Best Practices for Using SharePoint for Public Websites

Are you using or planning to use SharePoint for public websites? Learn from early adopters how to get optimal business value from your SharePoint implementation.

Report by Janus Boye and Dorthe R. Jespersen, 22 pages, June 19th 2008

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The report

Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 has been tremendously successful for collaboration and intranets, but the dominant position in both the public and the private sector means that SharePoint 2007 has also emerged an obvious; some would say almost unavoidable choice as the next generation web solution.

While there are good reasons for the popularity of SharePoint, it is certainly not as safe and risk-free as many like to think. Find out, what you as a business user, should understand about using Microsoft SharePoint 2007 for public websites.

Press release

Press release (23. June 2008): Despite Tremendous Adoption, SharePoint is Often Chosen for Public Website Projects for the Wrong Reasons

What’s inside

The role of SharePoint in the organisation
Why organisations are choosing SharePoint 2007 for public websites
How do you work with integrators, and how should you plan?
After implementation: What should you do next?

Excerpt: Key research findings

IT departments use Microsoft technologies as their strategic development platform and today some even explicitly require Microsoft products. A large proportion of the widespread SharePoint deployments can alone be explained by this trend. This means that consequently IT tends to be the initial driver, which easily distances the website project from its primary purpose to achieve business goals. Based on our research we recommend that senior management is involved from the beginning to ensure strategic alignment and executive support for the significant on-going project costs.

We also recommend that your project planning takes into account that rolling out SharePoint is a multi-year process. This means that some business units may need to wait before they are migrated. By offering guidelines for those business units that cannot wait, you might be able to avoid that they bypass the organisational processes and invest in an alternate platform.

Who can benefit

This non-technical document is a businessperson’s guide: As a business user, what should you understand about using Microsoft SharePoint 2007 for public websites? The research document provides decision support for business users in all project phases from the initial decision to adopt SharePoint, during planning phases, whilst implementing and finally for those who are already live. The document thus takes a strategic focus by presenting business challenges and best practices.

Disclaimer

This research does not present a technical product evaluation and does not include any comparisons with other products. Thus it will not provide guidance as to whether or not to use the product. Instead the document will pinpoint areas that the rational business project manager would and should pay careful attention to when working with SharePoint 2007.

Resources

For this research J. Boye interviewed several SharePoint 2007 experts, consultants, and more than 30 organisations in Europe, Asia and North America, including Big Bend University College, Courts of Denmark, Creuna, Danske Bank, Ementor, The Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, Pilgrim, Trifork, Vitale Caturano, and Wipro. Furthermore, the research draws on experience with SharePoint collected since the initial releases of the beta through several conferences and a European community of practice with 200+ members facilitated by the authors. Janus Boye is also the lead analyst on the Enteprise Portals Report by CMS Watch.

The research is vendor-independent, and not funded by any third-parties.

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Buy Best Practices for Using SharePoint for Public Websites – A Business Person’s Guide

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