Why Should You Migrate from SharePoint 2010 to SharePoint 2013 ?

The much awaited and highly anticipated SharePoint 2013, the popular web application platform finally arrives. Now, it is obvious for most organizations to question as to whether it would be a wise idea to upgrade to SharePoint 2013. Some are yet to understand if the upgrade will be beneficial for them in the long run. In order to take the right decision regarding migrating to the new version of this prominent web development platform, one needs to carry out a little research and grasp the nuances involved in the same.

The latest application platform comes with a good number of significant upgrades. The major difference between the two versions of the platform lies in the user experience offered by the two, which is quite a significant point for the businesses. Eventually, a migration from the 2010 version to the latter version is quite desirable. Here is a list of reasons on why it is so:

Better User Experience

The brand new version of SharePoint puts much emphasis on the social experience that users would like to have. The concerned discussion board has paved the way for an interesting activity stream, similar to that of Facebook. Though there is a similar feature in the 2010 version of this web development platform, the one in the latest version is certainly more user friendly, allowing users to be there in the loop with easily accessible continuous updates.

Increased Socialization

Additional socializing is facilitated by what is better known as the ‘Gamification’ of the community site template. As such, users can now participate by means of assigning points, badges as well as a leadership board, incorporating the ‘top contributors”. With these increased opportunities to take part in social activities, presented by the latest version, users will also be able to be a part of workplace discussions.

Easier Customization

The newly introduced features in the publishing site reduce the necessity of gathering good amount of SharePoint knowledge. Extreme expertise is no longer required in order to be able to design a site on this platform and carry out its branding successfully. Customization is easily available, which implies that the web application development platform can be used for specific purpose and requirements.

Integration with Other Products

Perhaps the best and the most beneficial feature incorporated in the SharePoint 2013 is its ability to integrate with the other Microsoft products. It works well with several programs and in particular, with Office 365, that has been recently released. Thus, the end users can be rest assured that the documents, images and files will be stored safely enough for others to access them. At the same time, all of these data will be compatible with any program used by any other party.

Advancements in Social Capabilities

The advancements made in the area of the SharePoint social capabilities are impressive apart from being quite beneficial. The enhancements revolving around mobile experience add to the overall significance of the platform.

Device- friendliness

The latest version is made much more device- friendly than the previous version. Since the program is accessible via a wide range of device, users can enjoy staying connected on tablets, Smartphones and so on, all the time. Users with an inclination for apps can also download these from external sites. With this, companies can also design apps and thereby, restrict the use completely to the private SharePoint 2013 files. Additionally, businesses have the chance of keeping track of certain things better such as that of employee travel, spending and work hours.

The above- mentioned features of SharePoint 2013, especially the ones relating to the user- interface and usability of the platform implies that a migration can be of real help. SharePoint 2013 is perfectly suited when it comes to offering the best- possible experience to the users. Hence custom SharePoint development becomes essential.

We provide SharePoint application development services. If you would like to talk to one of our certified SharePoint developers, please contact us at Mindfire Solutions.

Impact of SharePoint 2013 on Healthcare IT

Healthcare organizations which were early adopters of Microsoft SharePoint platform gained quite comprehensively from the capabilities of the framework. The new SharePoint 2013 version promises much more in terms of enhanced functionalities to benefit them. The primary ones include App Marketplace, Business Intelligence, Mobile, Communities, Video Searches and Micro Blogging. Apart than the intended benefits one common purpose achieved by the functionalities is reduction in the cost of operations for healthcare setups using them. With optimized workflow engines replacing manual tasks, improved compliance with regulatory mandates and availability of customized solutions, Healthcare setups are likely to notice significant reduction in their operational expenditure.

SharePoint’s predominant use in the healthcare industry has been in content management and in document and activity based collaboration. The new version interestingly has shifted the focus on its adoption more towards social solutions - which in the current day context has a lot of relevance. For e.g. it has a major contribution to make in knowledge management. In the healthcare industry this is of critical relevance as it can lead to not only better care solutions but saving of millions of lives. Knowledge gathered through experience and shared through the social platforms enhances its utility and relevance in making better decisions and reducing chances of committing errors.

The use of SharePoint is business intelligence is expected to gather pace as we progress. Since there are information systems now taking care of activities which were earlier handled manually, it has resulted in an explosion of data – most of which is highly critical and can be harnessed in various ways to draw greater benefits. From using dashboards and reports to analyze collated data from diverse sources to using them for predictions activities; all this and many more complex activities can be made possible using the features offered SharePoint 2013. EHR adoption which is fast happening is only going to expedite the whole process.

