GreatAmerica is a large small-ticket leasing company based in Iowa with offices across the Midwest. Wendy Neal is their SharePoint architect who led the implementation of a new SharePoint 2010 intranet to replace an outdated ColdFusion system. The new intranet uses separate site collections for better security and administration. It includes features like a site directory, channels dropdown, personalized dashboards, and shared links. While complex permissions and content duplication were challenges, tools like ControlPoint helped. The intranet rollout is ongoing with training and feedback-based improvements planned.

1. HOW WE DID IT:
GreatAmerica’s Nontraditional SharePoint Site Structure

2. WHO WE ARE
 Largest privately-owned small ticket leasing company in
the U.S.
 Corporate headquarters in Cedar Rapids, IA
◦ Offices in Marshall, MN; Moberly, MO; and Kennesaw, GA
 Founded in 1992
 Six business units:
◦ Office Equipment
◦ Communications & Data
◦ Automotive Repair/Distribution
◦ HealthCare
◦ Direct Programs
◦ Specialty Markets
 Approx. 370 employees

3. WENDY NEAL
 SharePoint Architect/Developer for
GreatAmerica Leasing
 Personal Blog www.sharepointwendy.com
 Company Web Site: www.greatamerica.com
 E-mail: wneal@greatamerica.com
 Twitter: @SharePointWendy
 Contributing Author for
NothingButSharePoint.com and
SharePointEduTech
 Passionate about all things SharePoint:
Branding, evangelism, governance, training,
user adoption, user empowerment

4. AGENDA
▪ Brief SharePoint history
▪ Old Intranet
▪ New Intranet/collaborative environment
◦ SharePoint 2010 architecture/design
◦ Challenges we faced
▪ What’s next at GreatAmerica?
▪ Closing thoughts/advice

5. SHAREPOINT HISTORY
SharePoint 2007 Install Insight Live
GA University
Rollout SharePoint
Go live with Info-Zone Beta First phase of
Rollout to Systems 2010 Beta our collaborative
our GA Our dealer
team; momentum Conduct proof environment is
University site Extranet goes
stopped after initial of concept for in place; soft
– OOB to Beta
installation and no Extranet rollout
SharePoint
company-wide
2007 site
rollout ensued
2007
2007 2008
2008 2009
2009 2010
2010 2011
2011 2012
2012
Usage Transaction End of Term Info-Zone Live GAIN Retirement
System System Our dealer Extranet Currently moving
Go live with our Go live with our officially goes live stuff from our old
Usage Transaction End of Term Intranet (GAIN)
System – custom System – custom environment
application built on application built piece by piece to
SharePoint 2007 on SharePoint SharePoint 2010
2007
Decision made to go forward with
SharePoint 2010 internally and externally

6. OUT WITH THE OLD

7. PREVIOUS INTRANET
TIME FOR AN UPGRADE
▪ Built in ColdFusion 5
▪ Living on unsupported hardware
▪ Uses (gulp) frames!
▪ 93 left navigation links?!!
▪ Hardcoded security logic

8. PREVIOUS INTRANET

9. IN WITH THE NEW

10. PHYSICAL ARCHITECTURE
▪ Two SharePoint 2010 farms

11. LOGICAL ARCHITECTURE

12. WHY SEPARATE SITE COLLECTIONS?
▪ Scalability concerns
◦ Content database size/future growth
◦ Easier to move site collections to different content DB
▪ Cleaner security boundaries
◦ Different site owners & contributors
▪ Separate administration
◦ Site collection admins & SharePoint Designer settings
▪ Allow different features & web parts
▪ Allow different quotas
▪ Encourage different themes, colors

13. CHALLENGES WE FACED
CHALLENGE SOLUTION(S)
No shared navigation • Site directory
• Channels dropdown
• Insight home link
• Footer links
Content types duplication • Central content type hub to
publish enterprise content types
Mass activation of features • Axceler ControlPoint
Permissions management • Axceler ControlPoint
Rolling up data across site • Bamboo Cross-Site Display web
collections part

14. DEFAULT DASHBOARD

15. PERSONALIZED DASHBOARD

16. SITE DIRECTORY

17. SITE DIRECTORY – MORE INFO

18. PEOPLE DIRECTORY

19. SHARED LINKS
▪ Visible on every SharePoint site
◦ Enterprise, Team, & MySites

20. MYSITE - EXAMPLE

21. DEFAULT TEAM SITE

22. CUSTOMIZED SITES - EXAMPLES

23. A FEW STATISTICS
SINCE GOING LIVE (SEPT. 2011)
▪ 55 team/collaboration sites
◦ 86 sub sites
▪ 7 Enterprise sites
◦ 7 sub sites
▪ 111 MySites
▪ Approx. 20 power users identified

24. NEXT STEPS
▪ Continue to migrate old Intranet to new
◦ Moving 3 high traffic items soon
▪ Company-wide training
▪ Implement changes based on feedback
◦ Lack of navigation confusing
◦ Questions regarding difference between GAIN
and Insight, and how to find stuff
◦ Proposed additional navigation element that is
unobtrusive

25. MEGA MENU MOCKUP

26. CLOSING THOUGHTS
▪ Plan, plan, plan
◦ Understand what all SharePoint entails
▪ Consider 3rd party tools or custom dev
▪ Create a governance plan
◦ Review it!
▪ Assign an owner to SharePoint
◦ Someone who is passionate

27. Thank You.