIG NetIKX conference on “Making the Most of Sharepoint”

Author: Matt Woods, Contracts Recruiter, TFPL

This Wednesday, CLSIG/NetIKX hosted an interesting gathering, where about 45 people listened to a presentation by Mark Field on the implementation of Sharepoint and cloud platforms at the Department for Education, followed by case studies and group discussions led by Hugh O’Neill (Knowledge Manager, EMEA for Jones Lang LaSalle) and James Andrews (KIM Officer at the British Red Cross)

Funding restraint, while being a driver of innovation in many cases, could end up being a result of improved efficiencies brought about by a move toward shared workspaces.  Mark spoke about the improvement in document control and compliance at the DfE since the introduction of the Sharepoint-based system.  Perhaps the main theme of Mark’s case study was the importance of achieving staff participation and acceptance of any new platform and to get beyond a perception that it is merely a case of “the intranet’s changed”.  Mark did this at DfE by identifying key people to become advocates or “champions” of the new system, being sure that these people were senior and with a reputation for being resistant.

Hugh also had experiences of promoting Sharepoint as a Knowledge Management tool at Jones Lang LaSalle, where he helped to implement a platform that enabled previously technophobic executives to collate and share information about contacts, intangible market and competitor intelligence and business information.  He stressed the importance of approaching the setup from a KM standpoint rather than as an IT project, a point which seemed to echo the thoughts of Mark Field, who found that avoiding Sharepoint and Microsoft language helped to improve engagement with the project.  Hugh also found that making the platform visually appealing made it much easier for people to engage with.

During questions and answers, user-engagement came up time and time again, as well as references to open government regulations and with that, the future prospects for using Sharepoint platforms to provide linked data to people within and outside of public sector organisations.  With this in mind, Hugh O’Neill stressed the importance of having common versions of the programme to make sure that different sets of data are compatible and able to migrate from one platform to another.  I asked Mark Field whether, as the roll out of this type of platform continues across departments, the use and choice of different programmes or even versions will hinder the linked data aspect of open government.  This will most likely depend on the attitudes of different departments and Permanent Secretaries and how they are able/forced to collaborate.  It was particularly interesting to compare these observations to those made by the information Commissioner and Paul Davidson (Local e-Government Standards Body) at the recent ISKO Public Access to Information conference (see blog post  14 April) and may be an indicator of further business opportunities in exploiting Open government, linked data and FoI requirements within local and national government.

In all, even though approaching the seminar form a non-technical viewpoint, it was clear that there is a groundswell in favour of using Sharepoint and Cloud systems, with upgrades to later versions inevitable.  The key points appeared to centre on the importance of making the platforms easier to use, which in turn will improve user participation and acceptance, as well as the increased likelihood that organisations in all sectors will be looking to implement and improve their use of Sharepoint.

 

 

Sharing SharePoint Best Practices

Author: Claire Valentine, Training Manager
TFPL Intelligent Resources

Getting the most from SharePoint is an important consideration for all businesses that are investing in it.  Since the SharePoint Summit we ran a few months ago we have been working with other businesses to share best practices for information, records and knowledge management within SharePoint.  Demand for in house customised training particularly has increased.

The Department for Education, one of our case studies from the Summit is also keen to pass on their learning and share best practices and learn from the experience of others using this type of technology.  They are running a number of free events throughout the year on their work within SharePoint and we are going to be working with them for their event on 24th May.

The Department for Education (DfE) has created the Information Workplace Platform (IWP) which provides integrated information, collaboration and business services to 2500 employees.  The Microsoft SharePoint-based platform has been well received by staff, and is now being rolled out to organisations across the education sector. IWP offers a range of services in four key business segments: the day-to-day ‘business as usual’  services; the ‘supporting’ services that ensure security and compliance;  ‘cross-government’ services which support activities across various agencies; and finally,’ project specific’ services that are designed to meet the needs of specific teams.

The IWP is currently the only example in Government of a large scale implementation of a SharePoint platform to support collaborative working, and has been recognised with an award for ‘e-Government Excellence’.  Further details on how to attend the event are available through on website and through the SharePoint special interest groups on LinkedIn.

If you have best practices to share we would be keen to hear from you.

TFPL SharePoint Summit 5 - clear business plans and leaps of faith

We held our fifth SharePoint Summit on 22 March at the Charing Cross Hotel in London.  With keynotes to open and close, six case studies from the UK and Switzerland, and two panel sessions, we hosted over 70 delegates for a day-long look at how organisations are variously moving towards SharePoint 2010.

Jeremy Bentley, CEO of Smartlogic, opened the day for us with a lively and provocative keynote emphasising the continuing relevance of metadata and presenting a forthright argument for automatic, as opposed to manual, classification as the only possible response to the explosion of information in today’s business organisations.  Emphasising the key role of good search technology, Jeremy quoted a recent study showing a 1000 person company would save £742k annually through better information searching.

