SharePoint @ Oxford

1. SharePoint @ Oxford Ian Senior OUCS Nexus Team

2. Today’s talk • Overview of SharePoint for the University • Overview of early adopters brief • Requirements gathering • Survey Results • Templates • Mac and Linux users • Accessibility • RIC for Oxford?

3. What is SharePoint? • Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 is a platform for sharing information and working together in teams and communities: it helps manage people-driven processes • It provides comprehensive content management and university-wide search, which will help accelerate shared business processes, and facilitate information-sharing • It provides an infrastructure which gives users the tools to easily create their own workspaces and share information across teams • SharePoint does not replace public-facing web sites

4. SharePoint Roles for Oxford

5. How will the University benefit? • Document management: • Versioning on documents • Check-in/out • Single authoritative document • Removes email and versioning issues • Can create and use templates • Provides document metadata • Search feature available • Group collaboration • Many people can interact, discuss and work all within SharePoint • Privacy of information but 24/7 web access • Owners determine who can see and use a site • External collaborators will be able to see and use sites if site owner allows access • Group communication • RSS • Alerts • Discussion areas • Nexus email integration • Shared calendars and Nexus calendar integration

6. How is the project structured? • Project Board • Running the project • Groupware Development Panel • Thinking strategically about the future of Nexus SharePoint • OUCS Groupware Team • Develop and run the service for the University • Provides training to IT Officers, owners and users

7. Groupware project board • To steer the project, provide direction and (collectively) take the major decisions pertaining to the project. • To communicate the progress of the project to the University governance structures. • To provide leadership, momentum and support to the Project Team etc. • To oversee and agree revised budgets at the scheduled Budget Review Points. • To ensure that the SharePoint deployment is in the best interests of the University and needs of users are met as is reasonably possible.

8. Groupware Development Panel • To serve as a forum for the University to coordinate SharePoint developments • To appraise the collaborative environment holistically, and determine whether broader opportunities should be explored (e.g. Instant Messaging, Mobile access, Virtual Research Environments). • Coordinate activities to ensure there are developments to complement the Groupware Project, e.g. Funding issues, requirement gathering for new services, and prioritising new projects to be recommended to the Project Board. • To define an overall strategy for the deployment of SharePoint • To interface with companies which wish to collaborate with Oxford, and to advise on collaborations which would be advantageous to the University. • Report to the PRAC ICT Sub-committee each term.

9. Moving towards SharePoint • Project started 2007 • 2008 MS Exchange and SharePoint chosen as Groupware solution by cross University panel. • 2009 MS Exchange (Nexus) brought into widespread use across the University • 2009 SharePoint project started: • Requirements gathering • High level design work • Technical design • Call for early adopters Nov 2009 – Jan 2010 • Service built Jan – March 2010 • First live sites expected March 2010

10. Initial Requirements Gathering • Detailed potential user interviews conducted across the University to gain understanding of current work practices; • Interviews also used to gather SharePoint user requirements; • Various ‘use cases’ presented to Groupware panel as part of requirements document.

11. Further Developments • SharePoint test sandpit built for team to use • Consultant chosen to write technical document, build the back end and develop the site definitions • Further round of user consultation undertaken by consultant before technical document written

12. Early Adopters Call • Early November 2009 OUCS wrote to Divisions and Colleges asking for SharePoint early adopters • Call lasted until 15th January 2010

13. Early Adopter Call • OUCS sought to maximise the impact of the pilot service; • Any section of the University could apply for sites; • Ensure appropriate representation of activities and constituent parts of the University; • Be assured of demonstrable support from participating units; • Early adopters expected to participate in the evaluation process; • Early adopters chosen by OUCS management committee.

14. Expressions of interest • Summary of the specific activities to be supported by SharePoint, whether research, committee, society work, or individual user profiles(via “MySites”); • An indication of the sites life-span; • The names of individuals who will be: • Service Contact, responsible for provisioning sites • Site Sponsor, responsible for overseeing the development of one or more sites within a unit; • ITSS member responsible for providing local support and bespoke training within a unit.

15. Early Adopters Call – Site Types • Committee work, including meeting scheduling and document sharing; • Collaborative research sites; • Student/University clubs and societies, especially their internal management; • Personal intranet sites ("MySites") to enable sharing of documents and other forms of collaboration.

16. Applications Received

17. Potential User Surveys • Each group/person applying for sites asked to complete survey to current working practices and expectations for SharePoint • Committee Site Survey – 31% responded • Research Site Survey – 44% responded Provided extra information on University document management and useful for our SharePoint requirements work

18. Committee Survey Results • Meetings: monthly (46%), termly (30%) • Roles: Chair, secretary, member, junior member • Docs: some restrictions on who can view (47%) • Docs produced: Agenda (100%), Minutes (100%) papers (85%), reports (77%) • Doc formats: Word (82%), PDF (87%), Excel (53%) • Mainly no workflows used: 59% • No metadata collected: 88% • No information management policies: 94% • Use of templates: 53% • No document reviews: 50%