Mobility has brought about a huge change in the healthcare industry. The entire healthcare delivery mechanism is likely to undergo a complete metamorphosis in the next few years. SharePoint, when it was developed in 2001, was not expected to be built for such times. As the world progressed towards the use of mobile devices, subsequent versions i.e. SharePoint 2007 & SharePoint 2010 were released to keep pace with the changing demands. However, the response from the industry was not that very encouraging and the versions were considered inadequate. SharePoint 2013 is expected to dispel such notions because this version is about creating access to meaningful information.However, the healthcare organizations currently using SharePoint applications have to be willing to upgrade in order to derive the benefits. The major differentiating features include the following:

• A contemporary view to render sites in HTML5 which can work with all the updated versions of browsers
• Provision to render the SharePoint sites across different mobile devices by the use of channels
• Capability to push notifications to mobile devices
• Availability of two new native apps: The SharePoint Newsfeed App and The SkyDrive Pro App. Thus users now will have the ability to not only follow people and feeds but also documents thus enabling them to be accessed more easily without having to go through the SharePoint interface. Plus, they will also now be able to store documents to be able to use them offline.
• Better view of MS Office tools like Word, Excel and PowerPoint

SharePoint, throughout its lifecycle has drawn flak for its user experience. The upgradations, although have brought in changes, have been found wanting. The 2013 version seems to have put forth solutions for the prevalent issues in usability. Besides, there are now modern applications available which are suited to be used for mobile, social and cloud capabilities. In healthcare industry, one of the main areas concern and focus is data security. So the CIO’s of the Healthcare enterprises have to look beyond the benefits of these additional features and figure out their impact on the security aspect of things. They also have to look at how third-party apps can integrate with these features. Migration will also be another area which will require their attention. You can hire developers from top SharePoint development companies in India who can help you build projects within allocated budgets and time schedules.

We provide SharePoint 2013 developmentservices. If you would like to know what makes us certified SharePoint developers, please contact us at Mindfire Solutions.

3 Major deployment challenges in SharePoint

In the recent times, there has been a tremendous rise in the Enterprise adoption of SharePoint. A survey conducted by Global 360, an organization dealing in document management, has found out that among the 886 respondents, 90% make use of SharePoint, wherein, SharePoint 2010 is being used by 8%. Strikingly, 67% of the SharePoint users extend it across the enterprise, implying that SharePoint is not limited to the IT department but can render support to the other departments too. Study also reveals that SharePoint webparts development is on the rise.

The survey also brings to light the manner in which SharePoint is used by organizations. It mainly gets started in the form of a content repository and then transforms into a more dynamic component. It is seen that 67% of SharePoint users have extended it for document workflow management while 66% have used SharePoint for web content and portal management. Again, 56% of the respondents have leveraged SharePoint for rendering support to business processes. 27% of the organizations which were surveyed are of the opinion that more than fifty percent of the documents that are stored within SharePoint are utilized for supporting vital aspects of business.

In spite of the widespread adoption of SharePoint coupled with enhancements in workflow, search and social networking within the platform, there are certain deployment challenges, as the survey highlights. Let us discuss three of the major challenges here.

User-experience is not so out-of-the-box

Out of the survey respondents only 17.6% are of the opinion that SharePoint renders an exceptional out-of-the-box user experience while at the same time sufficiently catering to their requirements. On the other hand, 78% respondents have described SharePoint as more or less adequate to inadequate, stating that the platform calls for additional in-house development and design.

The biggest challenge in case of implementing SharePoint, as opined by 21% of the respondents, is the absence of conveniently usable, intuitive interface suitable for business users. Undoubtedly, an insufficient user interface generally points at trouble. As stated by the Global 360 report, general user experiences frequently give rise to slow user acceptance, lesser productivity by users looking for workarounds to applications which fail to cater to their needs and soaring costs to customize and rollback applications.

Creating business applications takes effort and time

So far as SharePoint is concerned, there have been advances in the domains of offline access, social media, ERP integration and better CRM. However, going by the Global 360 report, there is still a huge difference between the delivered output and what is possible to be achieved.

Out of the 60% of survey respondents who have found SharePoint user experience insufficient, 47% are into creation of custom applications across the SharePoint environment. This involves lots of time. 30% of the respondents stated that the foremost challenge in SharePoint implementation is the time and effort involved in development of the business applications.

