The good news is that Microsoft SharePoint can be a very effective document management platform – popular with users, efficient in operation and able to handle very large volumes of documents. But it's not just a matter of deploying Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007. Indeed many organisations experience significant frustration with their attempts to use SharePoint for document management. This article looks at the common frustrations and misconceptions and how they can be overcome.
Interest in SharePoint for Document Management
At first glance, the idea of using SharePoint for document management appeals to many organisations. SharePoint 2007 has native document management capability – its document libraries can be used to store all types of files; SharePoint supports Check In / Check Out, Version History and Retention Policies. SharePoint document libraries can store additional classificatory or meta-data related to the files and provide an intuitive means of viewing and working with that meta-data. SharePoint offers Search functionality and of
course SharePoint is web-based, which opens up the prospect of simpler remote access to and sharing of documents and files with key clients and business partners.
News of these document management features in SharePoint is motivating many organisations to look to SharePoint as a way of improving on existing File Shares (e.g. G: or P: drive) for managing their documents and files.
SharePoint is relatively inexpensive; it has other potential applications beyond document management (such as maintaining the intranet and collaborating on project-related data) and SharePoint allows users to continue with the familiar approach of naming files and choosing a location for them as they are saved (which helps to reduce the cost of re-training staff who are accustomed to storing their files on File Shares).
These cost-of-ownership factors are even leading some organisations that have licenced a traditional DM system (such as Hummingbird DM or Interwoven Worksite) to consider whether they should be replacing their traditional Document Management systems with SharePoint.
A Common Mistake – Reproducing the Folder Hierarchy
SharePoint document libraries can contain Folders, and SharePoint 2007 supports a hierarchy of folders in a document library. This leads to a common mistake as organisations switch from their File Shares to SharePoint – they reproduce the folder tree structure that was present on the G: or P: drive with a
folder tree in a single SharePoint document library. Migrating existing documents is easy because SharePoint allows you to cut and paste from Explorer View or when a document library is opened in Internet Explorer.
However this approach of reproducing existing File Share folders with SharePoint folders leads to frustrations down the track with searching and volume handling. The names of folders cannot be used to refine a SharePoint Search. In order to take advantage of SharePoint’s capabilities a preferable approach is to make use of meta-data columns, which are defined at the document library (rather than folder) level. Storing large volumes of documents is best done with a tree of sites, rather than with a tree of folders in a single document library. For these reasons Folders are used sparingly in best practice SharePoint document management environments.
Key Weakness – Capturing Meta-Data for Email Messages
However SharePoint does a poor job in capturing the meta-data related to Outlook email messages. This is a common source of frustration for organizations as they make their first move to SharePoint-based document
management.
Email messages are a vital source of corporate knowledge and typically are stored in personal mailboxes and so not well managed from a corporate perspective. This is why many organisations identify the improved management of email messages as their initial application of SharePoint’s document management capability.
SharePoint 2007 does support ‘email enabled’ document libraries. Outgoing emails can be copied to SharePoint by including the address of the document library in the To, CC or BCC list. However with this approach, meta-data is not prompted for as the email is sent – indeed if any of the meta-data columns are
Required, the newly saved message will be left Checked-Out and so not visible to other users until the Sender or an Administrator edits the properties of the message file using the SharePoint web browser interface.
Organizations with Exchange 2007 can use Managed Folders. Saving an email message to a Managed Folder will trigger Exchange 2007 to send a copy of the message to a document library within the Records Center in a MOSS 2007 environment. However additional meta-data columns in these libraries will not be prompted for as the message is sent. Instead the user will receive an alert at a later time, reminding that meta-data is outstanding for multiple messages. By then the user may well need to open and read the message again to determine what meta-data to enter. This is not popular with users, as it increases the overall effort associated with saving the email message to SharePoint.
Third-Party Add-ons To Address this Weakness
Given the volume and potential importance of email messages it is not surprising that there are a number of after-market add-ons for SharePoint that improve the integration with Outlook and streamline saving of email messages to SharePoint, along with meta-data. These include products from Colligo, Knowledge Lake and MacroView.
WISDOM Message from MacroView runs in Outlook and captures meta-data in real-time as messages are saved to SharePoint. WISDOM Message allows a user to drag and drop to save email messages to favorite locations in
SharePoint. It also features excellent handling of attachments (on both incoming and outgoing messages) and avoids duplicates copies of email messages in SharePoint.
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