19. Committees Require? • Introduction, member list, document library (100%), Remit (94%), contact and calendar (88%), announcements (64%) • Document views: Sort by date (default), also want All, Type and Alphabetical views • Want restricted area of any site (junior and visitor groups not allowed) • Some need for management record numbers • Want document check out/in • Want document versioning • Privacy level important • Need to send and receive documents to other committees or groups • Limited call for work flows (35%)

20. Research Survey • Number of team members: 20+ members 57% • Main types: PI, Research Fellow, Post Docs 71% • Research docs open to: General public (25%), Oxford (28%), research group (42%) • Doc types: Agenda (85%) minutes (71%), reports (100%), reviews (71%), papers (100%) • Doc format: Word (100%), Excel (100%), PDF (86%). Small numbers use Open Office and HTML formats • Collaborators: in dept (100%), Oxford (100%), outside Uni (83%) • Some need to submit docs to other groups (28%) • Receive docs from outside researchers (85%) • Some document reviews performed (66%) • Docs stored on local machine, arranged by research category (80%) by year (60%)

21. Researchers require? Sites should have: • Intro, contact, announcements, related links, doc library (100%) • Remit, member list, calendar, discussion area, picture library (85%) • Private area (71%) • Arrange docs by Date (default (43%)) and also want All (100%), and Author (85%) • Check in/out (71%) • Versioning (71%) • Document Templates (71%)

22. Reaching students Proved difficult! • Used survey to find out about their IT use and requirements • Enlisted help of the Student Union committee • Publicised survey repeatedly to all clubs and societies • Left open for 1 month to generate data. • Results slanted in favour of Sports Clubs

23. Student IT Survey • Windows access: 92%; • Browser access: FireFox (85%), IE (45%); • Committee meeting: once per term (51%), monthly (31%); • Documents mainly for committee (78%); • Docs stored on personal machines (87%); • Email docs to each other (88%); • Doc types mainly agenda (77%) and minutes (80%); • Member contact: email (100%), web site (65%) Facebook (57%); • Member doc sharing: Events (81%), Event details (87%), Photos (56%) all sent via email; • Require site for just committee (78%), but they also want to share documents with their members.

24. Student Early Adopter Call • Sent to Proctors Office and Student Union • Also contacted Sports Federation Chair • Sports Federation sent call directly to clubs • Also targeted 4 large clubs in particular • Early Adopter call enlisted two applicants – Romanian Society and Triathlon Club (one of the largest University clubs)

25. What will be provided? Generic SharePoint site comprises of: • A site with nominal 5GB quota of space • Oxford styled template for the site type • Owner access to the site – edit and design roles • Standard SharePoint features e.g. document library etc. • Nexus e-mail integration • Calendars

26. What’s in a basic SharePoint site? • Shared document library • Calendar • Tasks • Discussion • Lists • Announcements • Group/people management

27. Site additions • Self created sub-sites such as ‘Meeting Work Space’ and ‘Document Work Space’. These are transient sites created by site owner • Other possible sub-sites include Wiki and Blog sites.

28. Research Site (home page) Included Web parts will be: • Announcements • Links • Tasks • Meetings • Workspace

29. Committee Site (home page) Included Web parts will be: • Announcements • Links • Contacts • Events • Survey

30. Clubs/Societies Site (home page) Included Web parts will be: • Announcements • Links • Events • Discussion Board • Meetings

31. Landing Page Template

32. Page Template

33. Page Template

34. Page Template

35. Generic Oxford Committee Site • Intro section • Remit • Announcements • Calendar • Contact Details (– chair, secretary or admin) • Committee Members • Related Links • Site Users (– see who can access the site)

36. Basic SharePoint Committee Site

37. Document Library • Use ‘Views’ to see content • Group documents by meeting date • Allows permissions to be set • Use Audiences as means of displaying content • Check-in and out available • Versioning available • Can setup templates for users e.g. agenda/minutes etc. • Alerts available • RSS feeds available

38. Document Library – ‘All’ View

39. ‘Meeting’ View

40. Accessibility • Out of the box SP2007 not accessible • System being altered so it conforms to W3C XHTML strict standard • Site definitions being designed with accessibility in mind • Standard web parts being reconfigured to produce clean, accessible code

41. What about Mac or Linux users? • System is built by Microsoft so Windows centric • Browsers fully supported by SP2007 limited to Internet Explorer for site owners. However will mostly work with e.g. FireFox • OUCS will support IE7 & IE8+. Other browsers will mostly work. • Own tests indicate Linux/Mac users can interact reasonably well with SP2007 • OUCS will upgrade to version 2010 as soon as possible – which works properly with more browsers and platforms

42. RIC as part of Oxford SharePoint? • We have been following recent announcements • Demos seen look interesting • Web parts could be of use to us • Future plans and add-ons are of interest to us e.g. Humanities version However: • RIC will not form part of the initial Oxford SharePoint Service

43. Thank you! Questions? You can contact me via: groupware@oucs.ox.ac.uk Further details @: http://www.oucs.ox.ac.uk/nexus/sharepoint/ FAQ @: http://www.oucs.ox.ac.uk/nexus/sharepoint/faq.xml Slides available from: http://users.ox.ac.uk/~ian/