As per the report, a number of organizations who intend to reduce time, expertise and resources required for integration of custom apps within SharePoint are going for third-party applications in order to add content management, business intelligent and process management features to SharePoint.

Getting IT as well as business users over the same page

Outside of work, employees are exposed to increasingly interactive Web apps like the different apps of Google and Facebook. This has led to increased expectation with respect to the enterprise applications. Owing to this, IT is required to involve users within SharePoint deployment planning, as the Global 360 report states.

This may not be always convenient, as there is every possibility of disconnect between the business and IT users of an enterprise. However, user feedback obtained early will in due course speed adoption as well as cut the costs of deploying SharePoint, as stated by the Global 360 report. It notes that while customizing, purchasing or planning SharePoint business applications, there should be a concerted effort by the IT organizations to connect with the business users who have been targeted with respect to the application.

The survey majorly based in North America and Europe brings out the manner in which SharePoint users have adopted the platform as well as the deployment challenges that they regularly face. If these challenges are overcome, SharePoint will become a more efficient platform for businesses.

We provide sharepoint bespoke development services. If you would like to know what makes us expert sharepoint developers, please contact us at Mindfire Solutions.

Best Practices for Successful Migration to SharePoint 2013

Each organization selects the best file sharing software to make its communication system more efficient and powerful. Based on its needs and budget, a company has options to choose from a variety of proprietary and open source content management systems. But many companies prefer using the comprehensive solutions provided by Microsoft SharePoint to transform its operations and operations. SharePoint further enables businesses to preserve and enjoy the benefits offered by their existing IT infrastructure, compliance and structured process.

The latest version of SharePoint offers a set of innovative features like easy to design and brand a website; improved business connectivity services; option to perform eDiscovery queries; and customized identity management. SharePoint 2013 further makes it easier for businesses to optimizing the viewing experience of users regardless of their choice of mobile device and operating system. Similar to other smart users, you must be thinking of migrating to the new version to avail a number of advantages. This makes the search for “Top companies in Sharepoint” who can help in migration torise to gigantic global numbers.

However, many experts have highlighted the risks associated with SharePoint 2013 migration without proper planning. The lack of proper planning will further make your IT professionals to spend a huge amount of time and effort. Therefore, it is becomes essential for a user to explore options to make the project successful without increasing stress. It is also important to understand and implement some best practices to migrate to SharePoint 2013 easily.

5 Best Practices to Make a Successful SharePoint 2013 Migration Plan

1. Address Your Business Needs: When you are migrating to SharePoint 2013, you must use the transitional phase as an opportunity to thoroughly assess your business needs and governance. You can even make a comprehensive plan, and decide how to use the upgraded version, and what type of content you want to store in the new system. At the same time, you must review you existing content management system, and decide the files that must be retained or can be discarded. Reviewing your business needs and information infrastructure from the scratch will surely need some amount of time and efforts. But the investment will make your content management system more efficient and relevant.

2. Organize and Externalize Business Data: Often a huge amount of unused data may affect the performance of your content management adversely. So you must make a cleanup strategy by using the data externalization feature provided by SharePoint 2013. The feature enables you to move a huge amount of unused and old data from your main server to secondary and inexpensive data repositories. For instance, you can use a special tool like Storage Maximizer to easily transfer these data from your SQL server databases to other open source databases. The data externalization will increase your server space, while reducing the time required to access relevant information.

3. Make and Implement an Effective Communication Plan: When you are migrating to an advanced content management system, it is important to communicate the changes to all stakeholders. Often the files are accessed by your employees, clients, vendors and website administrators. So these people must be communicated about how to access the data in a faster and convenient way. It is also a good idea to call all stakeholders, and ensure that they clearly understand how to use SharePoint 2013. At the same time, you can also consider sharing a change management system to make the migration easier without disrupting day to day communication. However, you must set a deadline so that the users can understand how to access files through the hefty GUI provided by SharePoint 2013.

4. Evaluate Your Business Environment Thoroughly: Each business has to store and share a wide range of documents, solutions and data. The files will be stored in SharePoint 2013, but these will be accessed by different users, stakeholders and website administrator. So you must gather their suggestion and feedback to optimize your governance plan. Similar to other organization, you may be storing all your data on network file servers and other collaborative systems. When you are making the migration plan, some or most of these documents can be moved into SharePoint. At the same time, you can also consider using SharePoint 2013 as a comprehensive record management system to manage your existing as wells a future data in a more efficient and organized way.