Pushing the boundaries and driving innovation is perhaps where some early adopters and leading edge companies are in respect of SharePoint.  At the end of the day, Sharon Richardson of Joining Dots certainly highlighted where she believes SP2010 can promote collaboration and innovation:  document sets that are flexible containers for content; permanent URLs that don’t break as information moves; profile matching; editing, tagging and rating, and last but hugely significant, through increasingly sophisticated mobile connectivity. 

However, many organisations are not anywhere near that point so it was extremely valuable to be walked through the decade long programmes of SharePoint work at Unisys and EEDA.  Jim Downie described how MySites are now being used at Unisys; supplied with Newsgator feeds; featuring presence from Microsoft Office Communication Server (now renamed Lync in its latest version); plus the SP2010 like feature to help signal useful content to followers and the wider community.  Jim’s message was KISS* - Keep is simple and social!

Chris Mead from EEDA told a similar story from a public sector perspective:  beginning with SharePoint as intranet in 2001 – get a simple common sense navigation system for the intranet and it will serve you well - and coming right up to the present with Business Intelligence functionality – an EEDA balanced scorecard - in SP2007 drawing data from PerformancePoint, EEDA’s own SQL datamart, and other sources brought in through Top Level’s OfficeForms.

In the day’s other public sector case study, Alexis Castillo-Soto described how in the Department for Education, a whole range of information sources and collaboration tools have been developed for SharePoint 2010 in the Cloud under the title The Information Workplace Platform. DfE is piloting a government initiative to set standards for information and knowledge management in the so-called G-Cloud and, if successful, these will be rolled out first across the education sector and then across other government functions.  Key to success according to Alexis is ”make life easier for users, make things efficient and quick” and “first impressions are key - you only get one chance to motivate an organisation to change!”.

Ian Coyne from KPMG and Andrew Woolfson from Reynolds Porter Chamberlain LLP opened the afternoon session with a professional services perspective.  KPMG had rolled out SP2007 globally in a very short time and Ian described how the clear strengths of a global mindset can conflict with national and specialist team requirements. His key learnings were around the need for piloting both functionality and implementation; the shortcomings of folksonomy in a highly complex organisation where “there are many names for one thing”.  Andrew’s paper - Is there an alternative to SharePoint?  - advocated the importance of keeping minds and options open when it comes to supporting complex businesses.  His memorable phrase, “people don’t mind change, they mind being changed” was tweeted from the hall and then bounced around the Twittersphere for the rest of the day.

UEFA is an organisation where security and access is complex and where groups often function quite independently as its records manager, Elisabeth Bühlmann Herzog, explained in the last case study of the day.  Describing how a number of key information sources have been made available through a combination of SharePoint applications and internally developed databases, her conclusion was that it worked at UEFA because it improved presentation of key data, supported collaboration for those whose access regimes were not overly complex, and offered the information managers a useful tool to manage their library inventory following the disbanding of the library itself.

#sp5 as we called it for Twitter, was a good day. Some excellent case studies, much provocation and food for thought,  show how the information world is coming to grips with and getting increasing benefits from  SharePoint.

Nil Desperandum post CSR; the news is not 100% bad if you are in the KIM segment

Author: Julia Hordle
TFPL Intelligent Resources

There is some indicative demand for skills transfer towards the private sector.  Sweet spots for people needing to transfer skills from Public Sector/NPOs back into the private sector include:

• Research:
  
  • Planning; current and future funding structures, research and analysis
  • Policy research, Change and & Communications

• KM: 
  • Change management and portal design/redesign
  • Programme management & project management within KM/IM with accreditation
  • Sharepoint & MOSS 2007/2010: architecture, development and creation of business tools
  • Organisational needs analysis
  • Corporate communications

People with combined private & public sector experience are particularly valued. There are some good opportunities for people with a sophisticated grasp of IM/KM best practice and an affinity for business. Is this you? Please make contact to explore current options.

Records management in SharePoint - the debate continues

Author: John Davies
TFPL, Senior Records and Information Management Consultant

Have just read a stimulating post by James Lappin on his blog examining the possibilities of SharePoint for records management.  Now, this is the current hot topic (in RM circles at least) and revolves around the question of whether SharePoint 2010 can provide the functionality (or some of the functionality) of a conventional EDRMS.  Microsoft claims it can but do not, as James points out, intend to seek certification against DoD 5015.2 or MoReq 2 and while SharePoint 2010 can do a form of records management, it is records management as defined by Microsoft, not as defined by the international records management community. 

So exactly what is this Microsoft version of records management?  Well, the Records Centre familiar to users of SharePoint 2007 is still there in 2010 and has some additional features.  Putting aside the question of how or how well it works, the Records Centre offers the possibility of doing records management the traditional way; that is, moving a digital object identified as a “record” out of the care of its creator or custodian into a secure place managed on behalf of the organisation.  However, Microsoft then goes on to present an alternative to the Records Centre by allowing users to “declare” records in situ in a team site.  Once declared, the records stay where they are and do not have to be moved to the Records Centre.  So, two models of records management are now on offer:  centralised vs. dispersed control.  How do we make sense of this?  

