Collaboration – ODI’s experience with SharePoint

Peter Gee, Head of IT and Facilities

Where IT's @! April 2011

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SharePoint

• Collaboration using Microsoft SharePoint promises shared information heaven, but what's the reality?

• SharePoint has been a remarkably successful product for Microsoft, with huge take-up worldwide.

• All organisations in our sector can benefit from more effective collaboration, and SharePoint offers this at a fraction of the cost of specialist document management and collaboration solutions.

• SharePoint has almost become an IT revivalist movement with its own evangelists

“SharePoint is a platform that can make a real difference in organisations.  The

various capabilities, when implemented correctly, fundamentally change the way people work.  This itself raises a number of challenges, but over and above that, it’s the ability to make a tangible difference in the lives of the employees, the real end-users, that

fuels my passion for SharePoint”

Francois Pienaar

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ODI and SharePoint

• Quite a challenge then.• ODI has been working with SharePoint now for five

years• We have achieved a great deal with it, but it hasn’t all

been plain sailing and sadly it is not universally popular!

• But first, some background about ODI

• ODI is an independent think tank on humanitarian and international development

• celebrating its 50th anniversary• It is a charity, but not a

membership organisation• Has expanded to current staff of

150, plus research associates, contractors, consultants and interns.

• Apart from a Programme Partnership Agreement with DFID, the majority of funding is project-related, from a range of institutional funders.

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ODI’s IT experience

• ODI began to computerise in the mid 1980s• A far-sighted librarian predicted that eventually we

would have one computer per desk (at the time we had 2 or 3 users sharing)

• By the 1990s we had achieved that target• But perhaps partly because IT growth was

incremental, there were few fundamental changes to working practices – the PC replaced the typewriter.

• In 1996 PCs first networked – new possibilities for collaboration with email for

everyone and ODI’s first intranet

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The costs of lack of system integration

• By 2003, after around 15 years of computerisation, and seven years since ODI’s computers were first networked, our information systems were failing to foster collaboration.

• Information was saved in often confusingly named files, buried in deep folder structures. Searching for relevant documents require an insight into the mind of the author or editor!

• This lack of co-ordination and system integration was resulting in major inefficiencies.

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ODI moves into knowledge management

• ODI’s response was to explore ‘knowledge management’

• KM project with two staff supported by the government funded KTP scheme.

• Resulted in a plan for a new intranet linked to a revamped website, for which we tendered in 2004.

• SharePoint figured in a couple of proposals to replace our old high maintenance intranet. The one we selected first of all combined SharePoint with MS CMS Server – there was some doubt about whether SP could produce pretty enough pages!

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Adopting SharePoint

• Eventually we decided to ditch MS CMS Server because SharePoint offered most of what we needed and the implementation of CMS would have been very clunky

• But by this time the requirements had changed and we delayed implementation for almost another year until 2006. Plans reworked with considerable input from Christian Aid’s experience.

• Change in philosophy and approach from gradual and partial to a total SharePoint solution with phased implementation

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Beginning with SharePoint

• ODInet: Top level portal– using SP Portal 2003 –with staff list; ‘ins and outs’; how tos, support – HR, finance, communications; search feature for ODInet, archived files and website.

• WSS sites for research groups, their subteams and their projects: summary financial information, lists, calendars and document libraries – with al their content

• External access through https SSL encrypted access to the whole system.

• Multiple web applications with one content database, but by this time the practical experience of other earlier SP adopters suggested that this might be unwise – so we adopted a belt and braces approach with separate sites and URLs for each group.

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Portal level pages will replace the old intranet as the place to find key (up to date) information form across the organisation, including the latest news, policies, procedures, and events. Team (WSS) Sites will provide effective document management and collaboration functionality at the project, programme and group level way beyond what is possible with shared drives.

 

From the introduction to our 2006 user’s manual:

Welcome to ODINet…… ODINet is the first step in a radical new approach to organising  and  sharing  information and knowledge around ODI. ODINet will replace  the  flat  page  html  intranet  and  the  messy  shared  drives  with  a customised version of SharePoint: an application that has become the fastest growing information management technology for UK-based organisations.

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Migration and training

• Comprehensive migration programme, group by group, over 9 months. Network file shares split– Older content archived on read-only indexed share– Recent content sorted by project for upload.

• Meta-tagging 50,000 documents not practicable so folders copied across in bulk in explorer view, after cleaning and tidying, and deduplication

Click icon to add picture

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Development 2007-2010

• Initial consolidation• Colligo offline solution• Extensive planning for upgrade to WSS3/MOSS2007• Trials and tribulations with the technology of the

upgrade – tested in a virtual environment• Successful switch to 2007 version in summer 2008.• Summer 2010 – restructuring to reflect organisational

change from group to programme

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Outlook vs SharePoint

• Users like Outlook and their email• moving them away from collaboration by email

attachment has been a major challenge• email links rather than attachments can be a problem

for offline users– Colligo works up to a point– Outlook document library integration helps but only

really works in one direction in SP2007.

SharePoint is much more than an IT solution –

but you do need to get the IT

right.

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Key lessons

• With SharePoint or any collaboration tool it is crucial to have a plan about what you want to achieve; don’t just drift in.

• But beware of pre-packaged plans ‘imposed’ upon you –this was a problem with our first ventures into SharePoint.

• Unashamedly, ODI introduced SharePoint as part of a campaign to change attitudes and styles of working, to ‘nudge’ people in a collaborative direction.

• But change management for academics and think tank researchers is a bit like herding cats…

•

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SharePoint’s challenges

• open-source advocates don’t like it• it is too clunky – parts of it seemed unfinished; difficult to code• a glorified file management system• not supportive of web 2.0 / social networking.• takes too long to set up - difficult to back up and restore• very difficult to move document libraries• sometimes generates odd error messages

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SharePoint’s benefits

• It’s Microsoft – it integrates very well with MS Office• With MS’s charity pricing SP is very affordable for the

not for profit sector. Almost any organization can get into SharePoint.

• There is a huge support community – off and online;• SharePoint User network, the DIG SharePoint group

amongst development NGOs.• Many Microsoft business partners deploying SP

solutions – developers like ICS.• Vendors offering customised web parts eg Bamboo

and Kwizcom

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• Can a top-down solution work? We had support from senior management and champions at various levels, but this wasn’t enough to win over many of our colleagues.

• Not all our staff understood what SharePoint was about and some who did would not buy into it.

• Perhaps some insights from social networking can help us….

• But it is taken for granted..

Key lessons

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Looking forward to SharePoint 2010

• ODI plans to move to SharePoint 2010 this autumn.• we’re looking forward to:• Much easier page

editing• Offline and

remote worker support

ODI is the UK’s leading independent think tank on international development and humanitarian issues. We aim to inspire and inform policy and practice to reduce poverty by locking together high-quality applied research and practical policy advice.

The views presented here are those of the speaker, and do not necessarily represent the views of ODI and our partners.111 Westminster Bridge Road, London, SE1 7JD

T: +44 207 9220 300

www.odi.org.uk

p.gee@odi.org.uk