Presentation Transcript

1. Document Conversions, why we need it and what are the options? Colin Gardner Kaboodle Software
2. In this session Foundations An Anatomy of Information Products Information Product Media The Document Lifecycle Candidates for Conversion Above, below and beyond the line Format options, pdf, xps, ePub, wiki articles The good, the bad and ugly about wikis But what above IM Nirvana of currency and consistency? Think renditions not copies The Technology Options Microsoft Client: MS Office Microsoft Server: Open XML SDK, Word Services 3rd Party Extensions (Muhimbi ,Adlib (demo), Aspose, Kaboodle (demo)) Summary and Conclusions A few lessons learnt Questions at the end or as we go
3. Foundations An Anatomy of Information Products Information Product Media The Document Lifecycle
4. An Anatomy of Information Products External/Public Organisational Scope Team/Departmental Value Longevity Permanent Strategic Semi-Permanent Important Transient Trivial
5. A few examples Daily Canteen Menu Sales Meeting Agenda Marketing Meeting Task List Health & Safety Policy Board Meeting Minutes Company Mission Statement Contact Us web page
6. Information Product Delivery Mediums Try to think of a document as information that is delivered in a container Information producers have different needs to information consumers Different containers are better suited for different purposes So why would we use the same container for both producers and consumers? Ideology Reality http://howtocreateinformationproducts.com/informationproducts/index.php/what-types-of-information-products-are-there/
7. Document Lifecycle Production Consumption Retention If it is accepted that needs of information producers and consumers are different (and archivists have their own needs as well) we have a business case for format conversion Disposal
8. Candidates for Conversion Above, Below and Beyond the Line Format options, Word, pdf, xps, ePub, wikis The good, the bad and ugly about wikis What about the IM Nirvana of Currencyand Consistency? Think renditions and not copies
9. Above, Below & Beyond the Line Production Team authorship Restricted distribution Emphasis on collaboration (below the line) No authorship Wide distribution Emphasis on sharing and use (above the line) Utility Retention/Disposal No authorship Restricted distribution Emphasis on preservation (beyond the line)
10. Format Options Production MS Office formats mostly Some specialist formats for CAD, images and multi-media Consumption Paper Read only formats PDF, XPS, ePub Read only web sites and wikis Semi-read-only wikis and blogs (comments and ratings) Retention Paper Microfiche PDFa, TIFF
11. Wikis: The Good the Bad and the Ugly(Wikis in general and SharePoint Wikis Specifically) The Ugly The authoring experience is disappointing Too often the need to hand craft HTML Importing existing content is just plain nasty Need to upload (or otherwise make linkable embedded content e.g. images) The Good Quick and ready access Easy search Easy cross linking Decentralised authorship More dynamic Great for tacit knowledge The Bad Got to learn the syntax Easy to change means easy to make errors Cross linking within the same library only OOTB no self cross referencing OOTB no TOC Decentralised authorship might not fit with the business culture Many organisations have tried to move their Permanent/Semi-Permanent Organisational/Strategic information into wikis and most have failed because of the Bad and the Ugly If we can find a way to remove the bad and the ugly and keep the good then we have a chance of making wikis work
12. Wiki Woes for Content Authors What I want What my company wants This is a fight you cannot win, so don’t even try!
13. IM Nirvana: Currency and Consistency The Nirvana state of Information Management is a single source of truth for then we have: Currency: Everyone is working to most up to date information Consistency: Everyone is working with the same information But surely if we create different copies of documents (as we have to if we want them in different formats) then we risk compromising currency and consistency
14. Think renditions not copies IM Nirvana can be preserved if you have good governance and good technology to support it You can still have a single source of truth if: You stop thinking copies and think renditions Renditions are a presentation layer of the same source information Renditions are read-only (or semi-read-only) Think music recitals, they may very different but its still the same score Then we can work below the line for production and use renditions to work above the line for consumption
15. Technology Options Microsoft Client: MS Office Microsoft Server: Open XML SDK, Word Services (demo) 3rd Party Extensions (Muhimbi, Adlib (demo), Aspose, Kaboodle Converter (demo)) Kaboodle Word to Wiki (demo)
16. Microsoft Client: MS Office This is the manual way Approve the changes to the source Word document below the line Download/Save As the approved document to a file share as a pdf Upload the pdf to the right library, above the line The problems with this are It relies on the end user knowing to do the right thing Can result in (file share) copies It is easy to make mistakes Labour intensive – a complete cycle for a typo Some OOTB assistance for copying but not conversion Record Centre Routing Send to
17. Microsoft Server: Open XML SDK and Word Service Open XML SDK for document assembly Still not very easy to work with  Got to deploy the assembly to SharePoint GAC Limited support for VS 2012/13 Not sure that it is still alive – Brian Jones last blog was 2 years ago! Word Services for conversion You needed SharePoint Server it’s not available in Foundation In SP2010, conversions where asynchronous only and source documents needed to be in SharePoint In SP2013, conversions can be synchronous and now supports file streams Notes No OOTB solution - you’ve got to write code The conversion code is fairly simple but you have to develop the UI In SP2013 you also get PowerPoint Services
18. Word Service Demo Synchronous conversions of Word documents Sadly no CSOM support Scot Hillier REST Service Solution
19. 3rd Party Offerings
20. Muhimbi Pros Great reviews Good price Been around for quite while WF Support with Nintex/K2 support 30 Day trial Cons Office on the server! Does InfoPath forms pdf conversion PDF output only Home page screen shots are in SP2007!