5. Choose the Best Migration Approach: When a business decides to migrate to SharePoint 2013, it can choose from several data migration approaches. However, you must evaluate each approach based on specific criterions like your business needs and potential trouble spots. As the latest SharePoint version does not allow users to directly upgrade their existing data farm, you have to upgrade by attaching a database, or by using third-party tools. However, you have options to run two data farms at a time by using any one of, or combining the two approaches. It is also important to evaluate the pros and cons of each migration approach to decide the best option to suit your business requirements.

We provide sharepoint development services. If you would like to know what makes us expert sharepoint developers, please contact us at Mindfire Solutions.

SharePoint Development and File Sharing - Understanding the Alternatives

Most professionals, nowadays, have to work in a hugely distributed professional environment. With companies outsourcing the projects partially, each project manager have to constantly communicate and coordinate with vendors, clients, partners and distributed team members. The files sharing software has made it easier for professionals to easily collaborate, communicate and exchange information with people associated with the project regardless of their current location. In comparison to other online file sharing tools, Microsoft SharePoint is hugely popular due to its efficiency in facilitating enterprise collaboration. This makes the search for “Top companies in Sharepoint” rise to gigantic global numbers.

However, the small and medium businesses often consider SharePoint to be expensive. Along with paying high license fees, a company also has to invest in hardware, maintenance and data security. Further, a business has to deploy a team of trained and experienced professionals to implement, manage and support the SharePoint. Many companies have launched SharePoint alternatives to make it easier for SMEs to share their files without spending a lot of money. You can even consider using a number of open source enterprise content management systems to avail the features and functionality offered by Microsoft SharePoint.

6 Open Source Alternatives to Microsoft SharePoint

1. Alfresco: Alfresco is hugely popular as an open source enterprise content management system that allows users to easily maintain and organize their files. The file sharing tools comes with a number of handy features like desktop file access, advanced search, editable content and web content management. As the system maintains all your files in a scalable and centralized repository, you can easily maintain it without putting any extra effort. Also, the system offers searching capabilities and efficient browsing, along with wizard based configuration. You can further avail additional support from the Alfresco team by buying the paid edition.

2. MindTouch: Many reports have cited MindTouch as the best file sharing alternative to IBM Lotus and Microsoft SharePoint. The open source enterprise collaborative system further supports the most advanced knowledge bases, intranets and extranets. You can use MindTouch to share the files across the extranet and intranet of your company, along with web dashboards, product documentation and knowledge bases. 
    
3. Liferay: As a social collaboration solution for your business, Liferay enables you to streamline the entire communication at your workspace without putting any extra time. You can use the system for building group cohesion and raising productivity levels. Based on your convenience, you can use the community edition for free without availing any support, or avail additional support by buying the paid enterprise edition. Each edition of Liferay enables you to enjoy features like enterprise collaboration; web publishing and shared workspaces; social networking; identity management; and content and document management with Microsoft Office integration.
   
   
4. Plone: Plone is popular among users due to its easy to install and use features. The users without having technical skills can also use the flexible content management system to create, maintain and share information through a web browser. So the small companies can use Plone to manage their files without deploying a team of trained technicians. Along with offering easy to use and extend features, Plone also uses advanced security techniques to keep your files safe, secure and inaccessible.
   
   
5. Magnolia: As a content management system, Magnolia is popular among users residing in various parts of the world. Despite being available under an open source license, Magnolia offers a number of easy-to-use features to empower a variety of enterprise websites. You can use the page editing interface provided by Magnolia to design the content layout as it will be displayed to your website visitors. While using Magnolia, you also have options to get services and supports from partners and vendors from different countries.
   
   
6. Sensenet: Many large and renowned companies use Sensenet as an open source alternative to Microsoft SharePoint. Along with managing your documents, web content, and business processes, you can also use Sensenet to easily collaborate with your distributed team members, peers and clients in a friendly online workspace. Based on your needs, you can use the Sensenet community edition for free under the GPL license, or buy the commercial enterprise edition with additional support and services.

In addition to these six open source alternatives to Microsoft PowerPoint, you also have options to choose from several other content management systems including WebGUI, Mambo, KnowledgeTree, and Callanos. However, you can also consider several proprietary file management systems that enable you to manage your content without investing a lot of money.

We provide sharepoint development services. If you would like to know what makes us expert sharepoint developers, please contact us at Mindfire Solutions.