That’s right, it’s true. You can use the free version of
SharePoint 2010 to meet your document and content management needs and even run
your public facing website or an internal knowledge bank.
SharePoint Foundation 2010 is free. It may not have all the
features that you get in the enterprise license but it still has enough to
cater to your needs to build a document management system and replace age old
file shares or folders. I’ve built a dozen content management sites for
internal and public use exploiting SharePoint. There are hundreds of web
content management systems out there (see CMS Matrix).
On one hand we have commercial platforms like SharePoint, SiteCore, and Ektron etc.
which are the most frequently used and on the other hand there are free options
like WordPress, Drupal, Joomla, and Plone etc. which are pretty common popular
as well. But I would be very surprised if anyone was able to find a single
CMS platform that is all things to all people. Infact not a lot of people
consider SharePoint’s free version under the free CMS side but its high time
organizations benefit from this.
Through this blog post I wanted to present SharePoint Foundation
as an option for running a FREE CMS platform. Even if you knew that there
is a free version of SharePoint, what most people don’t realize is that
SharePoint Foundation is a great option for running web sites of all kinds –
not just team sites. It is a great option for many reasons, but in reality
it is supported by Microsoft, and above all it is FREE (yay!), and it is
extremely easy to get started.
From a functionality perspective – it’s hard to beat SharePoint.
Even the free version, SharePoint Foundation, offers simple data connectivity
(through BCS), cross browser support, accessibility, support for Office Web
Apps, blogs, wikis, templates, document support, health analyzer, support for
presence, and MUCH more.I often get asked: “Can I
use SharePoint 2010 as a document management system?”
The answer really depends on
·
What are your specific requirements?
·
What systems you currently have in place for managing documents.
·
And of course how much money you have J
Benefits?
Not many large organizations have benefited from SharePoint yet.
For some it has been an IT project to see what they can achieve with it, for
others it has been used as a collaborative platform or in many cases an
extended intranet. SharePoint 2010 has changed the game slightly as the
improvements that Microsoft have made have been noted by organizations, and we
are seeing a lot of companies starting to build specific business applications
using SharePoint as the basis, and nearly every business process will require
documents at some stage.
If you require a document management system and have SharePoint
in place then it can be a relatively straight forward decision to use
SharePoint, as long as you have reviewed the considerations just discussed.
The collaborative nature of SharePoint 2010 is also a massive
advantage, as specific departmental or project sites can be created quickly and
easily that allow workers to interact in a variety of different ways using one
source of information. This also benefits an organization with regards to
how they manage the knowledge that they have, as if all of their information is
in one source then it is naturally easier to search and manage.
Is
SharePoint right for your organization?
As just discussed, this can only be determined after defining
your requirements and also planning a longer term strategy for how you will
manage your documents and information.
A key factor to look at is how the users would interact with the
system and how much value would it get for your organization. The amount of
data and documents that organizations are creating is increasing rapidly each
year. Therefore the ability to archive this information, whilst keeping the
ability to know what you have and where it is, is vital to any organizations
management of their information life cycle. SharePoint is best used for
the initial life of business documents where they need to be referenced and
accessed after time. It is often beneficial to archive these to overcome for
storage and performance issues.
FREE
CMS – SharePoint, Really?
In order to show some of the completely of what comes with this
free version of SharePoint 2010, I thought it would make sense to use Wikipedia
(since every one trusts it as a credible source). Wikipedia shows that a web content management system typically has the
following components:
Document Management:
-
CMS software may provide a means of managing
the life cycle of a document from initial creation time, through revisions,
publication, archive, and document destruction.
SharePoint is king when it comes to document
management. Version history, exclusive check-out, security, publication,
workflow, and so much more.
Content Virtualization:
-
CMS software may provide a means of allowing
each user to work within a virtual copy of the entire Web site, document set,
and/or code base. This enables changes to multiple interdependent resources to
be viewed and/or executed in-context prior to submission.
Through the use of versioning, each content
manager can preview, publish, and roll-back content of pages, wiki entries,
blog posts, documents, or any other type of content stored in SharePoint.
The idea of each user having an entire copy of the website virtualized is a bit
odd to me – not sure why anyone would need that for anything but the simplest
of websites.
Automated Templates:
-
Create standard output templates that can be
automatically applied to new and existing content, allowing the appearance of
all content to be changed from one central place.
Through the use of Master Pages and Themes,
SharePoint provides the ability to change the entire look and feel of
site. Of course, the older brother version of SharePoint – SharePoint
Server 2010 – also introduces the concept of Page Layouts which allows page
template level customization and even switching the layout of an individual
page using different page templates. I think many organizations really
think they want this but rarely end up using this bit of functionality.
Easy Edits:
-
Once content is separated from the visual
presentation of a site, it usually becomes much easier and quicker to edit and
manipulate. Most WCMS software includes WYSIWYG editing tools allowing
non-technical individuals to create and edit content.
This is probably easier described with a
screen cap of a vanilla SharePoint Foundation page in edit mode. Notice
the page editing toolbar, the multiple layout options… It’s actually
easier to use than Microsoft Word.
Workflow
management:
-
Workflow is the process of creating cycles of
sequential and parallel tasks that must be accomplished in the CMS. For
example, a content creator can submit a story, but it is not published until
the copy editor cleans it up and the editor-in-chief approves it.
Workflow, it’s in there. In fact, the
same workflow engine is running under SharePoint Foundation that is running
under the other versions of SharePoint. The primary difference is that
with SharePoint Foundation – you need to configure the workflows yourself.
Web Standards:
-
Active WCMS software usually receives regular
updates that include new feature sets and keep the system up to current web
standards.
SharePoint is in the fourth major iteration
under Microsoft with the 2010 release. In addition to the innovation that
Microsoft continuously adds, you have the entire global ecosystem available.
Scalable Expansion:
-
Available in most modern WCMSs is the ability
to expand a single implementation (one installation on one server) across
multiple domains.
SharePoint Foundation can run multiple sites
using multiple URLs on a single server install. Even more powerful,
SharePoint Foundation is scalable and can be part of a multi-server farm to
ensure that it will handle any amount of traffic that can be thrown at it.
Delegation &
Security:
-
Some CMS software allows for various user
groups to have limited privileges over specific content on the website,
spreading out the responsibility of content management.
SharePoint Foundation provides very granular
security capabilities. Read @ http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ee537811.aspx
Content Syndication:
-
CMS software often assists in content
distribution by generating RSS and Atom data feeds to other systems. They may
also e-mail users when updates are available as part of the workflow process.
SharePoint Foundation nails it. With RSS
syndication and email alerts available out of the box, content syndication is
already in the platform.
Multilingual
Support:
-
Ability to display content in multiple
languages.
SharePoint Foundation 2010 supports more than
40 languages. Read
More
Read more @ http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dd776256(v=office.12).aspxYou can download the free version from http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=5970