21. Adlib Pros 400+ input formats supported Free on line app (beta) Been around for quite while WF Support with Nintex/K2 support Not just Sharepoint Convert and assemble Watermarks Cons PDF output only POA which means expensive! On line app security? Does not seem to be a downloadable trial version
22. Adlib Demo O365 New App Model Currently a beta, so currently free
23. Aspose Pros Provide SDK and not just products Output to several formats not just PDF Input support for Word, PowerPoint, Excel, Images and Email Been around for years Convert and combine 30 Day free trial Cons 1K to 34K licensing These guys are not really SharePoint focused
24. Kaboodle Pros Uses Aspose SDK Works cross farm Support O365/SPO as target location Automated conversions Synchronous and Asynchronous conversions Variety of output formats including PDF/PDFa/XPS/TIFF/ePub Metadata mapping Dirt cheap starting at ~$1K/WFE Publishes Word to wiki pages Free unlimited trial Cons Does not currently do document assembly New kid on the block
25. Kaboodle Renditions Converter Demo Takes source Word Documents and converts them individually or in balk to various output formats (PDF, XPS, TIFF, ePUB, DOCX) Can map metadata Can publish to the same farm, a remote farm or to O365 Can automatically update targets Can automatically delete targets Smooths and automates the transition from Production to Consumption
26. Renditions Word to Wiki Takes source Word Documents in SharePoint libraries Publish them as SharePoint wiki web pages automatically or on demand Strips out images, saves them to SharePoint and automatically stitches back up the HTML Can map metadata, automatically delete Can publish to the same farm, a remote farm or to O365 Can set things up so that authors have nothing to do other than keep the source Word documents up to date Great for sharing specific content with partners or the public.
27. Renditions – in Summary A family of 5 products that convert Word documents and archive or replicate documents of any type Is a commercial product but has a free unlimited trial Word to Wiki is the only product (I know of) that: Converts Word documents to SharePoint Wiki pages without pain Can automated conversion process Works cross farm and to SPO/O365 with zero footprint at the target location Works in both SP2010 and SP2013 with all SKUs, Foundation included Find out more and view my cheesy YouTube videos from here http://www.kaboodlekonnect.com/renditions Download it from here http://www.kaboodlekonnect.com/downloads
28. Wrap-up Some lessons learnt Q&A References Contact Session feedback
29. A few lessons learnt Not all information is the same so don’t treat it the same Try to classify your information into what’s important and long lived and what is trivial and transient Devote as much effort thinking about how to get stuff out of SharePoint as you spend trying to get stuff into SharePoint – especially the trivial, transient stuff Think about the stages of the document lifecycle (Production, Consumption, Retention) and the formats best suited to each Think of a document as information and not as a file or web page Think about the needs of users who work with documents above, below and beyond the line and what formats suit their needs Preserve the IM Nirvana by think it terms of renditions (small r) and not copies Don’t take on a battle you can never win… … the way to win is to make information presentation a technology challenge not a business process or user challenge Technology is out there to help so evaluate products to find those which best suits your needs The cost can be very modest and the payback is hugely scalable
30. Question and Answer
31. References: Blog Posts and Downloads Blog Posts The case: http://www.kaboodlekonnect.com/colin/Lists/Posts/Post.aspx?ID=8 Wiki Woes: http://www.kaboodlekonnect.com/colin/Lists/Posts/Post.aspx?ID=9 Overview: http://www.kaboodlekonnect.com/colin/Lists/Posts/Post.aspx?ID=13 Part 1: http://www.kaboodlekonnect.com/colin/Lists/Posts/Post.aspx?ID=10 Part 2: http://www.kaboodlekonnect.com/colin/Lists/Posts/Post.aspx?ID=11 Part 3: http://www.kaboodlekonnect.com/colin/Lists/Posts/Post.aspx?ID=12 This Presentation Link from http://www.kaboodlekonnect.com/colin Demo Solution (.wsp) http://www.kaboodlekonnect.com/downloads/2013 Source Code (.zip) http://www.kaboodlekonnect.com/downloads/2013
32. References Word on the server – don’t do it http://support.microsoft.com/kb/257757 What’s new in Word Automation Services http://blogs.office.com/2012/09/26/whats-new-in-word-automation-services/ Open XML SDK http://www.microsoft.com/en-au/download/details.aspx?id=30425 http://social.msdn.microsoft.com/Forums/office/en-US/home?forum=oxmlsdk Scot Hillier - REST Service http://code.msdn.microsoft.com/office/SharePoint-2013-Convert-1e0578a1#content
33. References: 3rd Party Products Muhimbi http://www.muhimbi.com/products/pdf-converter-for-sharepoint.aspx ADLIB http://www.adlibsoftware.com/products-and-solutions/solutions/document-to-pdf.aspx Aspose http://www.aspose.com/sharepoint/total-component.aspx Kaboodle Renditions http://www.kaboodlekonnect.com/renditions
34. Come see me at SPC14 Santos Case Study Integration of SharePoint with Oracle Spatial Contact details:colin@kaboodle-software.com Kaboodle Homepage: http://www.kaboodlekonnect.com Kaboodle Colin’s Blog http://www.kaboodlekonnect.com/colin I don’t Twit!
35. Thanks for listening Remember to submit your feedback so you go in the draw to win prizes at the end of the day
36. Add finally, finally Caitlin Gardner http://www.caitlingardner.com.au When I was Little 1.When I was little 2.Simple 3.Gone 4.Every word 5.Hours 6.Ceasefire 7.Faded colours 8.Before I called you mine Produced by John Hilliard