Our answer is…it depends.  It depends on what sort of organisation you work for and what, if any, records management you need.  If you work for a global energy company and are subject to an immense array of regulations, you will need to pay attention to records management.  You will have to deal with the reality that information is created and managed in many different places using a range of different IT applications including line of business systems and probably more than one EDRMS.  It will not be possible to put all information/records in one “records centre” and at best you will maintain a map of the repositories you know about and try to set some standards for how these are managed. 

If you work for a small public sector agency, a small third sector organisation or a small company or partnership, you could almost certainly get by with using file shares (with some conventions about naming and versioning) and would consider introducing SharePoint as a great leap forward.  You might have some records (very few, perhaps) that need the level of curation made possible by the Records Centre and will certainly have many that can be happily managed in a file share or in situ in a team site.  

It seems to me that Microsoft is offering alternatives which are not exclusive but which the records management community chooses to position as polar opposites.  Irrespective of what it is, there is no sense in arguing for just one model, one system, one corporate approach, today when so many organisations (across every sector) are down sizing, merging, diversifying, splitting, or taking advantage of shared service arrangements.   

Just look at the following list of information domains found in most organisations to see what diversity of approaches exists:

• Formal corporate records e.g. legal instruments, committee minutes and papers, policies, annual reports:  born digital, managed in hard and soft copy, published to the web and/or intranet, preserved long term in an archive or EDRM solution
• Case records:  often managed using a bespoke line of business system where they remain until disposition. 
• Operational support records e.g. finance, HR: often managed using a bespoke line of business system where they remain until disposition. 
• Project records:  complicated assemblies of documents often worked on by multiple members of a project team both inside and outside organisations.  Fertile soil for collaborative software.
• Less well defined (unstructured) working documents:  the documents filling up file shares and team sites that represent the glorious richness and inconsistency of everyday working life.  Often considered a records management nightmare, the majority of these documents do not require long-term preservation and control and might benefit from an in situ records management approach
• Email:  a slough of despond for records managers, if you can’t buy an email archive product, leave email where it is.  It’s better kept in its native application.  Life is too short to drag and drop it somewhere else!

James concludes correctly that “SharePoint is now a mature collaboration system, having gone through several iterations of the product” but I would say that what it offers by way of records management is just that – what it offers.  The debate about what SharePoint does and how it does it will properly continue and we are working with a number of organisations who have embarked on SharePoint implementations for a whole variety of reasons unrelated to records management.  Records managers, meanwhile, must take a metaphorical step back and think hard about the fact that in 21st century organisations records management cannot remain as it used to be.

An update from training and events

Author: Claire Valentine
TFPL, Training Manager

 

With the summer holidays upon us our course schedule is taking a break too.  Demand we saw in the spring for Records Management and Web 2.0 training has continued through the past few months.  The big topics of today seem to be about getting your house in order and proving the value of the service you are providing as an information and knowledge professional.  This could be reflective of the courses that have seen the most demand this year, using technology that is low cost like Web 2.0 to work more innovatively.  In addition ensuring compliance to rules and regulations, plus better information storage organisation through records management training.

Since my last training post we have had a new addition to the training and events team, Nina Benscher who is in charge of developing and running all of our networks and events.  As SharePoint continues to be another popular subject especially with the release of SharePoint 2010, Nina is producing the programme for our, now annual, October event.  This year it will be taking forward the theme of obtaining value and looking at ‘unlocking the knowledge and information management potential’. As usual you’ll have a chance to learn and network with your peers and experts, with interesting case studies from organisations such as; Department of Education, BAE Systems and National Grid for more details visit www.tfpl.com/sharepoint.

SharePoint features in our autumn schedule too as demand; particularly for the records management aspect has led us to put another date in before we finish the year.  The full timetable from September to December is now confirmed and available through the course calendar.  We are expecting that the themes we have seen this year will continue through the autumn and winter course but would be keen to know your opinions on this. 

Join TFPL for the launch of SharePoint 2010

Author: Edward Taylor
Consultant, TFPL

At TFPL we are keenly awaiting the simultaneous UK launch of Microsoft Office 2010 and SharePoint 2010.  To increase the hype Microsoft are hosting a virtual launch event starting at 3pm on the 12th May and you can watch this online. Our consultants John Davies, Martin Sanderson, Edward Taylor and Colin Frankland will be tuning in and Tweeting the event as it happens. We’ll use the hashtag #sharepoint. We will be looking out for any interesting developments from the world of Records, Knowledge and Information Management and adding our thoughts. The launch will include a live keynote and Q&A Session which will be an excellent opportunity to hear about the latest advancements of this ever popular platform, first hand from the people who built it.

To coincide with the launch we have been working hard at TFPL in developing and learning the Beta version of SharePoint 2010 and what it has to offer. Over the coming weeks we will be providing a commentary on our findings about the various pieces of functionality available on SharePoint 2010. The first instalment will be posted soon on the TFPL blog and our Linked-In Group - TFPL SharePoint Interest Group.  We will be giving an overview of the key changes and improvements that have been made with SharePoint 2010, telling you about our hands-on experience and what we thought of it.

Please feel free to tell us your own experiences of the Beta version and if you would like us to investigate any particular area of functionality that you are interested in let us know.